JLA: The Yesterday's War WIPs

[Kenn]

Yup.  I got it.

[John Jr.]

Hi, guys. I need your help again.
I was experimenting with highlighting (and my respect to guys who really know how to do it like Afghan Ant, LP, Murs and others, just grown up). I tried to give very subdued highlights to Superboy, something to make the skin look more 3 dimensional, but still looking like cloth and not the "painted skin" effect some comic book artist are so found. I don't know if I got it right.
What you think?

[laughing paradox]

First, that's a great skin. You've done a great job on the colors.

Now, if you want to make the cloth look more like a material, you can try to the Filter>Texturizer in Photoshop. You can do it either on the blue or even on the highlights themselves (try making the highlights even brighter, by the way, to see how you like it) depending on the look you're going for. I can't tell you exactly which mode to use in the Texturizer (burlap could work) but experimenting with the texturizer will definitely give you a lot of variation and looks.

[John Jr.]

Thanks a lot for the tip, LP!
I'm trying to use a "pattern" to make the blue look like cloth. Never thought of use the Texturizer, I'll give it a try.
Once again, thanks! I'm learning a lot from you!

[area34]

When I do textures like that. Like what I did for my leather jacket or my jeans I just take a texture pic off of google or whatever and put that on the base layer and do all highlights and shadows over it. Sometimes I play with the opaqueness a layer to let more of the base show but I try to downplay the base as much as possible. To much and it's just a messy busy blob. Better to just have a hint of it.

[Kenn]

Soften the highlights, make them less pronounced.   Real cloth conforms to outward muscular definition.  With inward muscle definition, the cloth goes across and over the gap.  The cloth stretched across that gap will look different than cloth stretched across rock hard muscles, but it won't be as dark as it would be if it stuck to every inch of skin.

Also, if the contrast between highlighted and not-highlighted it to high, you'll end up with a skin that might look great in a screen shot, but will look wrong in the game.  The act of highlighting infers the existence of a light source.  This hypothetical light source can easily differ from the one used by the 3-D renderer.  This will keep the shadows from looking right when the skin is in motion.

[John Jr.]

Wow. That's a lot of info. Thanks guys.
Ken,
I did the highlights exactly because my first Superboy skin looked better in CTool than in the game, you're right. We have to test every skin inside the game before finish it.

[John Jr.]

I wasn't happy with my Abin Sur skin, so I redid it almost from scratch.



Green Martian Soldier. I used The Gryphon's male basic and  C6's Male Costume as base skins. The mesh is a hex of Ren's Martian Manhunter, I just hide some parts.

[Cyber Burn]

A little late, but I really like the Superboy skin.

[John Jr.]

A little late, but I really like the Superboy skin.

Thanks. And it's not late, I'm never satisfied with my skins, I only believe they are half decent when I got some positive feedback, so you helped me.

[murs47]

Looks pretty good, JJ. Maybe some slight seam work like your Superboy skin to create a little more separation. Certain elements look like they blur together rather than meet or overlap.

[John Jr.]

Thanks, Murs.
With Abin I tried to get the "seam less" look, since his costume is supposed to be a ring construct instead of real cloth. So I used more highlights and made the costume more form fitting. I used only the outer glow effect in the overlapping areas.
Greenie's costume is supposed to be only shiny cloth, so I really need to re-work it and fix the overlapping areas.
Thanks for the tips.

[John Jr.]

OK, time for the last update.
This is the way our guys will appear in the Mod.
I changed Aquaboy's mesh, form Male Basic to Tommyboy's Silver Age Aquaman. Now Artie has his trademarked fins and flares and I could add some reflexes to the shirt.




I changed Abin's mesh too, now I'm using Tommy's Green Lantern )Hal) mesh, and it's a great mesh! Tommy got great animations for ring slinging!


I just added more shadows to Executioner's overlapping areas.


Superboy got some minor tweaks in his face and some highlights in the red areas of the costume. I made some adjustments to the skope too.


I want to thank everyone who give me feedback and tips. You really helped me, guys. The little I know about skinning I owe to you, so THANK YOU!

[Podmark]

Very nice stuff. Very clean, I like it.

[BentonGrey]

JJ, you really are becoming an FF Renaissance man.  Those are some nice looking skins, and it is good to have an Aquaman with the proper fins and gloves.  He could use a bit of shine on his armor, but I think you hit the coloring just right.  I would try and tweak the face a bit more if you want this to be Aqua "boy."

The Executioner has turned out REALLY nicely.  You're revisions of him have been progressively more impressive.  Good work.  Superboy has always been one of your best ones, though, and he remains so.

[John Jr.]

Thanks, guys.
I'm glad you liked the guys.
Benton, I noticed Artie looks a little older with the new mesh, I'll play a bit with his eyes and eyebrows and try get him a younger look. Aquaboy is about 18 in the mod, so I need a balance between "kid" and "grown up".