War Machine - WIP

[dr.kim]

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Hi Guys,

This is my version of War machine. Of course, I got the inspiration from Phil Saunder's design. After seeing the trailer for Iron Man 2, I had no choice but to make it. Haha.

I modeled him in neutral pose, than did some rough posing to see how the geometry would react. After posing, I found out legs, forearm and other areas needed more work. I plan to touch up on the model for few days and rig and texture him.

Please feel free to leave your C & C.

Thanks

[PascalR]

Very cool :beerchug: I like your approach with the posing! Now are you planning on turning this geo into subd to get all the nice bevels, or is it supposed to look as sharp?
The main chest piece shape looks a bit too simple silhouette wise from the front and may come down to low (ie it would make it hard for him to bend his spine forward)
Very cool stuff though, can't wait for the next update :bouncy:

[dr.kim]

Thanks Pascal,
The model welll get SubD. I wanted to get nice feed back before going too far with the model. Such as adding all the extra edges and loops, only to find out something is not looking right.

This was my main reference for the model. I really liked the shape of the chest piece. But as you mentioned, it does look little boring from the front.

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[El Burritoh]

That's a nice piece. Rigging can be a challenge with this, but at least you're following the suits used in the film(s), which are all 100% hard surface and easier to create in 3D than that comic book designs (which are a weird mixture of soft and hard surfaces).

I do think the proportions on your model are a little off though. His lower body seems a bit squat, like maybe the legs need to be either longer or thinner.

Now you gotta refine it, UV it, surface and render it!

[PascalR]

ah cool ref you're using, I would still try to brake the silhouette on the chest a bit more. In fact, there is a bigger gap between the pectoral and abdomen parts in the artwork. Also the pecs have a bit more volume.
Here is a quick picture to explain.
Cheers!

P.

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[dr.kim]

Ah~ Thanks El Burritoh and Pascal.

El Burritoh - Can you elaborate on "hes lower body seems a bit squat". I Know he's leg looks bit awkward to me.

Pascal - Thanks for the drawings. Now its more clear what needs to be changed on the chest plate.

Thanks guys

[collings]

Nice observation from Pascal, Also from looking at the ref, the neck could be a bit longer and the shoulder piece less prominent. Right now it look like he has no neck and that his head is block in the Torso Piece. so by making the torso piece less big you should be able to bring back a more elegant shape to the overall character.

[El Burritoh]

El Burritoh - Can you elaborate on "hes lower body seems a bit squat". I Know he's leg looks bit awkward to me.


Yeah, sorry. I wasn't very specific...

I would try making the legs a little longer because his waistline seems a little too low. So he's got this slight "fat/squat/stocky" look to his legs as a result. It could be that, or if you think the waistline is in the right spot, them just work on the x/z scaling of the legs to tone them down some.

And what Pascal says affects this "stocky" look as well. By fixing the gap that he's talking about, you'll slim his upper body down a little too.

What's tricky about modeling Iron Man stuff is the great variety of suit iterations out there. There are so many kinds of suit variations out there that it's really hard to find lots of good reference of a very specific suit variation.

Oh...and he's missing the gun on his left arm. I guess you'll make that later?

Collings makes an interesting point about the neck, but it really serves to highlight the challenge with bringing a 2D ref of a complex device like this into 3D and make it work. I think your neck may actually be okay, and if you were to rotate the head so it matched the reference pose, you'd probably be pretty close. But on the other hand, if the Phil Saunders had drawn him looking at you (like your pose) then the chest piece might very well cut his jaw off a little too. It all comes down to what you need the model to do, and if you're creating animated frames or a single still image. You can cheat the pose differently for each one. In your case, I don't think you're far off, but the chest piece does seem a little too high up.

[JohnSG]

Hey dr.kim

Very nice. Looks great. I have a few suggestions and tips.

Suggestions

Over all the model looks very tidy, clean lines except in a few place where the geo could do with some more resolution. First pic, the arm hole and round connection on the outside of the leg where it connects to the hips. This is an area in hard surface that is a simple mistakefor anyone to make, but can have a huge effect on the final look.

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This one is just me being super picky, so feel free to ignore it. The gun on the shoulder is a mini gun and should be able to rotate, but it seems to be to close to the housing that is covering it. Would be nice to see a little bit of room around it for movement. This may seems like a tiny thing but at the end of the day its all the little extra bit of detail and thought that go into a model that make it great. It can also show that you have a mechanical understanding. A big thing that is looked for in a Hard Surface Modeler.


Would love to see a wire frame from the same poses


Tips

Hard surface models always look great in an occ render. But there is nothing stopping you adding a bit more to it, to make it really stand out from the crowd. When I do turntables for approval I render both an occ and a very low light beauty pass, which is mainly a dark grey shader with very high pin point spec. And comp these together, The occ will bring up the grey and the spec will be on top of the occ giving the model that little bit extra. And it also punches out any detail that can sometimes gets lost in the occ.


Feel free to ask any questions,

Great work
John

[dr.kim]

Thanks JohnSG, El Burritoh and collings.

JohnSG - Thanks for your input. Seems like your hard surface master.
I Agree on the armpit of the model. I am filling in with more mechanical stuff since its just hollow right now. Like you said, I can't just put random mechanical parts in there. I have to think how it would move in real life and put interesting shape to it. That the part it takes longest time.

However, I have few questions regarding rendering. I just used maya physical sun and sky. So there was no comping involved. Can you go into more details or is there any tutorials that I can follow to light the model? Im just modeler\rigger and I never really did any lighting before. LOL.

El Burritoh - I agree with the leg comment. I wanted to make him look heavy and massive but that got carried away from original design. Im making now so that he is more dynamic and slimmer.


Collings - I liked your comment about bringing back a more elegant shape.
I think that is the key to the design.

Thanks guys and I'll post updates soon.

[El Burritoh]

This kills me because I'm working on something now at work that would be a very good example of what you're talking about, but won't be able to show it for another few months!

But I recently did something similar to this and it really all depends on the look you're going for. You'll want to render out different render passes to give you the most flexibility in post. You don't have to do it this way but it would certainly give you a lot of freedom in Photoshop later on. The basic ones I would do are:

- Diffuse Color (with or without shadows, depending on what you need to do later),
- Ambient Occlusion (You can use it or not, but at least you'd have it)
- A rim light pass, which I do by simply putting a black shader on the model, configure its specular settings, and have an infinite or directional light oriented just the right way
- A kick pass, which is like the Rim light pass, but broader
- A reflection pass, which involves setting up a material with a reflection map and getting the metallic look just right (need the right kind of reflections for that)
- A spec pass proper, which can only be defined in the context of your shot.
- An overall GI lighting pass perhaps, or some sort of pass that will let you control your fill light. Same with a key light.

With all of those, or variants of them, you can create a powerful composite in Photoshop. I use XSI and setting up render passes is a glorious thing in that package, so for stills I make liberal use of its render pass features and kick out anything I think would be useful. You have to view the various passes not just for their immediate visual appeal, but also as data that can be used to control other effects.

Man, I really wish I could post what I've been working on.

[dr.kim]

Haha, Ok. This is killing ME now. Im so curious what your working on that ur eager to show it to me. Is it for game? movie? commercial?? LOL

Anyways, thanks for the rendering info.

I'm thinking of rigging him and animating short clip of him doing little action sequence. I want all those mechanics movements to be believable.

[JohnSG]

El Burritoh has the same problem i have, i have loads of examples but i cant show them as it would breach my contract.

El Burritoh descriptions are great, my advice would be to look for some tutorials on render pass, i think gnommon has one or two. they don't have to be the latest ones either a few years old wont make much different on the rendering of different passes.

[dr.kim]

Hi Guys,

Here is my latest wip of the war machine. I've made little adjustment\touch up to the whole model. Also changes to minigun and guns by he's forearm went through significant remodeling. I wasn't happy with how the guns were looking and had to change it. And again, any feedback, comment and critique is more than welcome.

Thanks guys~

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[JohnSG]

Very nice, Looks Great :thumbsup:

Nice to see you put a spec pass in there, lefts the model quite a bit from the standard occ pass.

[PascalR]

yeah looks pretty cool, I would love to see a subd render to get all the nice bevels all around :)
Not sure how close we will get to the face, but the nose would need some love imho.

Great work, keep it up!:thumbsup:

[dr.kim]

Thanks pascal and John.
the face still needs to be merged. Same with 50% of the model.

Question!!!! Do you guys place the edges close together to get nice bevel when its subD, or do you place edges close to each other so that when it get SubD, it makes sharp crease.

[dr.kim]

HI guys~

So its been a while since I worked on this. And I recently got back into this model since its down time at my work for me. I know this had steered off from the original design, I wanted to make it highly detail as possible.

I do like the overall feel to it but I think there is too many small\break up pieces.
Any comments and crits would be awesome.

Thanks

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[PascalR]

Great work Joe, I do agree about the fact that there are too many small pieces especially on the arms, but body looks way better, very cool design tweaksclap

PS: I edited your post so your image shows up.

[BrettSinclair]

I'm loving that update. Just check too make sure the guy can fit in the suit. The arms look a bit too thin?

[dr.kim]

Thanks guys.
I got inspired by transformers and wanted to make really detailed robot. But I think I got too carried away. More updates to come.

I just did some quick test renders with HDRI. First time using HDRI and I am loving it.5124

[Kel Solaar]

Last updates are neat ! I follow Brett on the arm, especially on the biceps section, it's very thin, and look like it would break easily.

KS