s25 - surprise zandalari

Sending these model exhibition images to Big Supporters real soon.

I was planning on doing this last month but that didn't pan out because of stuff, then I figured I wouldn't be in the mood to work on him this month either...well plans have changed, and now he's done & ready. I'll be sharing him with ak0 soon as well so he can also have the goodies.

So the previous Zandalari model I had been using is functional, but ultimately broken. It's rather technically esoteric to get into, but the short story is that I gave him some very funky joint weights that would end up deforming him the longer I worked on his poses. So in the span of an entire project, he'd be ridiculously deformed and noodle-like by the end of it. It would then require a lot of fixing on my end to get rid of the noodling. It didn't become obvious until I started trying more complex poses with him. And because of that, I put a hold on pretty much any complex projects involving Zandalari until I could tweak a new model for him.

And here he is. So that brings our current updated models list to...:

• Orcs
• Goats 
• Moos 
• Regular Humans 
• The unseen Night Elf
• Zandalari

So the reason why the previous model ("Old" in the comparison pics) had funky joint weights is because I relied on them as an "easy" way to beef up his body. It seemed awfully convenient at the time, but of course now I know better since it'll cause deformation if I'm not being careful. This time around, I sculpted him a nice and thick body w/o "cheating", and I've kept his new look roughly close to the previous model. Though of course now there are the usual suite of upgrades that you are familiar with, such as more geometry for things like detailed abs, multiple types of "holes", an improved peach, etc.

Probably the trickiest change is actually his height. My funky joint weights gave him much longer legs in the previous model, which I thought was a pretty decent look. But now since I couldn't manipulate those weights anymore, I had to very carefully stretch out multiple joints along his leg to give him about the same height that he had before. I think I did a pretty decent job there; it's not too obvious that he's stretched out a bit. Would you have even known if I didn't tell/show you? And these height changes are reversible of course, so if for some reason I needed a shorter or more "regular" sized Zandalari, the option is always there.

Now for the other big change: the gilding of his skin. I've seen a lot of other people try and improve the look of those gilded tattoos, some certainly a lot better than others. I'm someone who doesn't like to go *too* off-model because I feel like you run the risk of having your stuff look too strange and alien. So right away, I knew I didn't want to go with any effects that were perhaps too reflective or chintzy in some way.

With that in mind, I had two ideas for his tattoos: depth and shine.

For depth, I knew I wanted more than just the very smooth look of the default tattoos (and what other artists seem to double down on). I decided on doing a brushed metal effect. Whether you like that brushed metal effect or not is obviously subjective (and I can certainly change it by request), but I personally like the look, so it's going to be my own default way of gilding his tattoos going forward.

As for the shine, that part was pretty easy. And it doesn't need much explaining either; you can see it for yourself in these images how his tattoos shine (and reflect) like metal.

Speaking of gold, I've also applied similar effects to the other golden parts of his body, like those golden tusks and his many other pieces of jewelry. They're also reversible of course for a more traditional look.

The color of all of these golden parts can be adjusted too. Right now it has a bit of a deep copper-gold alloy look to it, but I could certainly change it up to look more like a traditional gold. Or ultra pale yellow like a pyrite (fool's gold), a rose gold, a green gold (???), etc.

Am I going to gild his member? Probably not with any of my OC Zandalari. That's a step too far with the gaudiness imo. But if someone like a commissioner wants that, then sure maybe.

One more interesting thing about this model that I'd like to note is that I'm actually trying to attach Darkspear Troll hairstyles onto this model. They're still a bit wonky and require more fine tuning, but it's very much a feasible possibility, and I would certainly love to see some Zandalari OCs with more "wild" hairstyles in the future. I'm sure a decent amount of other assets might be cross compatible too (like face tattoos and such), but I haven't tested those yet.

I think that covers everything I wanted to say. This specific Zandalari isn't a new OC or anything; he's roughly based on my Druid OC, except I put a bunch of golden stuff on him all over the place to demonstrate the new looks and such. My actual Druid OC, as you may recall, is much more ascetic in appearance. Less gold and more naked body to focus on. 👀

Expect to see much more Zandalari content in the future, now that he's ready. In fact, I'm already working on a few new quickie ideas with him...