It's out boys get it from the link in my sidebar under Squire's Plate Redo.
Man this was fun! A design like this is very familiar to me so it shouldn't come to anyone's surprise that development was smooth. But over time during development I found a style to adhere to and that was to incorporate the shape of the pauldron in every mesh where possible. The gauntlet kind of has that shape in the knuckles, the sword and the scabbard are both full of it, and the bevor on the helmet is similarly shaped. Little things like that, design choices that serendipitously appear as such, they are so much fun.
I think the textures are really nice this time. Both for the metal and the leather. I did a lot of experimenting in substance and really tried to focus on actual materials and realism. I'm still not there yet, obviously, but I'm making steps. Overall, I'm super pleased with the textures and I think they came out very clean. My workflow is definitely faster now, too, now that I fully use the high poly baking method for my geometry.
There is so much I learned in Blender, too! Little things like checking for the direction that faces are pointing to, and working with proper edge flow. There was a lot I learned about proper topology and I think my meshes are cleaner compared to the Dark Witch and especially the Dragonstar armor.
Lastly, SMP. It was a breeze this time, save for a small stretching issue that turned out to be caused by shitty weighting on my end. I think it adds a lot to the flair of the outfit. I'm glad I bit the bullet and went the extra mile to add it to work. Thanks, past me.
Overall: This is something I can really be proud of! It was worth a redo and I learned so much. The project wasn't as draining as my previous ones, and I really feel invigorated to do more! I already have an idea and I plan on getting to sketching as soon as possible!
