Morroblivion

Good start Shushine, I agree with you about "sheep's head". This is speed concept how I see Telvanni Dust Adepts Helm (I hope it's will be useful).  

My reaction

I would also make the 'skull' of the mask thicker around the breathing part, only to give a bit of elevation between the metal piece and the bone, like in Roman's art. Also add that carved line to the side of the face. It helps pronounce the facial features quite a bit :)

That1Cactus had a concept of this that might be worth looking at

You must be Bad_Mood_Larry! New member here on the forums, and you posted the screenshot on the dust helm and dunmer iron set on r/morrowind and asked for people's thoughts and opinions. :)

First off, welcome! Glad to have you around. You clearly have a good knack for thinking through processes, and even went to the trouble of taking screenshots!

You don't happen to have any sculpting experience, do you?

Like, they had some really good points and I think it's pretty crappy of y'all to dismiss them like that just because they're newer to the forums.

Listen I could draw up a pretty detailed/ higher res concept for this helmet in a few weeks once I've finished college apps, and I think I will. Because it would be really helpful for this one. 

I'm not a Morrowind scholar by any means, but design-wise I could see this model and another model that looks like the old one work together... As in same methods of crafting a dust helmet like that.

What looks weird to me is the "brain" of this model, it does look very grey hollywood alien-like.

Edit: I'm not very great and I don't draw very often,  I still tried something though. Didn't make it look more like the original though, just edited. Lol, also disregard the typo in the filename.

Nevermind.

the telvanni aren't really about practical designs. I think their content is definitely an area where things that don't make sense are allowed to be explored

also, this doesn't need to have eye holes necessarily. the original had some sort of lenses.

the elder scrolls hasn't always been one for realistic headwear design

That looks nice, but will the ears return?

for sure

they're kind of like little horns really, but they give the sort of lamb-eared appearance of the original.

I really do think that drago's paintover is a really solid representation of the eyes as well

yesss this was the concept. It was really really good, it's god the sort of weird hood-like thing as well. 

I could ask That1Cactus for permission to do a more detailed redraw of his mask concept, I don't know if he's ever on here anymore. If not I could just go ahead and do it this next week or so

Ears? I don't think you'd want ash in your ears :P This mask was built for a purpose

Alright, I see Shushine is at the verge of his patience, so... Why not annoy him even more? :P



I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, but here's an idea on how to merge Cactus' sketch with Shushine model. And I'm well aware this would require remaking the whole thing, that's why I'm not pushing anything. Just an idea. Looking neither like a sheep, nor like a kitten. I think it's pretty solid.

Again, sorry for coming out so late, but nobody's asked me before if there were concepts or ideas for this particular mask before modelling started, so I thought it would be on Shu's shoulders to design it while modelling... But I'm afraid the roots of art and lore direction are reaching too far at this moment to have something done outside of it. Just a remark, I hope this discussion doesn't get ugly, like a few others did (remember Imperial Armours that never got finished, because the freaking shade of purple wasn't satisfying).

Alright, nice. If you do find yourself following that concept, I made top, side and front views for an easier understanding of that shape. I think it looks pretty attractive from each angle.



Note however that these are 2D drawings and in 3D the shape might not exactly match up with all three at once, limits of my spacial imagination. But that's the shape I had in mind when making the previous repaint, and I believe it's more or less the lines and shapes That1Cactus made in the sketch.

Dragomir wrote:

I can dig it.  Looks good to me.  Like a cross between a big cat's skull and some giant angry bug.

@Dragomir: Really good enhancement. But from what material/creature is this supposed to be made?
 

Awesome! This is already looking dope. There are a few adjustments I'd do though, to make the shape even more refined.

The smooth angles in the concept for a big part decided on the attractivness of that helm, mostly because they made it look much more organic. Square angles are more of a man-made, industrial thing. It's very abstract to talk about, but lines and shapes are the base of every design - I hope it makes some sense.
 

Not sure what seems the most interesting looking to you and other guys, but to me those three red lines on the right pretty much sum up the shape of the idea I had in my head, so it might be good to try and match the shape to them.

Here it is without the lines, mostly the ears changed, and eyes a little bit:




Another thing you might consider is separating and portruding the upper "lip" a little bit. That isn't as important though, so if you find it too hard or ruining your model it's probably not necessary (although would enhance a lot).



What it does though, is it creates a shadow under the upper part of the mask separating and "underlining" it a bit. Many modern fantasy games tend to put a strong, overlining frame around each plate of their armour (especially ESO) - I think it's unnecessary and can be done with lighting tricks easily. But in both cases it defines the shape very well, only with shadow it's much more natural. As you can see, the upper part of the mask, that "bug head", reads much better now and is more in line with the rest of the shape. It seems to give it more depth as well, dark cavities (like under the cheeks, where tubes come out from) always make a sculpture more interesting, because our curiosity puts our eye in there - we want to know what hides there.

I hope this all helps a bit, I go through a similar process with most armour modellers and they seem to appreciate it for a big part ;)

This is absolutely gorgeous Shu, sexy as hell. I think the middle, second one has the most appeal, to me at least ;) Because it seems wider it also seems more insectoid.

Care to also throw in screenshots from a few other angles? We gotta keep an eye out to keep it looking good from each side ;)