Like with Sprocket, I just textured onto Leo base colours to start with, working from my original artwork. Because his head isn't highly detailed and low in detail, I chose various other parts of Leo structure to add to his head map and so to make the most of the space available in the separate head and body map setups (The area around his 'head' and his shoulder cannon would be the parts utilizing the head map). Leo's colour palette makes more use of breaking up the varying areas of Leo's body then Sprockets initially did, with opposing limbs bearing different tones.
Once the base colours were laid down, I then worked on applying the surface detail, showing off the paneling and vents, etc as well as any text/labeling printed onto his bodywork. As well as this, I layered on top of it all of the wear and tear, dirt and rust to show the worn nature of his surface. As the main body of Leo is painted, I made sure to make the edges worn off and scuffed to show the metallic body underneath, with lots of scratches and patches of rust affecting exposed metal plates.
Working with the specular maps on Sprocket and the help I got with how to approach creating them on hard surfaces like the metal plates, gave me a better insight when creating them for my second character. Initially the specular's once applied were too overbearing, but once I subtracted the areas that were worn (such as the rust, and dirt) from the white areas it only applied the specular to the areas that needed it. On top of this, with the application of a Gloss map also it broke up the surface properties between the paint job, the metallic surfaces and the markings on his bodywork.
Below, The finished textured model of Leo: Applied Diffuse, Specular, Glossy, Glow and normal maps, and tweaked and adjusted the levels for the final result. Learning from problems I encountered with the texturing process with my first character Sprocket, helped make the process a lot more straightforward with Leo, with a better knowledge of the interaction between Specular and Glossy maps, which i think has contributed towards making Leo look as polished as he does in the final render. I also like how some of the smaller details on Leo have turned out, such as the 4 stars on his left shoulder joint, to show off his past military rank as a general.
To begin with, I created Leo's Head and chest to make his bust: Because his 'head' is not so much a head as a cylindrical sensor cluster at the front of his torso, his anatomy is definitely more machine like than Sprocket's more human-like features, and so takes more time adapting from my original concepts into 3D as I plan out where all his components will be. There was quite a few areas of specialized shapes on this character, the main one being his torso plate covering. I made the 'shoulders' larger than original to exaggerate his looming frame.
In Leo's design he has a largely smooth surfaced design, with lots of curves and rounded components, and so when part of his body is more angular it tends to stand out: This is the case with the barrel of the laser cannon that rests on his back. Because the shape isn't consistent with the rest of his body its stands out, and your eye is instantly aware of this.... This isn't a design choice I initially had any in depth thought about, but during the modelling process this idea became more obvious and a good way to make the parts of Leo stand out that needed to.
The features on the limbs are exaggerated, with overly large hands and feet to show off Leo's power and size, so I paid careful attention when modelling them to make the arms seem like they were build sturdy enough to power the hands, but also be dwarfed by them. Also, Ill be cloning his arm design over to his other side but it will need some heavy editing as his limbs are noticeably different in scale and shape to each other than Sprocket's were.
Working on the legs now: The design and shape of both of his legs are largely the same with some differing smaller detail, but It will be easier and more time effective to clone them over. Also with Limb's starting to shape up, I began to manipulate them about to see how they would move once rigged. Also, I thought that at this stage he looked rather tall on his legs , which I think is just down to the fact that his legs aren't posed and bent at the knee yet, His posture is very slouched to show his character and heavy frame.
Once the legs were finished, I manipulated them into a sort of pose to give me a sense of Leo's overall scale and limb size in comparison to the rest of him. I shrunk some areas and parts of his legs to make sure they seemed diminutive to his upper body, but still thick and sturdy enough to hold his weight.
Final Mesh for Leo: Really happy with how Leo's mesh has turned out! spent a long time tweaking the scale of various parts to make sure he comes across as a giant war machine. Once I make a few props for him, more of his gentle and delicate personality will be obvious, with his mask's he wears to cover his lack of a face.
