Hey, all. I’ve designed and modeled this porcupine-like character for my game, a 3D platformer. I feel that he’s just awkwardly shaped and not ready to undergo rigging or animation, and I need suggestions to improve it.
Concept Art:
3D Model:
In the original concept art, his body is covered with quills- so it was hard to imagine what his body was shaped like underneath. I eventually adopted a blocky style for the game (do a quick search of the characters in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Similar to it’s blocky style, but not as extreme). That’s why his body looks like a brick. The proportions seem off though, and I can’t put my finger on a specific cause.
I didn’t originally design this character for a platformer; it wasn’t until after I created him that I wanted to use him in a game. One thing I noticed that’s really bad is the default angle at which you see a character in a 3D platformer- their back. This looks fine with other characters, such as Banjo or Mario…
…but with my character, the view isn’t as pretty…
I guess this is the major flaw with quadruped characters. I need to redesign the mesh so it will work, but I’m not sure how. I don’t want to totally re-model him, but I’ll do it if necessary. I still need to keep him on four legs, though. Any suggestions?
Your design is from the side, try sketching from behind.
Your spines are all very neat and are pushed forward, try randomising the directions, also put them on the sides and maybe brush it all back like people would expect.
@rarebit, Thanks for the quick response. You’re definitely right about the quill randomizing- they are way too neat. As for the quills on the sides, I didn’t want to model them because they would take up too many polys (currently about 950 with the quills on his back, aiming for under 1000 polys).
By saying “brushing it back”, I assume you mean to have the quills on his back face backwards. This is true for real-life porcupines, and I have received criticism for this as well, but the quills work much better forwards. He attacks by rolling into his enemies (rolling forward so the quills stick out, hitting the enemy). They also fall in front of his face, acting like hair- which I feel gives him more character. Arranging the quills in the opposite direction would ruin both effects, IMO.
Thanks for the suggestions so far.
hmmm, his attack, I like it, I just liked the front ones anyway for his hair style.
By messing up the rest the overlapping would create more and better coverage. Make some longer than the others for extra coverage too.
You can use the texture to infer certain detail and save faces. Say you draw on lot’s of smallish quills, then have some feature ones in mesh. I think you need to start texturing it. Use advancing and receding colours to maximise effect!
Other than that it’d help to see the wireframe.
Yeah, I was planning on just texturing the quills on the sides of his body to save space, but I might have to model a few quills for realism. I don’t want to texture him just yet because I need to tweak his whole body somehow.
Here’s the wireframe- I’m warning you though, this was my first real model made in Blender, so the topology pretty much sucks.
EDIT: The body shape is awkward because he has no real shoulders for his arms to extrude out of. The arm creates a whole mess on the side of his body.
By the way, I’d just like to add the this guy looks pretty ugly when he’s bald…
DOUBLE EDIT: Okay, seems like this moved to the artwork section…it would be nice if someone warned me about that…
i think you should try make him stand up on his back legs(sonic comes to mind). might be easier that way.
@dragon2010uk- that’s exactly what I didn’t want to do- The character is already a quadruped, and I didn’t want to change that. I know it might be easier to make him bipedal, but I feel that it wouldn’t work well with him.
I think he’ll be fine when viewed from behind. When he is immobile he could be sitting such that his hind legs are bent and he turns his head side to side to give a good view of the character. When he is mobile he could more or less “hop” around distracting the player from his hindquarters. 
I just thought of a unique idea. What about creating a game where the character is placed a little further back from the camera so there’s more room in the foreground, and the direction of the game is such that the character faces the camera instead of staring at thier back side. Would that be too akward?
@Billt Joe: That’s a good idea- have him sit down in his idle state and look around. That will be a good way to show his face more.
@pixelznbits: I don’t think that will work too well with my game, I’m opting for a full 360 around the character. (The biggest hiccup of the 3D platformer is a faulty camera- even in well made games, I still find myself blaming the camera for some of my repeated failures). As for your idea, it sounds pretty unique- you should try utilizing that in your own game.
All the suggestions so far deal with his animation and quills- does anyone have an idea how to improve is mesh/topology too? I feel the character is out of proportion…
What a cute character. I am also working on a low poly game character at the moment, and this is so inspirational!
@kbot: To be honest, I wasn’t going for ‘cute’ when I designed this character, but thank you for your appreciation and I’m glad my work is an inspiration. (Look at that, I rhymed. Unintentional. :eyebrowlift:)
I don’t have much on the topology, but his front legs look too long and skinny to me. He kind of looks like he’s falling forward. That may help with the proportion issue.
Hope that helps!