Sphynx Warrior 2015.

When I was starting to learn all this 3D stuff I had a short list of things I'd like to sculpt.  That list is now much longer, but sometimes I revisit items already cherry picked and ticked off.  This is one of those.  Four years ago I sculpted a "Sphynx Warrior"; a humanoid with a Sphynx cat head a sword and shield and chunky paws for hands.  I'll save you from an image of it, that description already does it too much justice.  Sphynx cats are amazing for sculpting though as they're hairless, and I could keep the accessories to a minimum to stop the project getting out of control.

While researching lightweight swordsmen, I happened across Angampora, a Sri Lankan martial art.  Looking reference up before the Internet must've been such a sleuthing job!  There's no way I'd've found out about Angampora from a library growing up in the 90s.  Anyways, perfect for the job:  Lots of lithe chaps leaping around with simple outfits and lightweight weapons.  In fact, the pose is largely taken (sword arm, feet kicked back) from a picture I found online.

I've rendered out two views, as I was intending just the right facing one as the hero image but that missed out on the sash knot (yeah I could've just mirrored the sash before posing) but it turns out the left facing view feels more dynamic.

The background is a recoloured Utah salt flats pic taken by me that is also about four years old hah.

I like:

• The anatomy.  Enough to not put "anatomy" in the "dislike" section.  The wrinkly Sphynx head is good, the incredibly rotated right shoulder is good from the angle I'm viewing from, the feet and hands suit the character.
• The knot on the sash.  It's again a real flow of geometry.  It's how you tie a karate belt!  I like doing ZSphere knots.
• The eyes.  They have concave irises and there's another spherical tool which is transparent over that.  Much better than just painting on a sphere.
• How the pose has a sense of motion and reality even though it's quite extreme.  Especially in the left-facing view.
• That it's a measure of how I have improved over four years since my last Sphynx Warrior.

I dislike:

• Not spotting the surface on the lower section of the trousers with its normals inverted, a feature extruding inwards on ZModeler introduced, which made the cloth texture noise displace in rather than out on the lower leg.  Fixed in the pics, after another two hours swearing at layers.
• Slight colour differences between the two views despite using the same layer stack!  Missed something subtle.
• The right-facing view has lost some of the movement that was there when sculpting, probably from when I pulled back the perspective distortion to make it less fish-eye distorted.
• The cloth is too clean.  I should try doing tattered cloth one time.  The lack of grime / wear and tear is a common "flaw" of my work.  The cloth is also missing seams and stitching.

Overall, very pleased, although my improvements are now less leaps and bounds between projects.  It's entirely possible that my next posted project is also an old one.  I'm back on Paul Gaboury's UArtsy class and it's giving me a chance to revisit a mech I left 20% done as I didn't know where to go with it.  A toss up between that and more Ulala!