My concept for the basic enemies in my game is called the Flesh Puppet. These are human bodies that have been possessed (either before or after death) by the soul of a Demon. As my game will be played in first person I've decided to focus on modelling a flesh puppet rather than a human character. I can then use this in my game demo and 3D animation.
I started with the default human model in Mudbox. I started by messing around with the face and went for a kind of distorted scream mask look with burnt out eyes; a result of demonic possession. I cocked his head to one side though I've now realized this may cause problems with animation later down the line.
This puppet was a human soldier so I decided I wanted to dress him in a trimmed down Shadik military uniform consisting of: a Kevlar vest with a cotton vest underneath, trousers and combat boots. I sculpted the under-vest and trousers onto the model and decided to make the Kevlar and boots in max. I also sculpted the muscles to be bigger and look messy, as if the possession had grown the puppet unnaturally. You can see that I also messed around sculpting wounds onto the flesh of the arm and ribs.
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| Sculpted model without additional gear |
Now on to max to make some combat gear for my inhuman soldier. My first design for the vest was a once piece Kevlar vest similar to real military but I changed my mind and decided to go for something vaguely resembling the imperial guard flak jackets from Warhammer 40k. Had a lot of problems with bad topology while making this vest but eventually managed to clean it up.
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| This is a working version of the vest and I'm aiming to improve it soon. |
For the boots I started with a rough outline hoping that subdividing it in mudbox would add improve the look.
Well that didn't work out =(
I tried messing about with the mesh in max again but eventually scrapped it. Starting again I decided I needed some references and after searching the internet for motorbike and military boots I found two concepts that helped me model my new armored combat boot. The first was a set of trails motocross boots that looked both lightweight and armored. These are primarily what I want my boots to look like, especially with the padding folded over the front and strapped in place.
The second image is a concept for a set of armored military boots. I took inspiration from this and used the side blueprint inside max as a reference.
Tabi Tact boot concept
The boots are unfinished but here's a quick render to show the difference in shape and detail compared to my old ones.
All I've got left to show is the latest textured version of my model but I'll save that for when I've finished texturing it and added gear.
