Switch Theme:

New Goblin Miniatures (Hopefully to extend the line that Tom Meier hasn't - img hvy)  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





I have recently been given the license for a Digital Sculpting package (Silo and Mudbox), and immediately set to work creating some miniatures that I have wished for since 1979.

Tom Meier has this annoying habit of not finishing miniature lines.

He will create a few miniatures, but never enough to do a complete army.

And if you know Tom's work, trying to mix it with other miniatures is extremely difficult as anything else sticks out like a sore thumb next to his work..... Sort of.

There are sculptors who are his equal, and I can come close on some things.

So, with that in mind, I am showing these test sculpts to get an idea if they come close to Tom's Thunderbolt Mountain Goblins, or his older Ral partha, fantasy Collector's Series Goblins (from 1979).

These are intended to be either Great-Goblins(Orcs) for the 1979 line, or Lesser-Goblins(Orcs) for the Thunderbolt Mountain line of Goblins.

The first couple are shots of the Miniature Base-Mesh (meaning that they do not have the actual musculature detail included in the render - I do not have the memory in the laptop from which I am posting to do a load the fully detailed base-mesh for the body).

Also, the weapons and shields will be cast separately, allowing for a greater variety of weapons and shields.

They show stylistically the miniatures, and the props they carry. Hopefully, these will be reminiscent of Tom Meier's work, for which I will include a comparison shot at the end of the post.

Note: I discovered that the images are not showing up in all browsers, so I have added the images as attachments. So they are below the other Tom Meier miniatures.



And here is a comparison shot of Tom Meier's Thunderbolt Mountain and Ral Partha Goblins look like:

1. Thunderbolt Mountain Goblins (Images from online catalog at http://www.thunderboltmountain.com/collections/all/30mm?page=3):




2 Tom Meier's Ral Partha Fantasy Collector's Series Goblins:



Hopefully I will be able to get these to look midway between the two Tom Meier Lines, and thus complete the lines he seems to not be able to finish at the moment.

Any real critique of the sculpts would be welcome.

MB
[Thumb - Goblin1dSpear.png]
Goblin 1 of 6 with spear and Shield

[Thumb - Goblinminiature2Sword.png]
Goblin 2 of 6 as a miniature with Sword and Shield

[Thumb - Goblinminiature2Sword_Detail1.png]
Goblin 2 of 6 Facial Detail

[Thumb - Goblin4aBodyTest.png]
Goblin 4 of 6: Body Musculature Detail

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/01/18 17:25:33


 
   
Made in gb
Posts with Authority






Norn Iron

Any real critique of the sculpts would be welcome.




First of all, starting at the bottom: looks like you got a copy of Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy along with Silo and Mudbox, and went to town! That's a goblin that looks like it spends a lot of time at the Misty Mountain gym. Though in addition to looking a little... 'superheroic' for a traditional Tolkienian goblin, there a a few bits that look a little off. The pecs seem unusually deep, vertically, and the abs quite wide and flat.
Compare to Tom's goblins: the heavy goblins are obviously muscular, but also have a fair bit of fat smoothing things over. (Particularly the belly and jowls, though the former's covered by armour!) The smaller goblins, particularly the Ral Partha archer (which is an excellent goblin, BTW) have some definition and obvious muscles, but are pretty thin and wiry with it.

The more complete sculpts have less of that problem. You have quite a bit of fine, Meieresque detail in there; although personally I don't think detail is everything, or at least not the only thing. Pose and proportion are important too, and are almost always overlooked by newer sculptors, from what I've seen. Your examples aren't too bad in that regard, but as with musculature, I think there are a few areas that could use tweaking. For example, in Tom's heavy goblin examples at the top, see how they lean into their impending swings or thrusts, almost pushing, even, with their legs, about ready to take another step forward. In your first example... I'm not sure the whole body is committed to the action. The upper body is twisted and arm upraised to thrust or throw the spear, but the legs don't seem to be braced, to be pushing forward, or whatnot. They just seem to be trotting along by themselves.
Plus, despite examples, I don't know if that right bicep should bulge so much on an outstretched arm.
Sword & shield goblin seems to have a bit of the same, and a bit of proportion problem. A bit of cautious warding with shield held up, almost before the face, and sword held in what seems like a defensive posture, but the legs are taking a great big stride. Part of that effect might be caused by this particular viewpoint of the render, but that's how it seems to me. That might also be affecting the proportion bit, where I think there are some issues with the legs. Shorter legs than the human norm: perfectly acceptable for a goblin; but it almost seems that you took the legs from about mid-thigh or thereabouts and scaled them down without many further changes. On most of Tom's goblins shown here, the shortening effect doesn't seem as extreme, and in any case is compensated by bigger feet, thicker lower legs, etc. There's less of a tapering effect.

Overall, while I don't know the precise method you used, the sculpts seem to have a bit of the stiffness of reposed meshes or wireframe 'skeletons' (pardon the butchering of terms), where the software doesn't know enough about human(oid) anatomy to make the rendered flesh react correctly.

Detail... most problems I see will be caused, I think, by turning the renders into sellable minis Some of the features like shield studs, finely honed weapons, trouser wrinkles, teeth, and fine little individual toes, look impressive and speak of attention and effort; but when put through the process of printing, master casting, and production casting, I don't know if any of them will survive. I don't know if the spear shaft in particular is a WIP, but as it is now it'll print out hair-thin, let alone the moulding and casting of it. Even Tom Meier, master of detail as he is, sometimes makes compromises for scale - the teeth of his heavy goblins, for one example, are chunky and deep-cut compared to the teeth of the rendered goblin 2.

The one other bit of detail that jumps out as a style thing rather than a practicality, is the cheek bones. I know TM's goblins have pronounced cheekbones, but yikes! I think they could stand to be pulled in, up, and back a wee bit. Not so much of the squaring-off.

Anyway, it's an understandable cause and a noble effort. I don't think the problems are insurmountable - the sculpts are pretty cose to the goal, IMO - they just need a bit more tweaking. A bit more 'grubbying up', even.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/01/19 17:31:03


I'm sooo, sooo sorry.

Plog - Random sculpts and OW Helves 9/3/23 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Thanks... All very helpful.

To get to the list.

Starting with the abs (I will come back to the pecs).

The abs on Tom's TBM Goblins/Orcs are pretty flat. Tom tends to have more angular features that the classical look he is often associated with. It is as if a Modernist from the mid-20th century went back in time to work in the shop of Praxiteles. So... I tried to copy the abs off of the Goblin Archers from TMB rather than the Abs off of the older Ral Partha or the newer TBM Warriors (Since the Archers are a bit smaller than the Warriors, and what I am trying to accomplish is a "Lesser Goblin" for the Newer TBM line, and a "Great Goblin" for the older line.... Which has some complications. The older ones being very wiry, the newer ones being covered with a substantial amount of fat. But back to the sculpts here.

I am not sure how to get the abdomen to look less flat, while looking like a sort of mid-point between the two lines. Any suggestions?

As for the subcutaneous fat.... The Lesser Goblins are supposed to be "less well fed" than the bigger Goblins. And I have had a little trouble in making them look wirier than they are.... I need, I guess, to do some searching for reference materials. I just realized that I do need to add some fat to one of these (one of the action poses has some subcutaneous fat), in order to balance out the miniature mix. The first one might be best for that, given he is already bulkier than the other two.

Any advice on what might help give him bulk, while still having the definition to the muscles that Tom tends to have?

As for making them look wirier... I still have not done the surface detailing of the bodies for the first and second... So I suppose that I should slim down the arms and legs of the second a bit.

Also... The bicep on which one should not look so pronounced on the outstretched arm? The first one? Shield arm or weapon arm?

On to the poses.

These two (three) are the more static poses of the lot. The lower two are either parrying (the one with the sword, who is supposed to be moving backwards), or simply moving forward while carrying a weapon and shield (the last one).

The top Goblin is not supposed to be stabbing, but simply raising his weapon in preparation to do so. This looks more obvious with weapons other than a spear, which most people assume is stabbing into something, due to its highly linear properties giving it the impression of forward motion

As for the shorter legs.... I chopped out edge-loops at intervals along the legs, and then just moved the rest of the leg back into position, and merged the vertices to get one mesh again... I suppose that could be almost the same as scaling from the middle (which I didn't do because I wanted to keep the topology density consistent on both this and the larger human meshes (same number of polygons per square inch).

The feet might be making things look weird, as they are 120% the length of a "normal" foot! copying the older Ral Partha Goblins, which have even longer feet than just 120% of typical length....

Should I widen them a bit, along with the ankles?

Also... This is just me, but I think the knees look too big. Do the knees seem too big?

MB

EDIT

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh! And funny you should mention Hogarth.

Although it did not come with the digital packages I got.

It is what Tom Meier recommended to me in 1980, as a source for Dynamic Anatomy (or maybe it was another sculptor at Partha??? Julie Guthrie, maybe???). So, I did learn anatomy from Hogarth, but my art experience has been scattered. I worked primarily as an artist in the mid-80's, but got distracted by a girl walking across the street in West London in 1984, and I wound up learning more toward the performing arts until 1991, when I had an accident that nearly killed me, related to other, less reputable work I was doing.

And then in 2001, I started working doing sculpting again, but only Architectural, and did not have time to do any miniatures work, other than a few modifications of stuff from the LotR line from GW (Replacing the swords on the Elves with proper, straight, double-edged swords, adding some barding to a few of the Rohirrim Guard figures horses, lengthening the spears and altering the helmets slightly for the Gondorians, and creating some lighter armored Gondorian Archers for the Morthond Vale Archers).

But upon having my boss, where I used to work GIVE me the copy of Mudbox (wish he had given me ZBrush instead, but another sculptor got it), and having got Silo during a sale at Smith Micro, I decided that I needed to start working on some miniatures and toys.

One of the reasons the detail is so pronounced on these is during a test print (where I used to work has 3D printers), we found that having the detail more muted it hardly showed up at all on the prints.

And, when I do a normal map extraction (eventually the masters for these meshes - the unposed meshes - will be used for animation whenever I get a license for Maya or 3ds Max), the detail also tends to be more washed out when the map is applied to a lower-poly mesh.

But I REALLY appreciate the time it took for you to make a response.

I think, given the issues with completing these, I should look into dropping the number of figures for the initial Kickstarter campaign from a total of 40 (20 for the basic goal, and 20 additional figures in stretch goals - 6 warriors with one handed weapons, 6 archers, 4 two-handed weapon warriors, and 4 Command figures as the basic goal, and then an additional Command Group, and another group of 6, 6, & 4 Warriors, Archers, and 2-handed weapon users, basically the same poses, but with different armor and helmets as the stretch goal).

I am hoping to have a rendering of all 6 of the warriors and archers by next Month.

The biggest holdup has been a way to create chainmail that looks right, and will print (the printer I will be using is very high resolution, with a resolution of .01mm, but I am trying to limit details to .075mm).

If I had more RAM (I am only working with 8GB, and all of my sources say that I really need at LEAST twice that to do proper 3D sculpting), then I would just model the chainmail as individual rings, and then make it a dynamic nCloth object and set the presets to "Chainmail" (Even though I don't yet have a full license for it, I have been practicing with a student version of Maya, and it has the capability to model chainmail, but I don't have the RAM... If it worked, then I would but the license to produce the miniatures), and then the chainmail would automatically "fit" itself to the body, and sculpting it would be relatively easy, because it would treat each link as a non-deformable solid and collider with each other link...

But that takes a LOT of RAM to do.

Anyway.... Look for an update in a few weeks on the progress, and the first of the archers.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2015/01/19 20:43:01


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut






Keep in mind that a lot of those fancy tricks used in Maya (or Max...or C4D...) are neat for animation, but less useful for 3D printing.

You could in theory shrink wrap it all after you complete the sculpt with the dynamic chain mail, or go through and use them to create a displacement map based off from projected UVs...but then that starts to add a lot of additional time to the process, and sources of issues to be cleaned up.

If you were to try to leave them as individual solids...you would need to wait several years for a printer to be built that could print them at any reasonable price at the correct size needed.

A better option is to work a bit like Tom did, have the look of chain mail, without all the parts. Modeling a Tunic, applying a displacement map to it - pretty quick and simple. Be sure to remember to convert it to real geometry for printing of course. The strength of the displacement is pretty easy to adjust, though you may need to edit the levels within a graphics package in order to increase the range available (from no displacement, to maximum...often the baked map ends up being a bit shallow...so you don't have enough data to work with without it ending up looking ridiculous). The nice thing about adding that step, is that you can actually go through and add a lot of details to the map faster than you could in 3D (buckles and what not in particular).

I know for doing things like the round shields you have - I have a pretty simple setup of the basic geometry and a hundred or so different displacement maps that I apply to the shields. Give me all the wood texture, rivets, bosses and other bits without the hassle of going through and resculpting them. To maintain efficiency, I also don't apply the map till I am ready to export the file for printing. This allows me to keep my processing overhead to a minimum (so needing 8GB+ of RAM is less of a need and more of a want).

One other thing that I always recommend is to turn off all smoothing and surface lighting. It gives a more realistic representation of what the final print will be.

In the interim, for posing, Blender is pretty good. A lot of the same tools and techniques used in Max, for free.

The workflow you have right now is pretty good. I myself use Silo for rough work (and some details...depending on the details), Mudbox for detailing and Max for final posing and tweaking. Probably 75-80% of the time is spent in Silo though, and I keep my meshes light enough that I can even do work on my wife's little netbook when traveling.
   
Made in us
Stoic Grail Knight





Central Cimmeria

I agree that the pecs are too deep. The upper pectorals are really just an extension of the shoulder muscles, and the lower pecs don't normally go that far down.

I think that you you need to broaden the wrists, and work a lot on how the hands hold the weapons. It is a clear sign to me that a digital sculptor isn't ready for real world production when the hands are "video game hands" in which the weapon just sort of floats in a finger tube. When ever you use a digital program to pose your model, always go reword the joints. They never get it right. For example, the masses on your goblin's elbows are wrong (too low down the joint for starters).

Just a bit of constructive criticism. Good start!
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Keep in mind that a lot of those fancy tricks used in Maya (or Max...or C4D...) are neat for animation, but less useful for 3D printing.

You could in theory shrink wrap it all after you complete the sculpt with the dynamic chain mail, or go through and use them to create a displacement map based off from projected UVs...but then that starts to add a lot of additional time to the process, and sources of issues to be cleaned up.

If you were to try to leave them as individual solids...you would need to wait several years for a printer to be built that could print them at any reasonable price at the correct size needed.


Fortunately, printers already exist that can print it at that scale. Only at 30mm+ though in size. Just not that. I can regularly afford, and I doubt my ex-boss would give up time on it for me to do vanity projects.


A better option is to work a bit like Tom did, have the look of chain mail, without all the parts. Modeling a Tunic, applying a displacement map to it - pretty quick and simple. Be sure to remember to convert it to real geometry for printing of course. The strength of the displacement is pretty easy to adjust, though you may need to edit the levels within a graphics package in order to increase the range available (from no displacement, to maximum...often the baked map ends up being a bit shallow...so you don't have enough data to work with without it ending up looking ridiculous). The nice thing about adding that step, is that you can actually go through and add a lot of details to the map faster than you could in 3D (buckles and what not in particular).


This is actually what I am trying. I have a stamp that I am working on that creates two half circles, one facing right, the other facing left, and offset down and to the right. It creates a pattern like Tom (and me, technically, Julie Guthrie taught it to me in '85) uses.

I know for doing things like the round shields you have - I have a pretty simple setup of the basic geometry and a hundred or so different displacement maps that I apply to the shields. Give me all the wood texture, rivets, bosses and other bits without the hassle of going through and resculpting them. To maintain efficiency, I also don't apply the map till I am ready to export the file for printing. This allows me to keep my processing overhead to a minimum (so needing 8GB+ of RAM is less of a need and more of a want).

One other thing that I always recommend is to turn off all smoothing and surface lighting. It gives a more realistic representation of what the final print will be.


I am already on to both of these.

Although I only have a small selection of maps built up for miniature work, as most of the ones I have for architectural work aren't fit for miniature work (maybe a few textures would work out, but because we worked in wood, primarily.... I never did any wood texture maps... I will eventually need one.

But I already know to keep smoothing turned off to get an idea of the final print. Fortunately, the meshes on each of these are around 24,000,000 polygons each, so they will print with a decent surface (technically, the meshes are below the resolution of the printer, so. I could probably retopologize to a lower poly count to save some memory.

In the interim, for posing, Blender is pretty good. A lot of the same tools and techniques used in Max, for free.


I was just going to pick up Poser Pro for that, since Smith Micro has it on sale regularly, and I know how to use most of its rigging tools (they are similar to Maya, which I know pretty well, and I want to stay with what I know - although I do have a Digital Tutors, and a CG Society memberships that give me access to more tutorials than I could ever watch).

The workflow you have right now is pretty good. I myself use Silo for rough work (and some details...depending on the details), Mudbox for detailing and Max for final posing and tweaking. Probably 75-80% of the time is spent in Silo though, and I keep my meshes light enough that I can even do work on my wife's little netbook when traveling.


I am so happy to have found Silo. It is an AWESOME little modeling and sculpting package (for doing rough details - it doesn't have quite the power of Mudbox as a sculpting tool). I was about to resort to criminal abuse of a license and just do the base-meshes in Maya (which did take me about nine months to finish. The base mesh is VERY detailed. What I have done with it is pitifully inadequate to what it could accomplish if I could fully rig it). The base-mesh is roughly 40,000 polys, so not exactly low-poly. I do have a lower-poly version of it that is about half that, but the differences are easy to spot when it is just an unadorned mesh with no texture maps. And I have the UVs done for the human, but not. Goblin versions (the Goblin version has different legs and neck topology).

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gallahad wrote:
I agree that the pecs are too deep. The upper pectorals are really just an extension of the shoulder muscles, and the lower pecs don't normally go that far down.

I think that you you need to broaden the wrists, and work a lot on how the hands hold the weapons. It is a clear sign to me that a digital sculptor isn't ready for real world production when the hands are "video game hands" in which the weapon just sort of floats in a finger tube. When ever you use a digital program to pose your model, always go reword the joints. They never get it right. For example, the masses on your goblin's elbows are wrong (too low down the joint for starters).

Just a bit of constructive criticism. Good start!


I need to take a look at my full human mesh then (I thought the proportions looked off when. I built it, but I followed the proportions. I have been using for human figures for nearly 30 years now - admittedly, I haven't done a lot of representational work in the last 20 of those years), because the pectorals are identical on the human mesh.

That is an easy thing to fix, though, but having it confirmed by a second opinion helps.

Oh... As for the hands.... They aren't posed for casting. The last one (Goblin 4/6) has his hands ALMOST set-up for casting. The hand is slightly open, with the fingers and thumb forming a "C" that can then be bent closed around a weapon.

I am working without being able to rig the model at the moment, so all posing has been done with a combination of soft-select, and the rotate gizmo, or with the Mudbox posing tools (which are a freaking BITCH to use on some parts). So.....

None of the models save for 4/6 (the last one) have had their hands worked on yet.

Which may answer the elbow problem. Re-posing the base-mesh has caused a lot of the joints to collapse, and I will need to go in to re-work them.

But.... If you could maybe highlight the issue with the elbows, by providing an annotated image detailing the problem, I will be very happy, so that. I don't have to waste time doing things over.

Oh! And the wrists are too "narrow?"

I have other people telling me they are too thick.

Remember, these are supposed to look like. Tom Meier's stuff, specifically they are supposed to fit with both his 1979 Goblins, and his newer 2003+ work! and although there is a stylistic consistency between the two, there are still some anatomical differences (such as the newer stuff being VASTLY more muscular and covered with subcutaneous fat.

But help with the elbows would be appreciated.

I'll get some images of some of the others, as well, since I know that I have done a little bit of surface detail work on them since I did these images.

MB

Edit

One last point... I did say that the weapons are all going to be vast separately, did I not?

Well, except for the two-handed weapons, but they will have one hand that is open, and the other hand will be sculpted onto the weapon, to allow for slight variation in posing, and to allow for a variety of weapons to be used with any one sculpt.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/01/20 07:46:22


 
   
Made in us
Been Around the Block




The more total sculpts below the knob on of the problem. You've got a substantial amount of fine, Meieresque detail in there; despite the fact that professionally I can't think fine detail is actually every thing, or otherwise only some of the factor.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





perrsyu wrote:
The more total sculpts below the knob on of the problem. You've got a substantial amount of fine, Meieresque detail in there; despite the fact that professionally I can't think fine detail is actually every thing, or otherwise only some of the factor.


Could you explain what you mean by that first sentence, please?

MB
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Also, after having both taken a look at the recent Conan Kickstarter miniatures, AND having dug out my old copy of Hogarths....

You are correct that the chest is too "deep."

So.... I now need to write to the authors of two different 3D modeling books to let them know that their chest proportions do not hold up.

I am now having to go through all of the Goblins and alter the chest topology by inserting another edge loop below the chest, and removing one from within the chest, to raise the lower portion of it a bit.
   
Made in es
Prospector with Steamdrill





Los Llanos de Aridane

Hi,
nice job there!
Imagine to have these 3d models on your hand, I'm sure that for most 3d printers many parts are too thin, expecially weapons and cloth details.
Apart from technical issues (due to printing issues), i really like the design of these creatures. They really feel like they come out from LotR Books
Cheers and well done!

We are currently in the sculpting phase, resin-metal production will follow.
Check Artisan Guild Miniatures updates on Facebook:


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Tarum wrote:
Hi,
nice job there!
Imagine to have these 3d models on your hand, I'm sure that for most 3d printers many parts are too thin, expecially weapons and cloth details.
Apart from technical issues (due to printing issues), i really like the design of these creatures. They really feel like they come out from LotR Books
Cheers and well done!


Thanks.

The weapons, as illustrated, are not going to be printed, but machined. I still have access to a 4-axis C-C machine for relatively no cost.

The Goblins themselves should print, but not with Shapeways, I will be using a company called Stratsys, as the printer has a resolution of .0025mm (after checking).

That will mean that each figure will cost about $400 to print, though.

But these are meant to go with a line by Tom Meier (linked in the original post), which is a rather high-end line.

They are, indeed, meant to be a more purist Tolkien vision than most currently produced miniatures, which tend to lean more toward the D&D, or Swords & Sorcery genre than Tolkien's less "fantastic" world.

Also.... These are all a first-stage WIP. I still have surface details to go on all of the bodies, and it have yet to find a convincing chainmail stamp for Mudbox (Damn! I wish that I had ZBrush!) to produce the armor for several of the models.

I only show three of them here, but there will be 20 to 40 in the final project.

And... The Goblins/Orcs are just the first in the line, which will include Humans (Early-Mid Third Age Gondor under the Kings, Wainriders and Balchoth, and Early Rohirrim/Éotheod), and Elves (Still trying to decide where to start with these).

I am hoping that sculpting representational figures comes back to me, because. Have been doing mostly non-representational, or Representational Bas-Relief Architectural work for the last dozen years.... And my 3D work is rusty as all hell.

I hope that I will eventually get to be able to produce works as clean as those you have produced, and as quickly (I am slow as a snail right now).

But thanks.

MB
   
 
Forum Index » Dakka Discussions
Go to: