New bear skins experiment

[Wain]

Wow thanks guys. Thanks for your kind comments

I made more progress with the white skin tonight. I lightened it and gave it stronger contrast, and also lightened the shading around the eyes. I now think I need to go back and give the eyes a little more contrast, and also make them a little rounder, but not much.

One thing I screwed up was a couple of sections of the skin that I thought weren't used, but actually do appear in underarm areas. As a result these areas have some sharp lines where it should be smooth (hidden in the above shots). I need to go back and fix those, and one artefact line in the ears.




A comparison shot, showing the old white bear flanked by mine (left) and the Legion one (right). Click on the image to see it in full size:



I wonder if I should try to brighten the skin further.

[zedxrgal]

Love it!!!

Lighter would be nice but I don't feel what you've done isn't amazing. I hope that came out right. It's 100 times better than the Legion model.

The eyes right now look fine to me only because bear has perma snarl. So I wouldn't suspect it's eyes would be open to much more than they already are. My only suggestion would be maybe make them a more vibrant blue? So they pop more.

[Wain]

Thanks Yes, I definitely need to make the eyes pop more, and SpiritBinder suggested I make them a tiny bit larger - the reason being that the head on the new bear is bigger so the eyes look tinier.

Looking at yesterday's work again, I'm not as happy with it today. I need to increase the definition on the fur again, as it seems to have dropped (the shadows are fainter).

I dual-boot Mac and Windows. I do most of this work in Windows but sometimes I find things appear a bit different and clearer in Mac, so when I reboot and check I pick up issues I didn't notice in Windows. I'm not sure why this is. It's the same computer, graphics card and monitor. I've tried calibrating it, but something different isn't quite right in Windows

[Wain]

White skin: Further lightened the skin and cleaned up some of the dark artefact areas. I'm still unhappy with some of the shading in the leg creases but much happier overall. Maybe it still needs to be a bit yellower (see comparison shot at the bottom) but I think it's light enough.

At SpiritBinder's suggestion I made the eye bigger. The original bear had a small eye, but it also had a smaller head compared to its body. I can't do anything about the big noggin the new model has, so maybe I need to adapt to circumstances. I think the slightly larger eye does look better.




Comparison shot with original bear and official white (left):

[zedxrgal]

Gee-ma-knees. Just when I thought your recolors couldn't get any better they do.

Now seeing the larger eye with that bright blue I agree w/SB's idea to make it a little larger. Much better.
The color is almost spot on. Not sure you could make him any lighter. Although a lighter like ..................... vanilla color would be good too.

Almost like this!


MMmmmmm ice cream.

But I digress.

Bear looks good. Blizzard needs to hire you.

[Wain]

Damnit you made me hungry

[Wain]

So I'm getting to the point that I'm pretty much happy with this one:





Here's a comparison between mine (left), the old polar bear and Blizzard's official replacement (right):



I think it's now pretty similar in colouring and lighting to the original, at least as much as I can expect with the different model shape and skin format.


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And here's the skin file for mine

[Vephriel]

Very impressive work Wain! I love how you've managed to bring the colours back to that clean vanilla hue. I can't get over how much the official one looks like a dirty rag now, it's so drab and dark.

Fingers crossed and praying that this thread might catch the attention of someone at Blizzard and they'll consider tweaking the colours some more.

[Wain]

Thanks It was a fun experiment and I'm pretty happy with the result. I think it's closer than I thought I could achieve

[zedxrgal]

*passes out*

Damn that is PERFECT. Where do I sign the petition to get that bear!?

Amazing job Wain.

[Nhee]

if these were made official I would tame them in a heartbeat. Especially the black bear, it's perfect <3

[Wain]

Aw thanks I'm still surprised I got them as close as I did

[Teigan]

I wish there were bears that looked like this in game. Much truer to the originals.