Low Poly (D&D-5e) Character - Malta the Golden Gladiatrix

[R_Kyle_Butler]

Had the idea bouncing around in my head. Figured I’d use it as fodder for this section.

Malta the Golden Gladiatrix, A female Tabaxi (Cat person, digitigrade humanoid) with a greek name wearing Roman/late-medieval style armor, Mesoamerican warriors clothing, wielding whips, knives & short swords. Armor & weapons that are both practical and impractical at the same time; after all, a Gladiator’s job is brutal entertainment & titillation regardless of gender.

Should be interesting to rig as she is a nonstandard humanoid, at least in the foot/lower-leg region. I may end up making her plantigrade if it ends up being too much trouble.

Armor (each section will likely end up being one piece):

1. Leg Armor:

   1. Sabatons (foot)
   2. Greaves (shin)
   3. Poleyns (knee)
   4. Cuisses (thigh)

2. Arm Armor:

   1. Half Gauntlet (hand)
   2. Vambrace (forearm)
   3. Couter (elbow)
   4. Rerebrace (upper arm)

3. Torso Armor:

   1. Fauld (hips/waist)
      1. Tassets (thigh upper)
   2. Plackart (waist/lower chest)

4. Shoulders:

   1. Gorget (neck/shoulders)
      1. Pauldrons (shoulders)
      2. *Bevor (upper neck/chin)

5. Helmet ‘Galea’ (Roman style, head duh)
   

Weapons:

1. Brace of Whips, because whips in d&d are pretty damn useful & should be interesting to rig.
2. Short Sword, for when the claws just won’t cut it.
3. Throwing Knives.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

The four leg armor sections. they were always going to be asymmetrical so I didn’t bother with two mirror mods like in the lecture.

Better View.

Don’t worry, I renamed my cube to “Leg Armor.”

[capa14]

Wow!

The description is so detailed you can really imagine how “Malta” looks, even without a sketch!
(All that is missing is a biography which probably you already have thought of too lol)

Is the head, more like tiger or cat?

Keep posting your progress please, i’m very curious too see “her”

[R_Kyle_Butler]

As a full fledged D&D character concept there is definitely a backstory.

I’m definitely going for a more feline head. It’ll be about hitting that sweet spot between human and feline features that’ll really make the character seem plausible.

---

I did a little more work turning the armor bits octagonal. I noticed that my cuisses didn’t wrap around quite far enough so I added some to the back.

I’ve finished going through all of the videos for the character course to get all of the tips I could before trying at the main body. I think the legs may well be a good starting place as their connection to the torso is a major sticking point for me whenever I try humanoid modeling.

[capa14]

As a full fledged D&D character concept there is definitely a backstory.

Most times I see someone doing clothes for characters it all begins with the “naked” body, then the clothes are copies of parts of the body and then modified to look like clothes.

Maybe you should do like this too?
I mean you’re starting with the armor(clothes) which may not wrap nicely around the body in the end, requiring more work to make it fit.

Just a sugestion.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

I agree. I did the “boots” to be in keeping with the lecture. Though considering it took me several hours to get this half of the body done… I’m already breaking the rules.

I couldn’t help myself really. I usually fail to get my topology going good around the hips, but everything was going well, so I just went with it.

I think “simple character” is officially a misnomer.

[capa14]

Nice shapes! Keep going

[R_Kyle_Butler]

Here is the whole torso with a separated head. I couldn’t keep my topology under enough control so things got weird towards the top. I had to create the head separately, now I just have to see about making the connection with the neck.

Good grief, 10 hours in at least. This is why they said to keep your modeling simple and to about an hour or so.

I’ll be happy to get back to the armor sections; Organic humanoid forms are hard to model.

[capa14]

At this point I think you could forget about the low poly idea and go for realistic or cartoony style
But what is considered to be low poly nowadays?

About the head connection it all comes down to the count of the vertices and bridge edgeloops!
Use LoopTool > Circle to an area below the head and make the neck hole, make the edges of the actual neck a circle too. Provided they have the same vertices count just bridge
(you may need to delete or add some edgeloops)

I wouldn’t try Boolean… as would mess up the topology too much… unless you go for sculpt

[R_Kyle_Butler]

The head would have 22 verts and the neck has 18 just need to add some in and that would do it.

Normally I would go for the sculpt out right and then do some retopology. I’m still considering that honestly as this would be a good model to work from.

I may save two copies of this; one to give the lower poly model another try and the other to sculpt one and see how that goes. I definitely have more experience with sculpting than with modeling.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

I think I finally have the body in a state that I’m fine with.

Now onto the armor pieces.

[FedPete]

Subdivision modelling step-down guide

At first, when I saw this schema, I thought; huh! what is he trying to tell us. But as you may already know, in mesh topology quads are important. Because quads are easy to subdivide, creating more quads. And with quads you can work with loops. Adding more mesh detail on places where you need them. Quads are faces with only 4 vertices. Making it easier to subdivide and still having quads. But sometimes, you need to join 2 quads with 3 or more quads. And still having a quad topology. The foll…

[FedPete]

There is a add-on for Blender (forgot the name), where someone created a highly detailed human mesh object. Ready for use with bones.

[capa14]

“Manuel Bastioni Human Lab” I guess?
Never used it though

Think it might be interesting, but think @R_Kyle_Butler is doing a good job so far.

[FedPete]

Manuel Bastioni Human Lab

Yes, I believe so … site is currently under construction.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

definitely looks cool from what I’ve found. Creating a humanoid mesh from scratch is time consuming especially for someone lacking experience. Too bad the site is down.

Working from scratch, however, has gotten me to learn how to rearrange my topology better, so its got its upsides.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

Did a lot more work on her face, added eyes, added a tail & got more of the armor done. Gonna make for interesting contrast having a high-poly character wearing low-poly armor.

She’s currently indecent (and lacking in ears) I need to add some under clothing soon; I hope this isn’t too risque for the forums here.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

I adjusted the face some, & added some ears & the helm. I took some liberties with the design; obviously the Romans had no cat people in their ranks.

I changed the pauldrons a little as well to be more in keeping with my reference. Definitely looks better especially with the added metal materials.

[capa14]

Lol cover her nipples dude, don’t think she would wanna fight in the arena like this

Great job in all the rest! I can see you even added SSS to the material and if you mainteined all quads to the armors will be easy to make them high res after if you want.

[R_Kyle_Butler]

I got myself well acquainted with why I was holding off on her small clothes. The loincloth wasn’t too bad but the halter-top was a pain. That shrink wrap modifier can be hard to work with. I actually need to fix it up a bit so I can apply the shrink wrap without it freaking out.

She’s wearing a double loincloth which was worn by Mayan warriors who actually didn’t wear much armor. The cross chest wrap was more improvised & I’m kind of glad that it falls mostly behind the corset cause it didn’t come out quite how I wanted.