Samedi Concept Art

Alright Kiddies, here we go again!

I've been scratching my brain trying to think of a solid way to present the Samedi to The Final Nights. In order to do this clan justice I feel it will be incredibly important to get the "look" right. Samedi are NOT Nosferatu, and shouldn't look like one, they are in fact undead who's skin is constantly rotting and falling off. They look like zombies, they smell like zombies, and sound like zombies. So the first thing that comes to mind when coming up with the "Artsy" side of the Samedi is Resident Evil. RE did it best, so that's going to be my basis for the textures and models.

Now, the first thing we need to do is get away from the Nossie look, and that starts with the model. Here's a screenshot of what I've done so far. First I got rid of the chain on his chest, we don't need that getting in the way of our "Samedi Look". Next I took all of the ear rings out of his ears and eye lids, we don't need those either. Then I shrunk his teeth down to look more natural, and brought them inward like normal teeth, remember this guy isn't supposed to be deformed, he's supposed to be undead. The last thing, and the hardest thing was shrinking the ears down, I did this the best I could trying to get rid of the elf look. Obviously I couldn't do much with this, but it's at least better.

The last thing I tried to do was kill the long talons, which I couldn't touch because the vertices have animation and it came out all jacked up in the game. Here's a closeup screenshot of our Samedi's model.






Now if editing the 3D model wasn't hard enough, now it's time to get the texture of a zombie down. This is alot harder than it looks. I spent about 3 1/2 hrs tonight just on his Tier 1 face, and it wasn't easy. For the past week I've been looking at hundreds of pictures of zombies on the internet, both movie and video game to get my ideas.

I gave him lifeless eyes, that was the first step. Next I deadened the skin adding alot of detail to the wrinkled, squishy, texture. Using layers in Photoshop I was able to then "Lay Down" open wounds onto his face, and then using shaders to make them look sunken into the skin, like the skin rubbed off showing tissue and muscle. I ever added a little white to represent where some of the muscle rotted away showing bone.

I hope you guys like the direction this is going. The Samedi are probably my favorite clan so I really want to NAIL the look. So far I think it's turning out great! Obviously I've only done the head... the body will probably take a solid 8-12 hours to do.













Again this is just the head, I haven't started the body yet. I wanted to see what you guys thought before continuing... Hope you like it!

Would it be possible to use Jack's model? His face is perfectly gaunt as well.

You could use Papa Shango-type images as a reference and with your sense of style, you could easily actualize it, making him look agonizingly tired, well-worn, weighed down with the dust of the grave. Where his skull face paint would be, his actual skull is taking its place, being revealed by patches and strips of missing flesh. The skin of his face being a little like dried kelp, should look as though it's fighting a losing battle against wind erosion. You can make him a moist leper everywhere else. And if you can, he should have teeth like Robert Judd as Scratch from the film Crossroads (1986). Because they look so natural, and a touch extreme, those are the most sinister looking teeth I've ever seen. That smile.

I wonder if you could pull the torso textures from the body at Grout's Mansion in the electrode room or from the body at the murder on the pier?

I am of course speaking from an artist's viewpoint, not from one of Wod correctness.

But, I digress.

A walking carcass, is a walking carcass, no matter what.

That's some nice looking rot, by the way.

Looks very.. naturally rotten
I think you should work on the ears to make them more human (or eaten by something ^^).

Samedi are rotten corpses, whereas Nossies have some uglyness "mutation"..

You are making progress Zero. Although for now the model still looks quite as much as a nosferatu Can you do something about the teeth and the ears?

I checked Antitribu mod's Samedi Boss but they don't really have a close-up screenshot.
Look at this picture Baron Samedi. He looks more like a skeleton than a zombie in my opinion. At least Antitribu got the dress right

The Samedi basic illustration



This is the Baron Samedi card for VTES



:-)

I don't know much about the Samedi, to be honest, but I rather like how he looks up to now. It fits what I would imagine them to be - and those rotten areas on his skull just look itchy. (Wonder if those stem from him scratching his head one time too much? ) Not to mention his mouth. Ew, gross. But it's supposed to be just like that. Really well done!
Although I think the teeth need some editing. Their color looks just ... wrong to me. Much too yellowish. Maybe darkening them a bit would create a better outcome? They ... sort of stand out, jump to the eye, do you know what I mean?
Other than that, I can only say that the work you put into the model absolutely pays off. He looks so ... repulsing to me. I like it. (Sounds strange, doesn't it?)

Thanks for the warm reception guys. I do want to explain that the teeth are part of the body texture so I haven't touched those yet, they are still the same as the vanilla Nosferatu and I will make them blend into the face more.

Number 2, I plan on normal mapping the skin so it has a slight wet shine to it making him glisten in lit up areas. He should look moist and squishy.

Number 3, I am going to attempt to put an aura of flies around his body. Nothing obtrusive but an occasional buzzing of flies may add to his look.

As far as the teeth model, not much else can be done here, my modeling skills just aren't good enough. For the ears, I can remove them entirely if we need too which may look pretty good actually. As far as shrinking them down further, I don't think I can do it without breaking the vertices and making it look jagged and horrible.

I think it was YamiRaziel that pointed out that Samedi look more like Skeletons than Zombies. This is true for very old Samedi, newly embraced Samedi still have most of their skin and organs and lose those things over time, so to make him more skeletal as a newly embraced Samedi would be innacurate.

YamiRaziel wrote:

He looks more like a skeleton than a zombie in my opinion. At least Antitribu got the dress right

As far as wearing clothes are concerned, I'm extremely limited here because the model really dictates what I can do. Putting him in a suit would be awesome but won't look right with how the model is set. Antitribu put their model in a suit and it looks ridiculously stupid which is why all of the screenshots of him are at a distance, so you can't tell. If you look closer, you'll see that his suit is drawn on like paint, his arms are still skinny and the suit is literally "Stuck" on, you can tell he's not actually wearing anything.

Again I will see what I can do, I think it looks great so far personally and I'm really excited about completing it.

Alright so after 4 hours of nitpicking my own work I've listened to your suggestions and made the following changes, let me know how you like where it's going so far. (Remember, I have not started on the body yet, this is totally just the head, though I did start removing his leather straps).

Model Changes
1. I started off by making his teeth go straight down instead of curving outwards, and shortened them quite a bit.
2. I cut off his right ear completely, it's gone, it fell off. I'm sure your character will have a hard time hearing now.
3. I cut the tip off of his left ear, no more pointy tips, it looks alot more like a bloodied severed ear.

Texture Changes
1. There is now a rotting hole where his right ear used to be.
2. I bloodied up the tip of his left ear.
3. I darkened his teeth and saturated the yellow out of it, now it fits the rest of the head much better.

4. For his body, I have begun removing the leather straps and I plan on tackling his body later today.

I have put up some new screenshots of a 360 degree aerial view of his head so you can see it from all angles.

Holy shit mate, that's stuff of nightmares. Bravo!

Unfortunately i can't give any good advice. Zombie Aesthethics are not my domain.

That guy looks absolutely rotten!

Really good work. But I can't help it, for a Samedi, I always imagine some kind of tattered tailcoat and an old top hat.

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I like it! It looks more rotten and less nosferatu

Really cadaverous... Really good... Really teasty...

Ooooo. I just felt a tingle. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! You've done brilliantly thus far.

Since the Osebo already have irises this color, could you make them pure black shiny irises instead? I'm thinking of the strangley anthropomorphic orbits of the yellow, alien/human hybrid baby monster from the cut-rate, Alien Resurrection movie.

z.o.o. wrote:

alien/human hybrid baby monster

That's quite a mouth-full.

Take that whichever way you like.

Thank you so much for the support guys, I've heard alot of good ideas for developing this Samedi model and I hope I'm meeting the expectations. I finished up the basic body skin earlier today and since we all seem to be on the same page here, I thought I'd present another round of screenshots.

Changes Made Since Last Screenshots
1. Fully removed the black leather straps.
2. Zombified his entire upper body.
3. Re-Shaded his entire upper body.

(Remember, I haven't added any wounds or exposed bones yet, this is just the basic zombie skin overlay. I plan on tackling the wounds and pants tonight). Enjoy!

Childe of Munster wrote:

z.o.o. wrote:

alien/human hybrid baby monster

That's quite a mouth-full.

Take that whichever way you like.

I think I'll take it the Nagaraja way

Zer0, this guy looks more rotten with every pic you present. I like it

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Alright this is Samedi all the way :-)

Claudia approves

Excellent work, Zero! He is totally Samedi now Keep the good progress

Childe of Munster wrote:

z.o.o. wrote:

alien/human hybrid baby monster

That's quite a mouth-full.

Take that whichever way you like.

I no tutchy.

Like Feral said, "Really cadaverous."

Alright, I love the comments, keep em comin'! Now that it seems that I'm on track with the Samedi look, it's time to show you the near final product of Tier 1. My plan is to begin adding clothing as the tiers continue, first starting out with just pants and boots. Now I tried to turn the boots into sneakers and make the pants flared down at the bottom but the vertices kept tearing on me, leaving gaps that you could see through so it seems we may have to settle on the vanilla look down below.

I'm thinking about adding tears, stains, dirt, n such to his pants but for this demonstration the pants are more or less clean, brown but clean. Here's a list of what I've done since the last showing.

What I've done since the last post
1. I changed his pants to a murky dark-reddish brown, very earthen in style. (Meant to look kind've dirty)
2. Added tons of scars, rotting flesh exposing muscle, and a few bone popping wounds. (Notice the rib cage exposure and the spinal cord in some of the photos)






















Hope you enjoyed!!

Now that's a real Samedi. Really Zero, this is one of your best models!
Can you make the last tier look like this --Click--?
With the top hat and stuff?

Another question is it possible to make him rot to bone over time. For example, after a few nights (doing most of the main quests, your model gets replaced with a skeleton one) or it isn't lorewise correct to decay so fast?
Is it possible from a mechanics point of view?

I think it would take a Samedi decades or centuries to get to such skeletal stage. And the game encompases only a week...

Yami, I don't think it's possible to use different skins on the same character. And for the tophat, the only model that allows for that would probably be the male Malk.

Zer0, you're rotten to the core. It gets better and better

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Feral wrote:

I think it would take a Samedi decades or centuries to get to such skeletal stage. And the game encompases only a week...

But, Feral, he still has so much meat.

I can't wait to see this guy with a fly or two buzzing around him.

Is he not normalmapped because it would make his lower body shiny too, or are you saving those finishing touches for the final reveal with the rest of the tiers? (Which is what I would do. )

I don't even want to know where that nasty green stain on the front of his pants came from.

YamiRaziel wrote:

Now that's a real Samedi. Really Zero, this is one of your best models!
Can you make the last tier look like this --Click--?
With the top hat and stuff?

I really wish I could, I'm extremely limited as to what I can do with the model. I can't create new vertices, nor delete them, all I can do is stretch them and I'm even limited in that regard. When I streth a vertice, it stretches the texture too, and eventually breaks the vertices leaving gaps and holes in the model which you can see through to the other side. So, I'm afraid this won't be possible. Sorry...

YamiRaziel wrote:

Another question is it possible to make him rot to bone over time. For example, after a few nights (doing most of the main quests, your model gets replaced with a skeleton one) or it isn't lorewise correct to decay so fast?
Is it possible from a mechanics point of view?

Well, I've been thinking about this and several fans want something like this to happen. The only way I see doing this, from a technical standpoint, is to make the Samedi progressively become more rotten with every Tier. The bad thing about that is, what if the player wants to revert back to a lesser tier, then it will look like the Samedi is repairing himself. So I really hesitate to do it this way.

From a lore standpoint, I believe it takes decades and centuries for a Samedi to completely rot away, and though I'm not sure how many nights Bloodlines is supposed to take place over, but I wouldn't think it would be long enough to support this. Some people say Bloodlines takes place over a few nights, some say a month, year, even decades. My theory is, it's impossible for your character to get so powerful so quickly, especially powerful enough to take down a Ventrue Prince and his Sheriff, so in my mind I pretend that these Quests that you're doing are over decades of time, but that's just how I see it. I mean by end game you've got the power of an Elder, and we all know that can't happen over a few weeks.

But even if Bloodlines did take place over centuries, it still doesn't negate the fact that putting on an old Tier armor set would still make your character look like he's regenerating.
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On a clothing note, I've begun Tier 2 already and really like how it's turning out. It's basically a jeans and tanktop texture and I want to keep things simple for this Samedi for the following reasons.

1. Can't do much in Blender to support wild ideas
2. I've already put enough time into this guy and need to start thinking about other models/textures. The show must go on!

So I will probably keep this guy in basic simple clothing for all 4 tiers. I'm sorry I can't do the suit and top hat, it's just not in my power to do so. I think you will still be pleasantly happy with the turnout though. As far as normal mapping is concerned, I will be adding it if it looks good. I'd like his rotting wounds to glisten.