Re-making Zero
By Akrid 8 Comments
This Week,
Zero
I've started playing a bit of 999. From my first impressions it looks like it's going to be a fantastic game. Somehow it popped into my mind that I should model the main villain of the game, Zero. I'm not sure why, it's not like I found it particularly striking.
(Wireframe) I started this model just Sunday night. It probably took me about 4-5 hours total, as it's fairly simple. It's not a perfect likeness, and I still have some tweaks to do, but I'm happy with it. This is my first time working directly off of someone else's artwork (GB informs me that the art is [probably] done by Kinu Nishimura). I've tried to avoid doing so simply because I want to do my own thing and hand in a portfolio that I can be confident in saying it was all me. This is generally an impractical approach though. A modeler and an artist have to work together to make anything half decent. I am more or less neither at this point, but I hope to learn to become both. Working off of someone else's art for once was nice though, and it gave me a much better result in far less time then usual.
Anyways, it's amazing to me how accurate the drawing was perspective wise (The difference you see between mine and it are probably my fault), but it also astounds me how much bullshit is employed that doesn't set off alarms in our heads informing us that something is wrong with the image. First and foremost, where do all those straps and tubes go, and what purpose do they serve?! This is something I had to solve to a certain degree while modeling. The cloak also has a certain weightless simplicity that I'm frankly not sure how to approach. It's mostly comprised of texture as opposed to form.
It's going to be fun texturing and lighting this guy, since the image is very ambiguous shading-wise and relies on a possibly impossible lighting scheme. I'm going to try and recreate the painting as closely as possible in 3D, boat and everything. It should make for a very interesting challenge!
That's it! I'd appreciate comments and criticisms! It'd be great, for one, if you notified me of any differences between my model and the painting.