Hi guys,

Hopefully this is in the right place!

Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Lee and i go by the internet pseudonym of Almighty_gir, and i'm a character artist who works in the computer games industry. Some fellow industry artists and i are about to undertake a project (starting proper at the end of February) which is to create a digital scene based on a part of the Silmarillion. It will be an animated clip designed to showcase our individual skillsets, as well as our teamworking abilities.

The clip will likely last around 30 seconds. The scene we have in mind is Glorfindel and the Balrog. but we're unsure about how to go about doing a couple of things. which is where we need your feedback.

Firstly, our Balrog will have wings, he will not be able to fly. the wings will be skeletal with no visible membrane or connective tissue. we will be using some VFX tricks to make them look like they're made of shadow instead. We're aware of the controversy surrounding Balrogs and wings and quite frankly, we've taken the artistic direction of "do what looks badass".

Our Balrog is inspired in part, by the one created by Weta for the movies. we want them to look similar enough that on first glance people say "that's a Balrog", but dissimilar enough that people recognise that they are two separate entities, after all there were more than one of the beasts and Maiar were personalities of their own... we feel this should be reflected in our Balrog. so here's a very early sculpt pass (done in zbrush) of the Balrog so far. it's almost entirely a block out of forms, the face has had some special attention paid so far as i got a little carried away! but please feel free to critique and give feedback, i'd love to hear it! in particular, i've been toying with the idea of giving him some form of armour plating across various parts of his body, possibly made of some kind of blackened steel with fiery red runic script across it... let me know what you think to that idea please!

images:

http://i.cubeupload.com/1sdV9K.jpg

http://i.cubeupload.com/R9gh9F.jpg

http://i.cubeupload.com/gOg3uk.jpg

Secondly, we're unsure which characters to include in the scene. we know Glorfindel was escorting Tuor, Idril, and Earendil "and many others" through the mountain range. Unfortunately i'm the only character artist, we have one animator as well as an environment artist and a VFX artist involved, so we're a very small team.

Realistically it's only feasible for me to create Glorfindel and the Balrog, however if we have time we'd love to include Tuor, Idril and Earendil as well... if that were to be the case, what kind of dialogue would be appropriate between them before the encounter with the Balrog?

Bear in mind it's a short clip so it should be something that focuses on what's about to happen, maybe an ill feeling they all share or something. If there were to be any dialogue, we'd love for it to be in elvish, with english subtitles. here's where we all fall down though, none of us know even the slightest bit about elvish. so any help here would be great! especially if you can (or know anyone who can) actually speak it! you may well end up voicing some of the dialogue.

Finally, this scene is a portfolio piece which we will all have a shared interest in, there is no money or profit involved, we're all doing this in our spare time. all of us are established artists, but we wanted to do something fun, and a bit different. when the project is completed, any special help received here will be credited.

Please bear in mind that we are games artists, and while this is a cinematic work you should expect the quality you'd see in a game cutscene, not a hollywood movie. I look forward to updating this thread as we progress further (we're in planning at the moment), and definitely want to hear your feedback, impressions, and ideas about the project. Certainly if you have any ideas on what we could do differently, i'd love to hear them!

cheers,

Lee.

Hi there,

Have just gone back and formatted my first post, for some reason it came out as a giant wall of text!

We're of course aware of the fact he needs to be wreathed in flame. it's one of the most exciting aspects about the project!

the idea we have as far as the animation goes, is that the scene will "freeze" during their first clash of weapons, so all of the animation will preceed that moment and we won't actually animate a completed fight scene... not at first anyway.

cheers,

Lee.

Agreed on the the Eagles Marghana as they indeed save the surviving Gondorlindim from the Ors filing along behind the Balrog. Gir I would like to see Glorfindal cast as a youthful but mature, tall and fair actor, not too young. Also the survivors should be led by Tuor and Idril with a young Earendil as a child. This child should be truly beautiful in face, grey eyes and a light in his face. The surviving people in single file trail behind along the mountain pass. Perhaps smoke and mist cascading down the mountain side having tumbled over the high mountain from the sac of Gondolin.

Can't wait to see! Good luck.

hello Galin!

size wise, we were going for 2.5x or there abouts, but it also depends on how you define height, is it defined while in their "hunched" posture, or when stretched to full height? i think we wanted ~2x Glorfindels height while hunched.

Thanks for your help with the language! any help we can get there will be very gratefully recieved. so with that in mind i have a question:

if i were to do some form of armour plating for the balrog, with some kind of infernal rune-work, would the black script suffice for that do you think? here's an example of the style of armour i'd want to use, although i certainly wouldn't want to cover his head:

http://images.wikia.com/lotrfanon/images/d/d0/Balrog_of_Morgoth.jpg

i'll have some updates on the balrog sculpt in the next couple of days.

cheers!

If it is just a 30 sec clip then I don't recommend you using elvish speech.

Looking over The Fall of Gondolin, the part where the fugitive Gondothlim are approaching the Eagles' Cleft, I find that there is not much dialogue to be had.  Barely whimpers, surely some coughing, but two sounds are definite: the howling wind and the sound of the slender waterfall plunging into the depths.  Tuor could perhaps say. "I fear a trap," right before the first Orcs attack.  Galdor, up at the front of the line, could yell, "Orcs!" when the foul creatures pounce.  As for Glorfindel, I agree with Galin's suggestion.

actually there won't be any kind of fight... this is going to be a portfolio piece, showcasing each team members abilities. the scene will end just as they make their first clash.

we've all said we'd love to do an elaborate scene, but we're ultimately bound by time.

as promised, here's an update on Mr. Balrog.

http://i.cubeupload.com/doUjW5.jpg

again be aware that this is just a simple colour pass, there's no extreme detailing or even texture work going on. this is just to help get a feel for the final colour base. i've removed the wings for the moment as they're still in need of some love!

like i said man, i'd love to do a full scene. but the problem is the longer it goes on the more things we need to introduce, like the orcs, the other elves, the eagles etc.

at the moment we feel like we are comfortable with just glorfindel and the balrog, but there would be almost certainly no dialogue in this instance. adding Idril, Tuor, and Earendil would push our limits as artists in the timeframe we have to complete this project, and would allow for a very small amount of dialogue.

adding anything else would require more artists, and that would defeat the point of the project.

I don't know anything about digital graphics, but I have a suggestion about the "long hair issue." Maybe have the hair being braided and tied down. As for the armour, remember that Glorfindel wore an armour detailed with gold.

Wow, this is amazing.

I was peering into this thread, but had no time to say that, so I say it now - great job! In my opinion that's exactly how the Balrogs should look like His head looks great. I love the textures you used. I

How much time did it take to render those images? What software did you used?

I'd suggest to put some watermarks on those images - I'm sure that the members wouldn't use them, but since you uploaded them in such a good quality I think it might a good idea to mark them.

Can you write a message here when the full result will be ready?

Hey Indis,

Thanks man, i'm glad there are die-hard Tolkiener's who like the look we're going for!

If it was directed to me I need to correct you on something - I'm a woman

this is a kind of tech-demo for real time anyway, so while we know and appreciate how much better it would look if we used slower rendering techniques, we're just trying to push real time to its limits and see what we can get out of it before we break it haha.

Oh, that's cool. The effects look great and if it is that quick to render the models, then it has to be good approach!

Glorfindel looks nice, I'm looking forward to seeing him with some hair now. And a sword! The clothes look beautiful in my opinion!

Hi guys,

Indis, sorry if there was any offense caused. It's pretty much a part of my particular vernacular... i even call my girlfriend "dude" from time to time!

there will be some updates coming soon, have a lot on my plate at the moment, but still slugging through this. thanks for all the feedback!

Hi guys, 

Just wanted to drop in with a quick update! We decided we weren't happy with Glorfindels face, so i've revisited it and made it less stylised, we feel this is a better direction to go in:

http://i.imgur.com/8L8X4zy.jpg

i've also got an update from our VFX guy, who's working on the fire simulations for the balrog, very much work in progress:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/se7ae9u9wkos73h/Maya_Fluid_Fire.mp4

we look forward to your tearing us apart

Thanks Indis!

I've got a long way to go though, there's a few things i need to fix up about him (if you're interested, here's a link to a game art forum where we all post and ask for feedback etc. http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1920560&postcount=14 ).

and also, here's an update on the Balrogs walk cycle!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3giyurb6qks1qsj/Balrog_walk.mov

I agree with you. I'm not a fan of the 'angular shapes' idea - the more 'developed' his anatomy is, the less airy his appearance will be (I hope I wrote it properly, English is my third language). It's not a troll after all, it's a demon - he's supposed to be covered with fire (and shadow).

I think the suggestion about making his chest glow more might be interesting  though - I try to think how the glow in his chest could be interpreted.

Thanks for the link for the forums - I read the thread about your project and it was fun. I like watching how the whole project grows, the discussion the attention for details and tips you received there. I might even learn something from it by accident

Hi guys,

I was demoing some new rendering software that's currently in beta, and we were streaming it via youtube. i actually used Glorfindels (bald, unfortunately for now) head as part of the demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Pbps78xdnqo#t=6675

there's a link from the specific point where i started showing off the head. as always, it's unfinished, there's a lot more i want to do with it.

let me know what you think!