cartoonish castle wip

[Weetos]

Hi Folks,

I'm currently taking some time to work on a personal project, completly different from what I usually do at work ;)

This is supposed to be a castle, in front of which two cartoonish characters are going to be animated. it needs to look not too serious, but also needs details for closeups.

The texturing is temporary, I'm focusing on the modeling for now

Crits and comments are obviously welcome, as I'm not experienced at all in cartoon things

Thanks


Weetos

[emperorchuck]

I like! It is very cute. As for suggestions, may I ask what it is guarding? The inside seems a bit empty... Put in a keep or something with big windows to make it more than just a pretty fort. If people live there, they have to have rooms and such, y'know. Great job so far!

[retinajoy]

Hello Weetos

Glad to see you finally post your work. Hope to see more in the future :D

The castles model looks like coming along well. The landscape needs expanding with maybe some stylized mountains in the background.

If you are going for a happy joyful cartoony feel, then I would give the lighting a more sunny orange look. The blue back light gives it a cold feeling. Do you have a story in mind for your characters? As that wiill help you decide the look.

Maybe you could have a maiden looking out of the tower waiting to be rescued and some cartoony swans or ducks floating on the water.

It will be interesting so see how this eventually turns out. Though not cartoony, the following link may give you some inspiration for furthering modelling, texturing and landscape ideas.

http://www.castlepictures.com/

[veljko]

Hi-
The image looks cool, and the modelling is clean-
i like it-
:)
If you are still in the modelling phase i agre with retinajoy that you should expand the scenary, with some fields and mountians- You have to remember that the bit in the back end of the camera shot is just as important as the central object. It is all a part of a tottal image that looses its credability just as easy in the far back ends of the scene as it would with a bad main object.
As for the lightening, the model at this point looks like its placed in a studio- You need to brighten it up and make it more outdoorsy-

Are you going for a real life cartoony castle or a toy cartoony castle?
I would loose the high specularity of the roofs and make it much fainter and more soft

-hope this helps friend
:)

[ardee]

I like it a lot. Agree that it needs something in its interior, but what's there looks really cute.

The scale of it seems to be quite small. Certainly depends on how you're going to use it, though.

I think it were better for the roofs of the right two towers to go straight up and not have their tips leaning to the side.

[Weetos]

Wow :)

First of all, thank you all for the kinds words and the many suggestions you've given.

@emperorchuck : Actually I haven't started to model the inner part, and it's true it seems empty. I tried several times to model the interior ( a keep ) without getting something good ... I haven't given up yet :). Big windows might be what I missed, thanks for this suggestion.

@retinajoy : I haven't worked yet in the landscape, but I plan on modeling hills around with bushes and trees, and mountains in the foreground (actually the mountains will be part of another scene that I will use as a background picture. I have to model some big funny clouds too. The lighting I used for this shot is just a simple studio one that i use in modeling phase. The orange sunny light you suggested is interesting for the kind of look I want, I have to test it :) .
Oh yeah !!! swans or ducks !!!! Great idea !!! I will model both to decide which one I'm gonna put in this scene
I took a look at the link you gave me (bookmarked :)), it's really inspiring, thanks a lot - this should help much for the keep

@veljko : I'm still in the modeling phase, and the next step is the landscape and the background. Your comment about the lighting is correct, for now it's just a studio lighting set. I'm going to work on the lighting soon, and I might require some help to make it matching the look I want. This is supposed to be a real life scene, but I agree something goes wrong with the scale - I hope the toy look will disappear when I add the other components of the scene.
I haven't worked much on the texturing. Those are just test ones, I think I'll have a lot of work with the final ones, the overall thing must be soft.

@ardee : I totally agree with the scale problem, I hope this gonna be fixed by adding details here and there. You're also right about the roof tips - First I found that cool, but now I think it looks weird. I'll work this out.

Well I have to go back to LW and try to make the best use of your suggestions. Thanks again to all of you guys and to those who will take the time to post in this thread.

Regards


Weetos

[cathuria]

Cute!:) I really like the touch with the little bricks sticking out (I may steal that idea at some point...:D )
Swans & ducks are swell -- but I've always been partial to bug-eyed moat monsters...

[Weetos]

Just a little update... I added the inner part (I'm still working on it) and changed little things here and there. More to come soon

Cheers

Weetos

[retinajoy]

The character of the castle is coming along nicely. The roofs look better too with less specularity. Keep up the good work.

[harlan]

It looks fanfrickintastick...kinda reminds me of Eurekas Castle (well...that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw your image...well...that and My Little Pony, but I'll be ****ed before fessing up to thinking of My Little Pony). ;)

Nice job, it's coming along great.

[alblil]

very cool,but when compared to the length of the bridge it makes the castle look small, like the bridge looks as big as the castle