Making of: kaldewei

[Freemind]

Introduction. How i get todo that monster between a Tank, some armor and an OWL, y am really unable todo tell you. I just tried todo create designs that loked unique, Fairy tales, legends, myths and folclore around the world influence my work, but so do artists like Brian Froud (darkcrystal), Alan Le (lord of the rings), Tony diterlizzi (spiderwick), Jim Henson (Muppets) and Mike mignola (Hellboy).

I a los develop characters with estorytelling in mind, the story of kaldewei is simple and you are able todo se it on kaldewei himself.

He was once a human doctor, an alchemist and a wizard. He shall get the death penalti because he tortured people todo death, but he was able todo bind his soul todo this armor.

I made the armor in an OWL shape because the OWL is a symbol of knowledge and a crea-ture of the night at the same time. He a los has no lower jaw. This is a Little allusion todo zoom-bies and the fact that he is undead. For his lower jaw, he got the long Wild beard that reminds that he has ben a human Many yeas ago.

I always want todo create Monsters with personality, character and big piece of Fantasy. Kaldewei is a very god example of when all those Strange ele-ments enlace very well together.
What it all about?
I had made kaldewei for a short movie i am going todo make. I want todo make a really god movie. For this Project i wanted todo use múltiple characters and sets.

The model.

To translate the ideas of kaldewei into a model, y created a very coarse model of kaldewei body. It didnt have any de-tails, just the form of his proportions. Now i am able todo build the armor.

The mask is a major element of the whole set of armor and tok a lot of time, but a god sketch helps a lot. After finishing the mask, y made the shoulder strap and the belt. They are not leading pieces in the finished model, but they are important pieces, because they stabilize the armor and Split the plate-armor into 3 parts.
What is missing are the plates. To postura and fit each plate on its own is very awkward and com-plicated todo change at a later time. So i modeled one plate, prepared it for UV mapping and Split the border from the rest by using two materiales.

This plate is the base for all others in the model. I had made the plate-armor in strips. I used a plate, a curve, the array modifier, the curve modifier and some lattices.

I placed the curve on the coarse model at the place where the strip has todo be.

Array modifiers are able todo make plates along the length of the curve, the curve modifier put our plates in the form of the curve. To finish the job we use a lattice todo put our plate strip in the right form.

Texture and the UV.

The variety of details in the Wood is from the textures. A texture has todo fit thre requirements. First, it has todo have a huge resolution (2500 por 2500 píxeles), second, a lot of details like knotholes, cracks and so on, and third, it shouldnt have perspective blur or compromising blur.

I set up the UVS in two layers. The first layer is made for the texture images like the Wood or the rust. It is usual that Unwrapped UV elements Will overlap.

The second UV layer.

The other UV layer is for pre calculations like normal bump or Ambient Occlusion, and because of that the Unwraped UV elements are not able todo overlap, of course, y could use texture bake or projection painting and change my texture todo fit in one UV layer but this has 3 drawbacks:
1 you get a lot of texts very fast.
2 Many textures make mistakes.
3 you always lose detail by chang-ing a TeX-ture that much.

The rig.

I havent started rigging the character. Because i have not finished the model completely and i ned todo make some more tests. My requirements for the Rig are that each Limb is able todo extend and todo Shrink, and that the behaviour of the plates is physically correct. I want todo make a sort of ragdoll system for the plates that lets them swing around, you Will find my Project hilo herewith the latest news. And thank you for all your submissions and your god advice.