Making Of 'Lobo'

Hi there people! I would like to share with you the workflow behind the creation of one of my characters - a redesigned version of Lobo.

When I decided to create a character from a well-known DC Universe - Lobo - the first thing that I realized was that my character was going to be a bit different from the original. My main goal was to create an older version of this guy, so I thought that if I was going to shift his age, why not change his whole look as well (Fig.01)?

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

Concept

I decided to shift his overall look a bit and make my own version of the classic one. Some kind of fusion between moody-biker-rasta-pirate-sci-fi-badass!

Once I'd calmed down, I decided to change the concept to something less vivid...more human, with the essence of humor (Fig.02).

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

Modeling

After I had decided on a concept, I went to Maya and modeled a base for the body. Then, in ZBrush, I did some basic sculpting to define the main shape for the "organic" part, after which I exported the result into Maya where I continued by creating some clothes and adding accessories (Fig.03).

Fig. 03

Fig. 03

When I was working on the accessories I decided not to overwhelm him with stuff and also make his weapons as separate elements.

At the time I was being influenced by Rage (an upcoming game from Id Software), which inspired me to use local plastic shapes in contrast with small pieces, thin lines and hard edges (Fig.04 - 06).

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

Fig. 06

Fig. 06

Sculpting and ZBrush pass

When all the pieces were modeled I export them to ZBrush as separate subtools and began sculpting step-by-step: modifying shapes, adding more details - wrinkles, scars, hair, veins, folds etc.

For the body parts I used layers for the scars, veins and skin texture. At the final stage my .ZTL was about 60 millions (without weapons) (Fig.07 - 10).

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

Fig. 08

Fig. 08

Fig. 09

Fig. 09

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

Low poly model

After the high poly model was modeled and sculpted, I exported the lowest level of all of the subtools to OBJ one by one.

When all the pieces were in Maya, I grouped them into blocks depending on my low poly needs and started retopology using Maya's standard tools for polygonal modeling

When low poly was done, I continued with UV mapping inside Maya (Fig.11 - 12).

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

Fig. 12

Fig. 12

When the low poly model was done, I did some preparations before exporting pieces for baking. Parts that could potentially cause bugs when baking Normal , Cavity and Ambient Occlusion maps were separated from each other.

So every low poly piece was exported as a separate object to make the process of baking easier and much more predictable. By the way, before exporting meshes for baking I did triangulation to avoid Normal "shifts" in the future. Doing this helps the geo look much cleaner with and also don't forget about hard edges at surface critical angles! (Fig.13).

Fig. 13

Fig. 13

Baking

All the maps were baked within XNormal (http://www.xnormal.net/1.aspx), by groups to avoid dark-spots and bugs in regions typical for such stuff - accessories, separate cloth pieces, weapons that lie too close to each other etc.

Unfortunately sometimes bakes aren't as clean as we may expect them to be, so after all the maps were baked I merged and cleaned them inside Photoshop (Fig.14).

Fig. 14

Fig. 14


Texturing

Color texturing was done in the following steps:

1. Base colors/patterns
2. Adding light/dark values and hue variations
3. Adding details like dirt, scratches with AO/Cavity maps (changing values for the various parts like the skin - lighter and colored AO)
4. Using adjustment layers (Curves) to add more depth by lightening and darkening specific areas
5. Tweaking some stuff to add more details and cleaning the texture out from "garbage"

I made a Specular map from a desaturated Color map and also tweaked it with Curves and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers.

I also created a Skin mask for Marmoset Toolbag's SkinShader to separate the "SSS" (SubSurfaceScattering) effect from cloth parts on the same mesh piece (Fig.15 - 17).

Fig. 15

Fig. 15

Fig. 16

Fig. 16

Fig. 17

Fig. 17

The final look of the textured character inside Marmoset Toolbag 1.02 can be seen in Fig.18.

Fig. 18

Fig. 18

Posing in Maya

To pose Lobo I also used Maya, simple selection and some paint strokes within smooth bind and there you go! No constraints or any other complex rigging stuff (Fig.19).

Fig. 19

Fig. 19

Rendering in Marmoset Toolbag

For the final renderings of the posed character I also used Marmoset Toolbag and Fig.20a - b shows my Render tab with the lighting setup. I used two dynamic light sources (Spotlights) with the Shadows checkbox turned on.

Fig.20a

Fig.20b

Rendering in Marmoset Toolbag

Marmoset Toolbag in all its might and glory - and a couple of touch-ups in Photoshop! (Fig.21 - 22).

Fig.21

Fig.22

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