Metroid Project

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Hey all, making this topic as a place to document my progress on a new project/ get feedback, and hopefully learn a thing or two about blender.

I just started using Blender, and I’m using this project as a tool to learn the software. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of questions to ask the community here as I go. But for now, here’s my first WIP screencap. EDIT: gonna keep this first post updated with the latest screenshot.

The idea of the project is to create a little diorama of Metroid, one of my all time favorite series. Decided to start with Ridley.

Cheers,

-Kitagawa

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Here’s a full body shot.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Today’s little bit of progress. Base forms finished everywhere except legs and feet. Redid the wings, separating membrane into a different mesh.

May go the route of doing a cloth sim for the wings after all… Though I have no idea how.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

wrapping up for today. finished blocking in all the forms at last. Now it’s on to the detail phase. Phew.

[Tarnyloo73]

Good sculpting, I’m not familiar with the source material but I like the rangy limbs and gnarled contours.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Thanks! Appreciate the kind comment.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Minor update today. Opened up mouth, added tongue and teeth. Began the retopology.

Decided I’ll be going back to the double sided wing membranes as part of the main mesh. Will attempt to do a sim in houdini for the wing membranes after he’s animated.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Another minor one today. Slaving away at this retopology. Could definitely use some more practice/knowledge when it comes to retopo, I’m making a whoooole lotta poles all over the place. Hopefully doesn’t become an issue down the road.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

https://i.gyazo.com/b804ad61000dc79f31daf7809b3771b0.gif(image larger than 5120KB)

today’s progress on the topology. Managed to clean up a good chunk of the poles that I was struggling with previously. The hands are quite messy to be honest, but I’m not sure I’ll fix them. Many other things planned for this project, so I don’t wanna get too hung up on making everything perfect.

Next up… wings.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Finally finished retopo. Now on to UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, and anim… This is turning into a little more work than I had originally thought…

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Wasn’t 100% happy with some of the sculpt, so I’m doing a pass over the whole thing once more. Will have to readjust the topology afterwards, but no huge changes to the overall shape, so it shouldn’t be too much work.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Halfway done the final level of detail. I won’t be sculpting at a higher res than this. I could probably go on forever, but I think for what this project is, this should be sufficient. Just need to do a pass on the legs, arms, tail and wings. Then it’s texturing time!

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Small update today. Finished sculpting, tweaked topology to match latest sculpt. UV unwrapped low res, and baked the normals.

This screenshot is the low res model. Can’t see too much detail with this shader/lighting, but I’m fairly happy with the bake. Just gotta clean up a few holes where the normals were projected to the wrong face. Then it’s on to painting skin textures!

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

All the maps I need are baked down and ready for painting! Here we goooo!

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

Started laying down the base colors. Then I lost all my progress and started over again! wooo. Didn’t realize blender didn’t save your painted textures automatically… This project truly has been a huge learning process.

[Tarnyloo73]

Very Lovecraftian.

[Ryan_Kitagawa]

long time no post.
Got around to rigging this weekend. Decided to work outside of blender for this part however. Going to be rigging and animating in Akeytsu. Mostly cause I absolutely hate rigging and want to minimize the pain as much as possible.