StarCraft II Artwork Thread

[Robear]

I really don't have a lot of free time these days, which is unfortunate. But I'm continuing to occasionally have a chance to better learn how to texture SC stuff. Here is a small amount of Phoenix progress.

Old:


Newer:


Having more small surface details helps sell the size a little bit better. The new one is a little too desaturated, but if I can make up details / panel lines to cover the rest of the hull I'll be satisfied with it.

[Nissa]

It looks pretty cool! Is there any way to re-saturate the image without messing with it too much?

I don't know why it took me this long to think about it, but it's very silly for the Protoss have a ship named Phoenix, when they have people named Fenix -- which probably means something entirely different in their language.

[Robear]

Thanks! And yeah I was never a fan of the Phoenix name for that reason. Also, Protoss stuff is often named after old/ancient terms (dragoon, archon), but not mythological creatures... IIRC in SC1's beta there was a terran phoenix ship at some point.

As for the saturation stuff, yes it is something I could bump up with a filter after the fact, but the reason for it is that I'm trying to figure out how metallic I want my Protoss stuff to look, especially since I would like to have a consistent look that works for both SC1 and SC2 units.
It's not too hard to really make them look like extremely reflective gold, but I also want to incorporate a look of some amount of plastic/ceramic or something... I don't think their armor should be solid metal.

Another issue I'm trying to avoid with making things shiny gold is that in space when all they have to reflect is blackness, that gold can just end up looking brown. You can see this in Freespace's First Contact short— if you just look at where the highlights are on his carrier model, it has a great tan/gold color and amount of shine to it, I bet his materials on the whole thing are great.



But in any shot that isn't specifically focused on those highlights, all the Protoss ships look brown (it's fun that he went with the in-game teal color to distinguish the hero carrier from the others )



The easiest way for me to avoid this might just be to do whatever realtime scale demo thing I end up with in atmosphere on a planet's surface, so there are plenty of bright things to reflect.

[Robear]

Another example of me getting actually good at texturing/materials, here's some progress on my Zergling model from a couple years ago. Still not done, but getting somewhere I'm proud of.

https://sketchfab.com/models/52ce32d...4822828c81559b

[Nissa]

If you think about it from a realistic sense, that gold to brown thing is sensible. You're a Protoss traveling through space, and you don't necessarily want to be spotted. The brown would possible shield it from sensors and Zerg eyes.

[Robear]

Eh, I wouldn't go that far. Tbh Protoss, especially in SC1, are such a warrior culture and are so proud/arrogant that I don't really think they'd go for that kind of camouflage. Especially since their SC1 ships were all designed/made way before they realized the Zerg (or anyone) were an existential threat. And when they do need camo, they have Arbiter cloaking fields.
Being reflective in space does seem good for avoiding absorbing excess heat/radiation though, so yeah it makes sense for them to be dark when it's dark around.

I also started a Dragoon model this week. Still early stages (and the main body top needs to be scaled down from this), but as was my original trend I now get to mix and match pieces from across the many many dragoon designs there have been. Right now the main shell is pretty much from LotV, that dragoon has grown on me. Front legs are from SC:Ghost, upper back legs are from Heroes of the Storm's Fenix, the raised bump at the back and the wider fins from the body are from the SC1 sprite, and I'm going to make sure to have the spinny thing on the bottom, etc.


I don't love everything about the Heroes of the Storm design, but it's meant to be an exaggerated cartoon of a dragoon the same way Sgt Hammer's Siege Tank is, so in that sense it's fine. What I do love is that they brought back the stripey look from other Protoss units in SC1, though it only made it past the concept art stage for an alternate color skin. I'm 100% going to copy that.


I'm going to aim to have 3 Protoss (Templar, Dragoon, Phoenix) and 3 Zerg units (Ling, Roach, Muta or Overlord) at the level of quality of the phoenix there, throw them in Unreal Engine and make it a little VR scene, to get the best sense of scale. Ultimately will add Terran stuff as well, then more units all around.

[Robear]

A little Goliath progress.

[Robear]

Michael Vicente, a Blizzard artist, posted some great shots of his Guardian model for Heroes of the Storm. What a beauty!





Also some turntables that show off the shininess better on Artstation.

[drakolobo]

"ANIME" STYLE

[Turalyon]

I wonder why they included Nova but not Hansen nor Tosh in the WoL one. Also, the LotV is missing Talandar/Fenix.