Scifi Battle Suit

A bit of backstory (skip to the images if you really want) -
Whenever I go to draw a futuristic suit of armour/outfit/whatever, they all seem to come out more or less looking the same for two reasons.

  1. The whole ‘everything-has-been-done-thing’, which is true depending on how you read into that. (not wanting to launch discussion btw)
  2. I seem to unintentionally limit my imagination for complex models due to what I think can and can’t be done with my skills and in 3d in general - ie. will it be riggable, renderable, etc.

So, in order to combat the second one, I decided to just grab a premade human model so I didn’t need to stress over musculature for once and sculpt a design where for all intensive purposes - topology doesnt really matter. You just play with forms. The result is the light grey rough suit. Yeah, it could be much more polished, but that is enough for me seeing as the details of the design are in my head anyway and this isn’t for a client.

Now I’m going over it with a very methodical use of the Re-Topo tool. Which is great. Previously I would have either left the squarish padding parts out of a design for fear of how to make them, either that or just go the displacement method and have a character of 2 million poly that could have been done with 400,000 or less. (FYI, The main Iron Man suit was under 900,000 poly). Now that I’ve gone this way, I managed to pull off the padding in continuous topology. There are a few tris in amongst that due to the beveling, but outside that padding it is all quad.

Planning to rig (with meshDeform obviously) and texture - add a head, weapons and the like.




Looking quite good. Are you considering any physical nessecities at all? I often have a hard time modelling stuff because I always try to think about if this could be real (considering physical laws and stuff) and most of the time I just stop because the design doesn’t make sense to me. E.g. I have a hard time adding greeble to spaceships cause I just can’t think of a reason for a war ship to have all that nitbit stuff on the hull. Too easy to destroy :frowning:

Another question about the retopo approach are you using mesh patches or are you actually drawing onto the mesh?

Thanks musk. Physical necessities - a little. There isn’t a zip at the moment, but I might work one into the back. It’s basically a futuristic one-sy. There are specific pads for knees, buttocks elbows etc, but other than that it’s a what-looks-cool basis. Material, probably change later, but thinking Batman suit ish. Maybe. I’m also thinking external objects such as pockets, belt, maybe some armour plating. So far, just the suit.

Spaceships and so on, I get your point with shootability, most of the extras I’d work into such designs are practical things like nuts, bolts, armour plating, reinforcement pylons etc. If there is a cannon that got added later (thus giving the ship a past) then it will need more reinforcement, power cable, added sections to the hull to store ammo, etc. The mentality of 'If I were the captain, what would I need?"

I love detail, so eventually it just comes. My problem is usually when to tone things down a notch for practical reasons…

Retopo use - Made a new object and then started drawing on the sculpt. Usually draw the edge of a shape and extrude faces in or out around that edge and fill the gaps.

It made me remember the body of the main character of Alita: Battle Angel, I like it so much :slight_smile:

looking good :slight_smile:

to me, it looks a lot like a bio-mechanical suit rather than armor. something to increase strength, speed, or something like that.

funny i should find this, i was just thinking of something like this for my gorilla… altho it would be more of a type of coveralls with a few armored plates in strategic locations.

I could see the biomechanical thing happening. Intently didnt want to just remake the Crysis suit though.

Its like Metal gear solid / half life bio health suite but it is great zip goes down the back and you probibly need a few things like panels of electronics lol…GREAT WORK …

How do you get the AO lighting like that I don’t know how to yet …please teach me!

Cool, reminds me a lot of the armour worn by Casshern:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GorKrihO1EI