Earth Defense Forces Soldier (SpecOps) (embedded pictures)

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

Okay, I kind of gave up on some of my other projects for a while, and decided to do my first humanoid shape.

Another bit from my own personal universe of ideas that I actually made up on the spot and ran with it to produce what I have now.

This is a soldier in the Earth Defense Forces, Special Operations Division (denoted only by insignia I haven’t designed yet and by his helmet - only SOps get helmets with facial features, the rest get traditional US Army-style helmets). He’s something like a Stormtrooper in Star Wars - much better than the average soldiers, but no powersuits or spacesuits. However, he does have a sealed atmosphere to allow him to fight in a contaminated area.

Now to quit rambling and post.

Three different stages of progress:

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render1.jpg

(The shiny human is a Makehuman base mesh from one of the earlier releases, with a material from an old project that I scavenged. Really just there for reference.)

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render2.jpg

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render5.jpg

And his weapon choices (sorry for the dark renders, the materials are mostly black and I didn’t set up the lighting very well, I’ll replace them soon):

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Rifle.jpg

The GF25. A 5.56mm-firing rifle (same caliber as the M16), designed to be modular like an XM-8, but with far more variation possible, like the ability to make slight adjustments to the hardware and end up with a nice PDW or an automatic rifle.

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Gun.jpg

The GP25. Built on the same style as the GF25, this non-interchangeable variant fires an energy pulse powered by the large magazine in the rear. It produces a lot more heat and has a much larger barrel. Very useful for heavy assaults.

Also, the barrels do have muzzle porting on them, but you can’t see them due to the angle of the camera.

Okay, any thoughts? I’m looking more for general design/modeling criticisms. I know I don’t have any wireframes or alternate render angles up, they’re coming.

#2

not bad at all.

i dont like the whit parts on the inside of the eye peices, they make him look cross eyed. armour design is pretty cool, but i think the shoulders could be a bit bigger.

#3

The white parts are specularity, not a whole lot I can do to avoid that since the eyepieces are meant to be fairly glossy. I’ll see if I can’t fix that segment of the mask so the corners don’t catch light in quite that fashion - looking at it again, now it looks ridiculous when I imagine the specularity as irises… %|

Yeah, the shoulders do need some bulking. I meant to extend the piece on the upper part of the arms, and forgot. I remember I left it for a while since I wasn’t too sure how much it would interfere with shoulder motion. Thanks for reminding me.

EDIT: Eyes fixed in bottom render. Sort of.

#4

Slightly different shoulders and torso armor. Better? Worse? I had to lower the armor on the upper arm to allow it to move in anything resembling a human’s normal range of motion.

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render6.jpg

#5

The shoulders are much too low. I can’t even slump my shoulders that low.

Otherwise it looks really cool, I love the design.

#6

as above, and i also think the hips are very low, he has a very long torso.

also, the weapons look practically identical, even though they fire entirely different ammo they have the same mag?

some angled renders would be nice, so we can see some depth happening.

#7

Thanks for the replies guys.

First, the mags are NOT identical. The one on the GP-25 (energy pulse gun) is HUGE compared to the regular one - it’s a good bit longer and twice as thick.

xTRAITORx, what did you mean by ‘angled renders’? They’re already angled just so I could fit them into the camera’s field of view…

Also, the weapons are designed to have as many interchangeable parts as possible. I really didn’t make this clear in the original post, but the trigger groups, handguards, shrouds, and sights are still interchangeable between the two variants, and the stock on the pulse rifle mounts using the same system as on the regular rifle.

As for the body proportions… it’s an old Makehuman base mesh. Not the most anatomically correct thing around, but it worked for the basic shape. That’ll teach me to be lazy.

Also, keep in mind that some of the proportions look really weird because of the thickness of the armor - I’ll upload a render of the top of the body without the armor to give an idea of what I mean. Part of the purpose of this armor is to make the soldier appear more intimidating than they are with regular body armor, including making them larger.

Plus the 80mm camera is doing weird things to proportions, I think. Gotta check into that.

I do need to find some good reference shots to see how misshapen the model I have is.

More updates soon. I’m starting on the lower arms and shins now.

Thanks for the comments so far, guys! I’m really bad at posting enough renders, I’ll put in some more cameras and give a better idea of what the weapons look like, at least. Should be up by Friday afternoon, depending on how busy I get.

#8

i hate to say it. but i know that you just extruded faces to get that “padded” look on the armor…it looks really bad. maybe model the muscular detail on the padding ? because seriously…anyone can pick different groups of faces on a subsurfed model and extrude them. give it some more detail…make people believe that you actually modeled it from scratch !

(sorry for sounding harsh, but its just a pet peeve of mine.)

#9

I knew someone would catch that. Oh well. You’re not being harsh, you’re spot on - it took almost no effort to do that. Although they’re not groups of faces… some of them (including some on the back that aren’t visible) were picked specifically to make larger pads where they are now.

I’ll poke at it, but I really kind of liked the effect. I don’t want to model muscular detail, it doesn’t fit with what I want the armor to look like. The problem is, that area is an unarmored bodysuit without those pads, and they have to be attached to it but remain flexible. The whole point was that it would be almost like having a molded rubber suit… just more comfortable and more durable.

Looking at it, there are some places where it’s really obvious, so I’ll work on those first.

At least I’ve already had an idea to cover those pads with something else, so I’ll take that and run with it, see if I can compromise.

Right now I’m thinking of something that would start out modeled the same way - larger versions of the pads that are fixed in size, but they’re mounting points. That way I can add tailored armor to the front of it along the lines of the same design, just less lazily modeled.

#10

well, im glad you didn’t take it to personally ;]

i couldn’t help but notice that your trooper reminds me of a stormtrooper from star wars…maybe do something thats vaguely like that? they have a very armored look.

here’s an example:

http://www.amazingstarships.com/models/starwars/stormtrooper.JPG

#11

That’s one of the reference pics I used for inspiration. 8)

Like I said, I’m going for something more flexible. Something like a wetsuit with a composite armor attached - hence the lazy extruded cells, they fit very well with what I wanted to do.

Ever see a stormtrooper try to bend over? Or duck? That’s why I’m shooting for flexibility. The soldiers aren’t supposed to be ducking or dodging that much, but just in case.

I think what I came up with will work, I just have to start on it.

#12

Because the Stormtrooper armor consists of individual parts attached to a body-glove suit (not a wet suit, but you get the idea), it actually gives a reasonable amount of flexibility (I think).

More importantly, it looks bad ass.

Oh, and stormtroopers are shown ducking under doors many times in the original trilogy.

#13

I just don’t see how that abdominal section can flex. It looks like it’d ride up into the chest and just be generally uncomfortable.

I don’t remember seeing stormtroopers doing the kind of flexing I’m thinking of, but I’ll take your word for it - it’s been a while.

I also don’t want to copy the stormtroopers any more than I have to.

Erf. I should really try modeling my idea.

#14

Okay, finally had some time to do a very rough mockup of what I’m going to try.

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render7a.jpg

And here it is with all black plates.

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render7b.jpg

Please remember that these are just the basic layout, there’s a lot of tweaking and re-modeling to do yet… particularly if this ends up being a worse idea than the last one. I personally think it looks better… and now I’ll have to fix the top of the torso armor too.

#15

i think that looks alot better. at least you can tell that you tried to model it yourself. i can respect something like that a lot easier ;] good work ! it looks excellent

#16

Okay, after lots of work to do little bits of progress… I’ve finished the front of the abdominal armor, and revamped the arms again.

http://venus.walagata.com/w/admiralsenn/Render8.jpg

#17

Is it a girl? :wink: Could use a little boosting in the crotch area. Like the MC in halo. Really like it though keep it up!

#18

http://tinypic.com/ifbhvs.jpg

You have some proportional problems as you can see. You should have a picture of a man standing in the background of blender view so you can see what proportions are correct.

The crotch area needs to be bigger and bulging out. He could be excited by shooting people in the head, in the name of peace of course :slight_smile:

Shoulders should be wider.

The knees are way to feminine. If hes a soldier he should have more muscles. Like a soccer player.

Some places the armour seems too be bulked inward.

Your hands looks great but I think he could use gloves with some kind of armour on the top.

Keep on blending.

#19

Okay, responses.

Yeah, I should have a reference image, right now I’m just using an old Makehuman base mesh. Part of the reason the proportions are so weird is because of the thickness of the armor - the helmet, for example, is a lot larger than the actual head.

The crotch area is already down pretty far from the mesh’s crotch.

I’m not opposing change; I’ll see what I can find as far as good reference images and do some comparisons. The Makehuman mesh isn’t exactly sized for a bulky male, it’s more nondescript. If I can get the old release working again I’ll buff it up some.

And remember I’m not done yet. The shins and elbows and knees aren’t even started yet, and only the forearm pieces aren’t shown so far.

I’ll do some more tweaking, you guys are probably right. The crotch always bothered me, to be honest. I tried it make it bigger once before and it looked awful.

Thanks for the suggestions!

#20

If the makehuman’s shoulders were that low, you should worry about sticking exactly to its proportions anyway.