Sivkxet Species Low Poly Concepts (Patreon)

Two concepts within the span of a few days.

Timeline:

8-15-2024

In Blender 4.0 

I started creating low poly heads after a few days of practicing, not initially to make anything relating to my species.
But I thought soon after, I should try a few heads while I learn a workflow. Hit two birds in one!

All of these heads are below 1200k tris. The goal is to push it down to 1000k but because i don't have a budget or constraints, pushing it to 1500k is fine, although excessive for now (for a single head, not including accessories).

8-16-2024

I took one of the heads that looked the most striking and decided to unwrap.
I gave this one eyes, unwrapped those.
And sent it to Substance Painter 2024.

Named Sivkxet NoGen 2.
It means (Species Name) no gender #2 (2nd i made out of the line up).

On the same day, I worked on the textures for a few hours.

At this point, I have not settled for a set of stripe patterns that felt like my species (despite making Len's stripes and concept) but decided to go against Len's design reference and make something closer to a Civet (the group that inspired my entire species, or Viverridae family).
Which means, Len will be revised in the near future to accommodate the change.

Anyways, It came out to be a browner and blue-ish mix. It doesn't feel like it belongs in terms of color exactly (too brown everywhere) but a lot of it does feel closer to what I want.

The species generally won't have striking eyes (not impossible/still a option but keep it realistic), the duller and darker, the better for them.

8-17-2024

Happy with the outcome of my hand painted endeavors, I worked on the next head that looked the most interesting to me.

Named Sivkxet NoGen 1.

This time, I recorded most of the texturing process of this for varient 1.
I am still editing it while I write this but I will post it.
The stripes where a bit difficult this go around as I was pushing the design so much more.


First variant, featuring both green and saturated orange eyes (in the photos above).
 

Second variant, featuring more common, dark grey eyes. 

I am not totally satisfied with the stripe patterns, they feel too harsh, too strong. But it is a step in the right direction. The first head's stripes look ideal but for variety, I want a mix of head 1 and head 2 stripes.

I will continue to iterate!

Misc Notes:

I made both of these heads from scratch. Since the polys where so low, it was much easier for me to create them from the beginning rather than reuse something else. Although unwrapping it twice was not the funniest part, but it was simple.

I utilized a lot of "mark sharp" feature in Blender to control the shading of the heads. That's why there is some of these nice sharp creases on such a low poly head.
It gives a nice depth to the model.

Other than these models, I made 2d concepts of expected stripes patterns within the species to help me in the next heads I decide to make.
As well as (8-19-2024) creating unique faces to model later.