[WIP] Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw

Thank you for the encouragement.

I was playing around with adding a neck guard today. The Neravarine can't be having their mullet disturbed (or their head cut off). I don't know much about the Bosmer except that they are cannibals and won't use wood. Oh and they can turn into crazy monsters during the wild hunt. I thought about doing a metal cage like twisted vines, or a plate of metal and bone. What do you think?

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As a bonus, once I get the texture done, we will also have a bear skull to use as clutter for when we get to Bloodmoon.

I forgot about that, but I got the lore from the Imperial Library:

"One of Valenwood's legendary heroes is Oreyn Bearclaw. Son of King Faume Toad-Eye, he was a respected clan hunter and a future leader. Wood Elven legend claims Oreyn single handedly defeated Glenhwyfaunva, the witch-serpent of the Elven wood, forever bringing peace to his clan. Oreyn would go on to accomplish numerous other deeds, eventually losing his life to the Knahaten Flu. His Helm stood as a monument of his stature for future generations to remember. The Helm was lost eventually, as the Clan split, and is now a treasured artifact for adventurers. The Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw is rumored to improve the wearers agility and endurance."

The Bethesda devs said that race breeds true to the mother, so his heir could have been any race.

I do appreciate your compliment, and I believe that you are right that a plated one would end up looking better. I'll probably do a metal and bone combination to keep the helmet consistent.

I finished UV mapping the model and I made a placeholder texture for it, so I thought I'd show it off:

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Once I get ZBrush, I'm going to sculpt in all the little pores, creases, and joint cracks. That bake will be for the bear skull prop. Then I'll take it back in ZBrush and sculpt the carvings and some bone inlay for the neck guard. That bake will be for the helmet itself. So I've taken this as far as I can for now. Expect an update in a few weeks, and in the meantime, I'm off to my next low poly.

I decided to get this up on Sketchfab. I included the fat male head from Bethesda for fitting ref, and sketchfab decided to color it rainbow. I'm not sure if that is their way of indicating that I didn't make the model, or a statement on the sexuality of that particular male head. I don't care to speculate.

https://sketchfab.com/show/52911511f8eb4e548bac27d973ffba23

I finally bought ZBrush and learned how to use it. Here is the polypainted high poly. Barring an excess of distaste, I think the bake is all that's left (besides morph targets, nifskoping and putting it in-game.)

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@ Ravanna- I have no idea what you're talking about, but once I translate that to stupid, that will be my new process.

@Smitehammer- I thought it would be more interesting to have it as carvings instead of just engraving (technically scrimshaw on bone). And I figured n animal bone is pretty thick. Check out what they did with a cow skull in Taiwan:

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@Shushine- Thank you. I should have known that. I'm still a Znoob. I switched the material and updated the screen above. It does look better than the skinshader. It does have so much self illumination or subsurface scattering.

@no1- scroll up to the earlier pictures in this thread. It shows how it sits on the Skyrim head. The current model is a littel more close fitting, but it will give you an idea. I modelled it after a photo of a bear skull, but I had to shorten the length and make it wider. Using realistic proportions made the character look too much like a duck.

I got it all baked and applied to the lo poly game model. Since the geometry for the carvings is gone, the carvings look cut into the bone as opposed to embossed on top of it. Sketchfab pretty much ignores normal maps and specular, but I assure you it will look right in the game. Here's somewhat what we will have.

https://sketchfab.com/show/4e86c55499dc4a60bb52db059f392371

I was asking Ravanna, but I guess I'll just ask everyone. Is anyone here good at getting models in-game with the morph targets and everything?

Actually, a mohawk could be modelled seperately and added in nifskope, It would need a different texture though. The only problem is that the base helm is already pretty high in poly count, and to do a mohawk well would push it into ridiculous. What about for the trollbone helmet or the Bloodworm helm?

It's funny you should mention the Dragonbone Mail. After I bake the Fists of Randagulf tomorrow, I'll be starting on that sculpt. I claimed all three at the same time, because that is my end game suit and I want it to work together aesthetically.

Done. done. In-game. Done.

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Move this back to unclaimed. This model will be released in an upcoming independent mod released long before Skywind.