[Feedback?] Fire skull monster thing animation

[Zanorin]

Hey all, I just made this little guy here

Thing is his skull is supposed to be made of steel, and currently it looks more like crap than steel. I need some help, I'm clueless as to where to start and how to texture shiny metal ;_; an edit or anything that could help me would be much appreciated !

[Roccstar1oh1]

Usually when you think of metal, you think of a highly reflective surface. I would try some high contrast on your mask, like almost pure white which fades into an almost pure black.


Here is a crappy edit I made, but you could kind of see what I mean.
Nice monster design by the way, almost reminds me of a boss from the legend of zelda: a link to the past lol

[eishiya]

Shiny materials are shiny because they are reflective. So, the skull should be reflecting the environment and the flame body. The reflections will be distorted, since the skull isn't a flat surface, but the colours and values should give an idea of the reflected objects.

Edit:

Here I had a bit of flame reflect on the side of the face, and made the shadows "streaky", which suggests some large dark objects reflecting off the shiny metal.

[Zanorin]

Thank you so much guys for your help !

I see what you mean Roccstar, your edit is indeed "metallic", but what I was trying to convey was a piece of metal with really sharp edges, nothing "smooth" (should have mentioned it), so in my case eishiya's edit will work better for what I'm trying to do. But I kinda followed your advice on the shading of my skull's outline, I think it looks better.

Anyway here's my thing, I tried not to copy too much but eh sorry can I say it's finished ?

almost reminds me of a boss from the legend of zelda: a link to the past

It's supposed to be some kind of Pokémon, but that's a great compliment for me since I love that game

[Zanorin]

So I gave a try to animating my little monster, sort of an idle animation that shows off the fact that he's powerful and heavy and, y'know, made of fire. What do you guys think ?

[tecnologgamer]

So I gave a try to animating my little monster, sort of an idle animation that shows off the fact that he's powerful and heavy and, y'know, made of fire. What do you guys think ?

Looks awesome!

[Zanorin]

Thank you, I'm glad you like it
I'd like to know if something's off about my animation though

[Hunited]

The fire looks amazing, but the body looks more like molten metal or something. (Which I think looks great too, but y'know, not really made of fire then.)

[Zanorin]

Thank you for your feedback Hunited !
Well actually yeah I didn't really think about it at the time but I'm fine with the "molten metal look" ; could it also be perceived as lava ? And keeping that in mind, how can I make the "torso" look more like lava and less like a chunk of coagulated chewinggum ? :')

[Hunited]

I guess adding some bubbles or a feeling of bubbling by just suggesting bubbles? Either way, some sort of slow movement, like lava creeping down a hill after an eruption.

[Zanorin]

You're giving me some nice ideas there, I'll do this as soon as I have some time and post the result here 

[Zanorin]

Added some animated bubbly/flowy lava texture on the monster's body. Is it better ? Worse ? Can't tell the difference ?

[MysteryMeat]

Looking good! The legs feel kind of like blown glass, which is a neat aesthetic.

[Zanorin]

Thank you very much, I'm glad you like it :3

[Hunited]

The animation is very much like a gen 3 pokemon animation, like when you summon Camerupt

That's what it reminds me of.

[Zanorin]

Awesome, because that was exactly what I was going for. And gen 3 is the best *-*

[Hunited]

Well, if that's what you were going for, I think you did very well to emulate the same feel without copying the style of animation exactly. (P.S. if you worked on it any more, please share <3)

[Zanorin]

Thank you, your appreciation is heartwarming I don't plan on changing anything, I think it's finished as it is now