I didn't know how to approach the dome part at first since it looked intricate and complicated so I just settled with creating tiny individual, raised hexagons. For every bit of the shell. That I will eventually merge together. I had to ask for my sister for advice and she was like GO SCULPT SOMETHING IN ZBRUSH YOU STUPID BABY LUIGI FAN (well she wasn't THAT rude, she did offer help but you get my point).
it was MY suggestion to create smaller hexagon pieces so you could dupe them over
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also learn Zbrush / other kind of 3d sculpting you twit
 
goddammit lgm
 
also, learn the wacom too, stop using a goddamn rock to draw your stupid defective bro group

btw we do have wacom, this is aimed at my sister who just doesn't want to use it; if you're stuck with a rock to draw with, no offense intended, I won't scream at you though
 
LB MODEL UPDATE #2
The glasses were easy to make.

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Next part....the body, which will be tricky. I've modeled quite a bit of jackets myself but they're typically a bit annoying to get down properly.

While I modeled the jacket, I finally added the nostrils. Just needed two extrusions... (never mind the time gap between the two images, it didn't take me THAT long to model the jacket....)

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Well, after I made the general shape of the jacket, I had done a lot of small little tweaks to it before I added the rest of the Guzma clothing to him. And by small, I mean by making his jacket more like a jacket and less like a coat.

Finished it off with that good ol' iconic Guzma necklace. It's difficult to see what the chains are made of so I just made it accurate to portrayals I see of it in the anime and official artwork and his official model.

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(don't mind TPG's first model of LB in the background)

Next up: modeling the Bowsery bits: the arms, legs, and tail.
 
LB MODEL UPDATE #3
Hoo boy. Just the arms and maybe some more tweaks to the overall LB model and maybe I'll finally start unwrapping, so exciting. But hands can be annoying as hell to model, especially fingers. I'll give it my best. FORTUNATELY, Bowser has only three fingers and a thumb, might be simple to model, really. Maybe I'm wrong. Thing about Bowser's arm model is that it's slightly tiled on the X axis (towards you) for some reason so I'll have to work with that.

BTW, I REALLY should have unwrapped before I duplicated all of those tiny elements. I think Maya's own unwrapping tool will take care of that, fortunately, since the duped models aren't exactly complicated.

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There we go, his hands are done.

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Tail. Wasn't hard to do, was a simple cone with more cones on it.

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And the feet, to finish things off. Yes, the pads on the soles are actually modeled. To achieve that hard edge effect, place edge-loops around the ridge to harden it a bit.

Aaaaand, here he is.

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And I'm only like a fifth of the way there! There's unwrapping, texturing, rigging, and finally porting to Gmod (means I have to write joint constraints and create a collision model) that I need to undertake! :D :D :D :D

And I'm still gonna render his model in Toolbag too!
 
LB MODEL UPDATE #4
Now, I'm-a gonna run this model through UVLayout. Maya DOES have its own unwrapper tool, but some things got borked in the process while my sister taught me how to use that I want to run it through my old friend again. UVLayout isn't a free program, but it does have a trial version that you can freely use...as long as you go back to the site and redownload constantly. UVLayout is also entirely hot-key based, so it's not friendly for new users, but once you lean the keys, unwrapping things is a breeze.

You may ask, what is unwrapping? The best analogy for it is to think how an atlas works. Atlases are basically a flat representation of the world, something you can map out in a 2D space. In modeling, this is translating your model into a 2D plane. It's the reason you can get freaky looking textures such as this, this is technically a flattened Donkey Kong. There's even a plugin for Maya named "Roadkill" since...well your models DO look like roadkill when you flat them out.

Donkey Kong
Anyway, you flatten your model out, causing the least distortions possible (either pinching or stretching), and UVLayout provides a great visual aid on how it works, and may even provide beginners clues on how to cut seams on your model so it flattens properly. You want as less seams as possible on your model, since seams screw around with your tiling, and so typically, seams are drawn in areas you don't see them or in hard ridges. If any of you know how to sew things together, it's a bit similar to that.

I've got LB loaded.

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So, you can tackle any shell you want, but the one I'd like to tackle first is the hands.

Hands away!

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Don't worry, this dragging won't be reflected on the final model, so all is good.

When you cut, you have to look at how the model is pieced together. One of the best aids on where to cut is to take a look at official models and try finding their seams and follow what they do. It takes practice to fully figure out where are the best parts to cut seams but there is a general rule to look for that I've already outlined earlier in this post.

In UVLayout, clicking C on the edges cuts a seam. Double clicking C on a seam selects the entire edgeloop. W welds seams back together.

See, quads are amazing and stuff you can get only in your own created models! 🤗

I've cut some seams already.

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Pressing "Enter" cuts it

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I then press "D" on the cylinder object, as that's read to be flattened, and then press U, which takes me to the flattener.

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I press and hold "F" on the model, and it visually flattens it!

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So...that's how you use this program for the most part (there's more to it such as fixing your sewing mistakes and reverting your model to the workspace if you make a mistake). I'm not going to outline every step, but you have to do this for almost all parts of the model. As I said earlier, Maya has its own unwrapper tool so you don't have to switch between programs if you don't want to, but I highly recommend this program if you want a feel on how to cut seams and unwrap.

(After two hours of unwrapping)

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Looks done but there ARE a few tweaks I need to make, specifically in the mouth region. His mouth isn't actually symmetrical, so I'm going to fix that asap. I'll import him back to Maya and group the parts together that will share same material. Texturing is the next step in Substance Painter, which I need to pay attention to what models use what material and share those together so Substance separates those.
 
(I actually mispelled "Эй" and it was far too late for me to correct it before I realized it but shhhh no Real Russians are here to correct me this time)
hi (not that i noticed though dw)
anyway i do gotta give a huge appreciation for how the faux cyrillics was done. it actually reads how its supposed to and not like, when they just replace R with a Я and then make me read it as "ya" every time and its Bad
 
Kontrast: Ray TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! I HATE the color green!
 
Seeing all of these likes is very encouraging! Makes me wanna post more notebook crap.

So I will.

Time spent playing the Sims 4 had a pretty profound impact ony inspirations I know.

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This is one of the earliest drawings I had of the Protectors. As you can see, they're Dark Light clones and I used colored pens to distinguish them. Redshift got conflated with being Mexican and my sister even thought he was the hothead at first, since a lot of these moments would irritate him. Ray Trace didn't speak in half Cyrillic yet as I didn't know the letters and he wasn't as overtly goofy back then, mostly more smug than stupid (the top area has me rambling about stats and I laugh today reading how Ray Trace has a 5/5 intelligence rating though back then I didn't really intend to make him stupid just a smug egomaniac who would poke fun at others).

Konny is still pretty butt monkey...y back then and yeah it was fun drawing him brushing up against Ray Trace. Ulta Violet mostly retained everything about him, same with Bluminescence, though here he has this naivety about him that's rather goofy and mischievous.

Dark Light made only one appearance here. That's because the rest of the Protectors were still entirely new characters, and I had much fun conjuring up scenarios that would be both entertaining and explore their personalities and how they'd react to situations. They're still very rough foundations here: Redshift is just the super serious one, Ray Trace was this smug guy who clashes with Kontrast, Bluminescence was cheerful and naive, Ultra Violet was negative and cynical, and Kontrast was a buttmonkey who clashes with Ray Trace.

Some concepts floating around were ultimately ditched, such as them being etheral spirits. Hence why Dark Light was communicating via pond in that image.

I believe these were drawn around 2017.
 
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Ray Trace, responsible™ Protector. On the bright side, Baby Luigi strongly appreciates the help Redshift gives him. No credit to Ray Trace though! Oh and there is a particular reason Redshift has a tendency to run out of bait while he is fishing.
 
Conradine going LEAVE ME ALONE AND DON'T CALL ME "CONNIE!!!!!"
 
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