[WIP] Custom Race of Humanoid Reptiles

So I began working on a few new models. I plan to do all the models it needs to create a fully custom race (at least the units, not sure about buildings) but i will not do a map/campaign. So this is just about the modeling.

I'll try to make all models fit a single concept, so I'm going to explain it briefly.

As the thread title indicates this is about a reptilian race. I don't have a name for it, so let's just call them reptiles for now.
These reptiles are an aggressive, militaristic, fast expanding race, that prefer force over diplomacy. They don't have a structured society, neither a complex political system. Most of their technology is stolen from nations they conquered and their industry and agriculture relies on slaves.
Women are not allowed to be warriors, as they are generally weaker. Being more intelligent than the males, most of them choose the path of magic.

I'm going to base their armor, weapons and architecture (should I create buildings) on the example of ancient greece, as this is something that doesn't appear in warcraft yet and seems fitting.

Okay, enough for the concept.

Current WIPs:

I began with a basic melee unit like footman or grunt. He's supposed to be more agile but weaker than those two.



I'm actually pretty satisfied with the model, polycount is 881. I plan on making the armor look like this guy's, thats why the model has this 'skirt'.
Any opinions would be appreciated.

I also started a second model, again it's a melee unit, but a very heavy one this time. Guess it could be compared to a tauren.



This one could need a lot of improvements I guess. 950 Polies.

I'll stick with these two models for now until they're textured and animated. After that, I'm planning on creating a chariot pulled by a thunder lizard (the wc3 creep).
I really like the model and would like to use it's animations, but am unsure how to do so. I'd have to make the lizard much simpler and reduce its polies as well as modifying the animations to include the chariot and its rider.
Should I just model/animate from scratch or would it be easier to geomerge and/or modify the existing thunder lizard?

Thanks in Advance!

Kount

For the armor/weapons: You should probably simplify the shield on the first guy, and the axe slightly on the other.

Also, on the first model, there sure is a lot of detail on the thighs and ass region, why? It is an RTS, so it is meant to be seen from above. Putting all the detail into the ass and thighs hardly seems practical :P

For the second model, you should simplify his front (chest, stomach, etc.) as it will be mostly hidden, and you could also probably cut down on the arms quality as well.

All in all, it's 2 cool concepts, this will turn out to be a neat race!

Have to admit, I hardly even thought about what will and won't be visible ingame and therefore adjust the level of detail. °_°

Thanks for pointing that out. :)

Sorry for douple-post, but need to bump this for a question I have.

I am working on the Animations now, and read all the tuts here and on hive. Most of them were really helpful, but sadly, they don't contain any tips on how to make an animation look smooth.

So I'm going to ask this question here.

Lets take a looping animation of 41 frames, beginning with frame 10, ending with frame 50.
How do I smooth the gap from frame 50 back to frame 10? If frame 10 and frame 50 are exactly the same, that frame just lasts to long. And if they are even slightly different there is no smooth transition at all, it looks crappy either ways.

Is there any trick or do I just have to try making it suck as little as possible?


Walk Animation:



Pretty bad GIF i guess, hope it shows enough. I tried to make it look agile while on the other hand taking the weight of the shield into account.
It's nothing new or awesome, just a basic walk animation, but it's the first one I like enough to post here

Update