Hello, just thought I'd give this a go, I'm going to do a variation on Perseus methinks. :)
The armour is well defined no real cirts there, I'd have to agree with Casey on the weapon a bit, IMO I reckon he could be better suited with some sort of epic sword style weapon .
Then again this is ur design dude and feel free to do what ever u want wit it, this is just a little suggestion.
Other than that great concept, it does as u said look very convincing. Nice work will also make a nice folio piece, hope this comp helps u learn some normal mapping and good luck .
Hey guys, thanks for the great crits! I agree with the weapon looking too small, so i tried to flesh it out a bit more. I made the blade bigger and extended the body of it, im trying to go for a heavy staff look. On the back end is a spearhead, to keep that hoplite reference in there and to give him the option of stabbing moves. I'm trying to avoid making his weapon a sword, simply because so many heroes have swords lol.
Here's a sketch to show how he would move. When coming out of invisibility, I imagine white clouds of smoke would envelop him, similar to nightcrawlers black smoke in the XMen film. He can't truly 'fly' but his jumping and agility would be superhuman, something like Achilles 'jumping stab' move in the movie Troy.
Really nice concept however I actually liked the old weapon.
Not saying the new one is any worse but I find it very cliche that a big guy has to have a big weapon.
To me he looks quite athletic but still agile, almost birdlike, that first weapon reminds me of a talon and I could imagine him gracefully dancing through a sway of enemies casually slicing them up with precise control.
You can see the obvious correlation to birds of prey in your amour's filigree, the tail feather like skirt, the beak like helm etc, I think your original idea would serve the theme of the actor better.
Especially since the next image you submitted, while well executed, lacks any real unique personality which I feel is from compensating for what the new weapon would allow him to do, also 300 comes to mind.
Not every hero needs to be a brute. :)
Again though, sweet concept, look forward to seeing this guy develop.
Ninja: Hey man, still in Japan? Looking forward to seeing your entry to, your dominance war stuff was awesome :)
Killa Dee thanks!
Malus: Thanks for the great crit, my initial thought was to go with agile, hence the flight and bird symbolism. Now I'm not really sure which direction to take him. I might make his weapon more staff-like as thats a pretty good tradeoff between size and lightness? Sort of like those monks that fight with the staff.
The main purpose of the image was to show how he would move, the dynamics of the character motion. But you're right about him lacking unique personality.
My initial thoughts are that this is Perseus after he has slain medusa and completed his other heroic feats and instead of returning the armour, it becomes his and will only posess its magic properties when he wears it.
I also see him as somewhat reclusive. He was once a hero, but now is a little distant/detached and this can be related to prolonged use of his invisibility helmet plus some other reasons I've yet to come up with yet :). Anyway that's the basic gist of it, but I really need to develop it more, once again thanks you've gotten me thinking about characterisation more, which is something i need to focus on, I'll try that for my next piece :)
I've never done any normal mapping so I thought this comp is a good place for me to get a start learning it and get some good pieces to put into my portfolio. So here's my concept:
The silhouette is pretty traditional, but wanted to keep it looking Greek or real world and put my energy into the design detailing for that heroic armour look.