ROBOKOM-01 'Mist Navigator'

Hello world!

First, some info on the scene:
I was trying to go for a slightly stylised look. Something along the lines of a kitbashed plastic model level of detail, but with realistic textures. As for the scene, it is meant to convey a sense of uncertainty, i wanted to feel like the mech is bouncing on its piston legs while carefully watching its environment.

Everything is done in Blender, the textures were downloaded from Poliigon (https://www.poliigon.com/texture/metal-spotty-discoloration-001). I used the displacement map as base color for the white parts. As for the red parts, I mixed it with a Colour Burn node.

The render was ran through the node Denoiser to smooth everything out, as even at 2048 samples, there were still many artifacts from the eyes of the mech.

Some things to note that I am unsure of:

  • The composition. Could it be improved if I removed the broken mech on the left side? Is it distracting?

  • For the body, I haven’t applied the Mirror modifier yet and the UVs for that part are mirrored(see the picture below). I get a nasty seam down the middle. Is there anything I could do other than applying the mirror and fixing it manually?

  • Using a reflective texture produces horrible-looking discrepancies at the seams, as seen below. I am using the gloss map for the metallic property as well. Is there anything that could be done other than just moving the seam somewhere else?

If you have something to ask, please do so, I will be happy to provide any additional info.
Thank you for reading this giant wall of text!

Regarding the composition, I would leave the mech in the foreground there. For me, some shape in the bg is missing which could be used to add more depth to the image (one of the reasons you should keep the mech in the fg). Another problematic area is the right side of the image. Currently, the mech is “walking out of the image” without anything stopping him. I would add a small element there which redirects the eye back into the image.

Thank you for the tips! I will keep them in mind for my next renders. I would really appreciate it if you could point me to some composition resources/tutorials that you found helpful.

The best one is the book “Framed Ink, Drawing and Composition for visual Storytellers”. This is a must have for every artists. I have it since 2015 and keep looking at regulary just to remind myself of some of the stuff. You can find a review on Parkablogs: https://www.parkablogs.com/content/book-review-framed-ink-drawing-and-composition-visual-storytellers

Thanks again, I’ll look into it!