Mega Man 7 - Robot Dinosaurs (King Gojulus and Stegorus)
Full resolution (2K) images - https://imgur.com/a/LoH2oAb
I wanted to do something other than Sonic for once. I love dinosaurs and I really like the Mega Man games (mainly Mega Man X) and am a huge fan of their robot designs, so I had to tackle King Gojulus and Stegorus from Slash Man's stage in Mega Man 7. It's basically a robot Jurassic Park.
Stegorus was made first, entirely in Maya and Substance Painter, while King Gojulus was started in Zbrush and carried over into Maya, Substance Painter and Photoshop. They're not rigged, but are UV'd. Had some very strange technical hurdles while making the T. rex even though it should have been really simple, but hey, it's a learning experience!
Original concepts are from Mega Man 7 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by Capcom.
Rendered with AiStandardSurface materials, textured in Substance Painter and Photoshop.
Rendered with AiStandardSurface materials, textured in Substance Painter and Photoshop.
Rendered with AiToon shader.
Rendered with AiToon shader.
Low poly and smoothed wireframes. Note that the geometry has been edited for this pose in order to match the concept artwork.
Low poly and smoothed wireframes. Only major change between this and the neutral pose is the tail.
Neutral pose 3/4 view, smooth preview. AiStandardSurface materials.
Low poly wireframe.
Had a lot of back-and-forth fixes I had to do with UVs. I managed to fix most of them but I encountered some very odd issues with symmetry and shells not stacking properly that I had to manually redo. Very odd considering its relative simplicity.
Neutral pose 3/4 view, smooth preview, AiStandardSurface materials.
Low poly wireframe.
I did this model before the T. rex as it was less complex. The UVs weren't as important in many areas but I had to redo many of the earlier geo shapes to get the right curvature.
Side, front and top views of King Gojulus.
Side, front and top views of Stegorus.
Substance Painter texturing process. Final line details were done in Photoshop with vector tools.
Substance Painter texturing process. The only touch-ups needed in Photoshop were the lines around the tubes connecting the cannons to the body.
Initial block-out in Zbrush. Ultimately only the head sculpts were used, and the rest of the body was poly-modelled in Maya. Stegorus (stegosaurus) was made entirely in Maya first before I started on King Gojulus (T. rex).
Making sure the jaws could actually close properly and that the teeth would line up.
Original artwork and sprites from Mega Man 7 (Capcom) and artwork by Ben Bates.
Thumbnail.
Teaser image I posted on Twitter.