I made some progress on the moth wing sculpt. My next step is to connect it to the character model to see how the size and the shape looks. I have a feeling it will be a bit hard to visualize entirely until it has a rig since the wings will be soft and bend to an extend when they are both resting and extended, rather than being straight out in this t-pose. I'm actually quite happy with the use of the alpha maps in the sculpting, it makes the process a bit difficult and destructive but it's been much easier than when I was trying to create individual IMM sculpted hairs.
Moth Wing Inside:
Moth Wind Outside/Backside:
Moth Wing Texture (WIP/Experimental):
I'm not super in love with the shapes, the pattern was sketched out pretty quickly but I think I need to go back to the references and be much more methodical and specific about the patterns. I have a feeling that the texture will have to be very iterative and go back and forth to adjust contrast and color since the scenes that it will be in will be very dark so it will be difficult getting the right balance of having a pattern that shows up but is subtle enough that it doesn't overwhelm the "classic dark mothman silhouette" .
Other Design Inspo gathering for figuring out the head/wings/legs design dilemma:
The only reference on the wings part I felt was helpful for nailing how the wings connect to the back in the middle and how they fold down.
For the legs we wanted to go more "buggy" so I found some references of more exaggerated and segmented legs. I think the consensus in our Wednesday meeting was that we liked the legs of the top left drawing the most because they felt both creatury but also not entirely removed from being human, they look like they could have started as human legs at one point that were just stretched out and morphed to have a more elongated foot that has more of an animalistic posture.
During our Wednesday meeting Carl actually drew over our existing character design that I had tried to give bug legs like this but couldn't quite get right.
Previously when I drew the buggy legs they were drawn in a more straight-on angle and they didn't quite capture the creature-y feel of having them point outwards to display the silhouette bend in the knees and ankle. When the sculpt/rig is made they will point forwards for a neutral rigging pose but in animation they will be more turned out like this.
BEFORE:
Lastly, for the head I found some more reference as well. We decided that we didn't want to have just a straight up bug head on the guy. I don't think we actually came to a solid consensus on WHAT direction we wanted to go in yet but we decided that literal bug head was not the answer. I proposed that we try some of the more owl looking designs for the face because I felt like the owl faces could be a good compromise between human and creature.
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