• 🏆 Texturing Contest #33 is OPEN! Contestants must re-texture a SD unit model found in-game (Warcraft 3 Classic), recreating the unit into a peaceful NPC version. 🔗Click here to enter!
  • It's time for the first HD Modeling Contest of 2024. Join the theme discussion for Hive's HD Modeling Contest #6! Click here to post your idea!

Sorceress.blp

This bundle is marked as useful / simple. Simplicity is bliss, low effort and/or may contain minor bugs.
An African sorceress. She channels her energy through her magic bow.
Maybe a leader of a nomadic tribe. Maybe she's a wandering arcanist searching out the mysteries of the world. I dunno. Loosely based off of maasai peoples.

Hopefully I'll have some similar skins soonish.

Update: I fixed some stuff. The cat looks more like a leopard, and the pads aren't as crap. More clothes.

Update 2: She fed her shoulder pads of cheese to orphans, and now has pads that offer much better protection. They're based off of maasai shields. The wrap on the shoulder pads didn't come out like I thought, though still looks good. I made her scarf less scarf-like and more like traditional maasai accessories. The leopard looks like it actually has fur on its head. Her dress isn't as bright anymore. I changed her headband too, because it looked kinda shitty before. There were some alpha issues that I fixed that showed up in certain angles of the wrap.

Update 3: Folds of dress look more natural. Slight change to skin color. Edited some ugly spots of light on the leopards fur. The screenshot depicts an enlarged version and regular so you can see what it will look like ingame.

Keywords:
Sorceress, African, Priestess, Dreads, Magic, Leopard, Heroine, arcane
Contents

Sorceress (Texture)

Reviews
11:00, 7th Feb 2015 Misha: a funky mix of colors, undefined skin sections like that cloth piece and arms, lack of shading and highlights and lack of defining in materials, like folds and creases in the cloth, for an example. still.. not bad for...

Moderator

M

Moderator

11:00, 7th Feb 2015
Misha:
a funky mix of colors, undefined skin sections like that cloth piece and arms, lack of shading and highlights and lack of defining in materials, like folds and creases in the cloth, for an example.

still.. not bad for first try.. hit the hive tutorials and try again, and also look at other skins here to see how they are looking, for inspiration
 
Level 30
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
3,551
Before anything else, alphaing out any part of skin that has glow designed to stick to it is really never a good idea. Yes, you can alpha out weapons, like I did on my watcher skin, but mostly if the wrap does not allow it to customize it anyway possible plus when it does not have glow underneath. It looks quite out of place, even with the fact that she has a wand now, her attack animation is odd, and the string is still there tho it shouldn't be.

While I'm still at alpha channels, the teamcolor of the shoulder pads is painfully full - you can use a low opacity eraser combined with smudge tool to get a gradient coloration on alpha channel, and make it look natural (again, I reference to my Watcher skin, specifically on the glove material, so that you can see how's the gradient team color done) It's also a shame that, being the most visible part of the priestess herself, the shoulder pads are lacking any detail and are fully blank.

For the skin itself, I do have to admit that I love the idea, but I'm also not sure what is the overall concept or the race. I'll assume it's a human female riding a black panther. If you wanted to do the African theme, a tiger or cheetah would fit the skin much more.

I'd also like to point out that even though the area to work on on the priestess is very small and not fully visible in-game, it doesn't mean that it shouldn't have any details at all, or be blurred. To work your way on small textures, you need large, popping details, such as in this case, a large belt could do, a simple breast armor (If she's African, she's probably used to a lot of high temperatures, therefore, minimize the cloths), or a large crown with a big gem on it.

Overall, I love the concept, but it's sloppily executed. A little too blurry, and needs some work, but it's an amazing start.
 
Level 2
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Messages
12
Thanks, guys!

Apheraz: Those shoulder pads do look like poop. I actually hate those shoulder pads, and I'm going to do as you suggested.
I don't suppose there is a way to get rid of the shoulder pads completely?
I'll figure something out for the bow. I missed that the tips of it aren't showing up like I thought. Conceptually the limbs of the bow were supposed to be magical, allowing the bow to be any length desired. At any rate it looks gummed up in it's current state, so I'll address it.
Actually instead of less clothes, I'll probably add more. :p
She is supposed to be based loosely on the Maasai people, so she'll have more clothes. Her garb does need some more love though.
The faction is going to be a hodge-podge of magic wielding folk. The setting is an alternative reality to earth, but mana is a resource and it affects the course of human development in crazy ways. But not everyone uses it for magic. I'll type up a concise paper on it all at some point. Or maybe draw up some concepts for skins before actually making them.
Also, I said it's a panther, but that is confusing because it is actually a black leopard. They can be found in Kenya. Not all that common, and not nearly that big, but they are there.
You know, I could go back and add some faint dark jaguar spots to make it more jaguar-ish.


Edit: Also, your icons and human sorceress skin are beautiful.
 
Last edited:
Level 30
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
3,551
Unfortunately, no, if a part of the model is designed to have team color on that specific part, then any skin applied over it with an attempt to alpha that out, will just team-color it.

Love the rework ideas, do try to find some artworks for reference, and update the skin soon :)

Edit: Oh, thanks :)
 
Level 30
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
Messages
3,551
It helps to attract the mice to feed the mount.

The update is a good progress. I do like the new texture for mount's skin, but I also see parts of blue textures from standard UVWrap, example is around mount's eyes. The color is nicer now, overall, and this starts to develop the concept nicely. I don't, however, like the texture difference on the cat's head: the area above eyes is smooth, while the other parts of the unwrap look hairy and grubby (lookin' good). You might want to try out the green eyes for the cat, it could fit the skin better.

The scarf beneath the head could really benefit from some shadows, it draws too much of the attention to it and it isn't good.

Shoulderpads are now, well, cheesy lol. I'd love to see a rune or two in teamcolor there, or at least a border where it ends. Yellow isn't helping too much to overall color explosion, I think that dark color would do magic to this skin.

Needs more work :)
 
hm.. what i'm seeing here, is that various pieces of the texture aren't really that good defined not separated from the other pieces, like those arms, or the dress, neither of them look that much like a skin surface or clothing.. I just feel that they'll be needing a little less focus on the pretty colors and more focus on the right shapes for skin texture and cloth folds and creases.. there are a lot of 2D tutorials here that explain just that, how to make clothes that look believable in war3, so don't be lazy and look them up..
 
Level 2
Joined
Nov 4, 2010
Messages
12
That was purely a smart ass response to Misha as a moderator, because I wished he had given some pointers in his first comments than tell me that it looked like poop. Maybe I don't understand his role as moderator, but I credit him for giving me tips, and I've only been thankful for the tips you all have given. Even Grendel's comment on her cheese shoulders. You guys told me the problem and I fixed it.

EDIT: Not that he shouldn't of told me it looked like poop, I just think he had responsibility to say how it looks like poop. Which he eventually did.

Grendel: I've sent apology messages directly to Misha and Apheraz, because they were the ones that were directly affected I think. If you were offended as well, I am sorry.

As a forewarning to those in the future, in the words of Dogberry, "But, masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass."
 
Last edited:
Top