Character Portfolio - Death Dealer, Diablo, Wolverine

[billupps]

Here is my finished character portfolio.

After graduating with an architectural visualization portfolio a little while ago, I quickly realized that I was more interested and passionate about character art. I decided to postpone job searching and get back to work on a new portfolio that would hopefully be good enough to allow me to break into the game or film industry as a character artist.

Since I don’t see myself working as a concept artist I decided not to develop my own concepts, but rather choose three pre-existing characters and try to stay true to the inspiration while allowing myself some artistic freedom.

Inspiration for the Death Dealer was a particular Frank Frazetta painting. Inspiration for Diablo was Keith Parkinson’s Final Stand painting.
Inspiration for Wolverine was mostly David Finch’s rendition in a particular issue of Captain America - Fallen Son.

ZBrush was an integral part of my workflow and this would not have been possible without it.

Hope you enjoy.

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Bill Preston
ionmagnet.blogspot.com

Attachments

[SiC_be]

those are some nice renders

[gelfling_status]

If you dont mind a crtique, id say to tone down the usage of the detail in wolverine’s fabric.

[gboess]

Hooray! Someone made Wolverine look like he’s 5’2 or 5’3 and not 6’2 like Hugh Jackman!

As far as critiques, the skin textures on the first character looks almost the same as the textures as on the cloth. It looks fine on the color render, but I think that if someone looks at the grey-mode (sans texture) it’ll be noticeable.

All in all, I think the textures are all a bit strong on all of the characters’ skin and clothing, and with the grey mode, it looks strange that the metal armor of the death dealer is so smooth vs. the ramped up textures on the other bits. But, again, it looks great with the color on it. Maybe add some of the bump from and dings/scrapes from the color to the texture, and not to relying on the color map for all of it.

But I love the hair around Diablo’s neck and back- it’s so intricate.

Oh, and I want to add two things on the Wolverine:

1. the location of the claws coming out- is it between the fingers from the source that you used?
2. The gloves would flatten the muscles on the wrist a little. As it is in the colorless pic, it looks a little like he has a rubberband around his wrist, and not as much like skintight leather gloves (or whatever material they are).

[Gary_Komar]

eye candy!

[loki_22]

I think your work looks great especially your death dealer. Just maybe passing on a little tip for your rendered work. I would turn the shadow casting off of 2 of your lights so you have a cast shadow. I think that would partially cement the character in. Having multiple cast shadows looks a little unnatural. But beyond the shadow issue, I think your charactor work looks great.

[loki_22]

Oh, by the way if you want more ideas for the death dealer charactor, you should watch a movie called fire and ice. it has a ton of frazetta images in the beginning of the film. its a great film also.

[billupps]

Hey guys,

Thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate it.

gboess - the reference for the claws is from the X-Men movies. There are examples on Google images of Hugh Jackman and the same type of location; although mine might be slightly more between the fingers. To me it seems more natural to have them coming out from there.

loki_22 - I’m glad you mentioned something about the shadows. It had not caught my eye until now, but I think you have a good point. I’ll keep it in mind for my next character. Also, I have seen Fire and Ice and second that it is a great film.