The Monkey King, new character

[CreativebytheSea]

Hi everyone! I started working on a new character, the Monkey King. It’s a character I’m making for the Art War 5 contest from Cubebrush (here is the link if anyone want to join the contest: https://forums.cubebrush.co/contests/art-war-5)

Here are some of my main references.
That’s a real statues from a Balinese Temple.
I will use the statue as inspiration for my character.

I started sculpting the face. It has been challenging because I want to make an “humanoid” monkey man, so mostly keeping the human anatomy but with monkey features. I don’t want my character to look like I attached a monkey head to a human body. I have been smoothing some of the strong features of the monkey and mixing it with the human anatomy. Here are the results so far…

Monkey Head Reference

My Head sculpt

[NP5]

Great concept, the not a monkey head on a human body, but morphing the types. Going very well.

[CreativebytheSea]

Thanks so much! It’s challenging to find the balance… adding hair will help to sell it better
The guys from Black Myth have a similar character… theirs looks more human though.

[NP5]

I did wonder if the bridge of the nose between the eyes could be pulled back more monkey style but it might tip it too much to monkey, especially once fur is added now you mention it.

[OboShape]

sweet work, really nice sculpt flow too

[CreativebytheSea]

Thanks so much

[BEAST]

You might wanna check Indian mythology “The Ramayana” where there’s a Kingdom ruled by humanoid monkeys and also in the same epic comes Hanuman who is a Hindu monkey god.

[CreativebytheSea]

Thanks, yes my Monkey King is inspired by the Ramayana Legend

[CreativebytheSea]

In this update I fixed a little bit the proportions, specially the distance between eyes because although monkeys have smaller eyes and they look closer to the nose, I’m trying to mix between human and monkey features. My main monkey reference is the Macaque, typical monkey in Bali, not the chimpanzee which has more similar features to humans.
Then I started to add more details to the face and body such as wrinkles and skin details. Those details are helping to sell better the concept, I think once I start to add hair that will help even more…

Hand Details
For the hands, I decided to look at gorilla hands as reference. Macaques have very small hands and don’t fit so much with the style I’m looking for.

[Miss_B]

Excellent work! I’m especially liking how well it looks compared to your Monkey Head reference photo.

Now I can’t wait to see your Monkey King with hair.

[CreativebytheSea]

Thanks so much! Hair is going to be challenging

[CreativebytheSea]

Following the idea of blending human and monkey features I enlarged hands and feet but keeping the human anatomy.
Then I started the re-topology. High poly had 5,510,762 faces (triangles), low poly has 5,690 faces (quads).

And I unwrapped my model for the UV, this is just the body. I plan to split my model in 4 materials, body and mouth/teeth/tongue, eyes, hair and finally clothing and accessories. I made the face much bigger because I want to make some close up renders of his face, and I want to have a higher resolution. By the other hand I laid up all my islands following the same direction to avoid issues later when texturing.

I baked my maps in Marmoset. So far it looks like maps are good

[FedPete]

Very nice diary with high quality modelling, sculpting. Fine project.

[CreativebytheSea]

Thanks so much!!

[CreativebytheSea]

I have been working on the mouth and teeth. I’m planning for the final render a pose where the character will be showing a very aggressive attitude with the mouth open.
Here are some references. Again I’m trying to blend monkey and human features.

My High Poly Sculpt

My Low Poly Model

[NP5]

Great set of gnashers (colloquial English) there.

Love the full poly versions.

[CreativebytheSea]

Thanks so much mate

[CreativebytheSea]

Today I have been working on clothing in Marvelous Designer.
I made a Sarong as you can see, next step will be retopology and modeling some armor for the upper body.

[CreativebytheSea]

Today I started blocking out the armor, accessories and adding some detail…
I still need to work on the helmet and weapons…

[CreativebytheSea]

In this update I have been polishing the armor pads, added more detail and worked on the helmet and details.