Week Twenty Nine

Week twenty nine, a good week for texturing. Much like with the Dichotomous character project, I rendered a UV template in 3DS Max, set it as a canvas in Photoshop, laid down the base colours and started work from there. It's usually very procedural. In fact, I can probably quote myself from earlier this year: "I've been using unreal engine as a way to quickly view how well the textures fit the model whilst I am painting, simply by re-importing the latest iteration and identifying what needs to be done - a quick and easy "trail and error" method of texturing which I often use." - see week nineteen. On with the weekly review.

Here we can see (from left to right) the UV template, normal map, and diffuse map. I haven't included the roughness or metallic maps here, as they're not really much to look at! As you can see on the right-most image, I've added a few whip lashes and cuts to Caliban's skin to imply that he is not treated very well. This addition is meant to contrast with the presence of his flashy and expensive looking belt that Prospero gifted him, as it shows how he is commonly treated like slave (I believe he has to carry a lot of timber logs in the play). I'll be honest - the diffuse map looks rather basic on its own here, but I think it shines when its applied to the model. Most the details I have painted are just carefully precise skin highlights, but these do make a significant difference, as looking at a version of the model without these features would make it very clear that the skin is merely a block colour, so I believe it is very important. I've also changed his eyes slightly from the original concept - rather than pure yellow eyeballs, he now has more conventional, animalistic eyes with bright yellow irises and slit pupils.

So, here's the finished product. Pretty happy with how it turned out - I'd say it's well on-par with my Hardened Brute from the previous project. Had I an extra week on the project, I'd probably have opted to add a few of the higher fidelity details from the original concept - this model's claws lack the warts and general fish-like texture that they had in the image it was based on, but unfortunately I had to move on due to time restraints, bette safe than sorry. Same with the texture itself, too - it's good, but I'd love to spend some time adding some more areas on interest. I also noticed while texturing that his body was COMPLETELY blue - not another colour on him! And it really did show on the model - it all looked a little wishy-washy, which is why I made the decision to change his lips to a more suitable colour. I wish I had done this with some other areas too.