Full Project - Toa Hagah
April 2022
This project came as a bit of a surprise to myself. A friend of mine recently posted art of their original concept for a Super Sentai/Power Rangers team themed around knights. I was immediately inspired and driven to try my hand at modeling something from this in 3D. My goal was to bring the helmet of the red ranger to life. This was a very fun and brief challenge that I thought would be a great way to test how far my skills (in Blender) have come.
This project came together quite fast, with only around 30 hours across one month from start to finish. I had to work very fast with the momentum and inspiration instilled in me. For once, I was able to get a project done quickly and efficiently without getting too caught up in the details.
Concept Art
To start off, I really wanted to approach this project as a challenge of my developing skills. How professional and clean can I get with how far I have progressed as a 3D artist? I did not want to do the exact same process as I had for previous projects. With that, I started out with the basics by taking the concept art and using it as a template to create 2D planes that could be expanded and eventually put together as one whole piece. It was pretty easy to visualize it as such, and even though there were many changes necessary to make it work in 3 dimensions, it was a good blueprint to follow since this was all being built from scratch.
Eventually we moved into the expansion, extruding edges to give depth. This was really fun because it was a mix of following the prompt but also having the freedom to interpret this model as my own.
Progress Pictures
Major components were kept separate while smaller less significant or relatively easy to connect parts were slowly integrated into one another as the modeling process continued. For example: the upper helmet was relatively easy to visualize and bridge in areas like the "eyes" and animal arch motif, while others like the ears and spikes of the mane were tougher to imagine fitting together and thus were left out of the big picture until the time came to put it all together. The visor in particular was left out entirely, as I felt that in the spirit of making this as realistic and true to the real world inspiration, the visor should be treated as a separate insertable component.
As a reference for the final shape of the helmet, I pulled in a 3D head asset from previous projects as a base to round out the model. With this, I could curve the aforementioned planes as if pasting them onto a plain helmet (much like real life helmet crafting). This was really helpful for filling in the gaps between prominent pieces.
Once initial modeling was finished, I made combined all of the parts as best I could, making sure edges met where appropriate and the model overall obeyed the rules of 3D modeling. After that, I did a big edit adding in bevels and extra edge loops to better shape the model when smooth shading is applied. Before such, while the model looked sharp without smooth shading, it all becomes mush without extra edges and geometry to hold it all in place.
Retopologized Model
With a finished first pass at the helmet model, I went ahead to retopologize for a much cleaner and more efficient final product. As a result of the extra edge loops and bevels, some edges were unnecessary and overused, ironically. With a retopologized model, I could clean up unsightly areas of the first draft, and smooth out parts that could be presented much better that I had not foreseen in the initial planning. One such area was the rounding of the rear helmet, where initially I had one pattern of geometry to form the simplistic rounded back, but I felt a new layout better served the rest of the connection points going towards the very detailed front.
Once the new model was created, I went in for one last round of bevels and edge loops. Armed with knowledge from the first pass, and how I had compensated for the changes with the new topology, this new model was much easier to add to. Areas that needed to be sharp could be made without adding the unnecessary fat elsewhere.
At last, with modeling completely finished, the next step was adding some color and shine. UV mapping has always been a bit of a daunting task for me, especially with objects that are more organic and less geometric. Luckily, since this has almost all been a product of my own (and thanks to the concept art), I knew exactly how I needed to visualize the texturing. I had to do a couple passes at defining the UV cuts, but I got there eventually. This project was not very demanding as far as color diversity and definition, so actually formatting the texture map was pretty easy. Once that was all done, we had our finished product.
This project was very fun and very challenging. As I said before, I am very glad to have brought this from start to finish in one go, without breaks for burnout. I know for a fact that if I stalled for any moment, I would lose steam and interest. I was able to keep my expectations grounded and my goals simple, and as a result I think it turned out very well. It's nothing fantastic, but seeing as this is an adaptation of an original idea, with minimal reference and material to compare to, plus a creative process (for 3D space) all my own, this was a great success. Even though the concept was not my own, I felt it actually helped with motivation, because in a way it was like working on a professional project pipeline. I got to show off the final project to the public, to much praise and appreciation from the original creator. I might just have to do more projects like this at some point. This was a great way to flex my creative muscle and demonstrate how I've honed my skills and knowledge over the past few years.
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