The Axe Beak Mod

You could make bottles out of the beak…or maybe some snazzy cups

Or maybe an awesome chestplate.

Beak plate, It’s like scale armor, but, you know, beaks…

So I’m redoing this model and the shape I have now, I feel, is a lot better…however I am still struggling with color. It’s just terrible, it’s like a 5 year old with crayons. Does anyone have any good tips on how to do good coloring? I feel that is where I’m having the biggest issues.

You could either use an existing color map from the game, look for the unofficial templates here in the forum or google some color tools which can suggest you a color map with complementary colors, etc. … as a starting point.

For colors, I remember Tom saying that he likes to use colors in the middle of the color picker grid. Colors on the top and right are too bright, and when he does greys he never uses a stright-up grey from the far left, he always adds just hint of color, since almost nothing(especially organic stuff) is a pure black/white mix.

Another thing to think about is warm and cool colors. Warm = red, orange, and yellow. Cool = green, blue, and purple. Similar hues complement each other and blend well, while opposite colors contrast each other(which can be a good thing).

I could go on, and give you an entire lecture about color theory and design, as I’ve been learning (and remembering) a lot about it since I started work my color mod. If you have any questions about color, I am your guy to ask!

Also, @Pandemic recently posted a really helpful tool which you could play around with and maybe get inspired with.

Another tip I could suggest is to look at some color art of what it is you are trying to recreate (or something similar, like an ostrich or emu or maybe even a chocobo). Go on to google image and browse the pictures and see if you can spot any patterns.
But don’t get hung up on trying to make it too realistic! You can only do so much with voxels without it looking weird.

Edit:
OH! And another thing! try not to use straight solid colors, as they look bland and unnatural. Qubicle’s Noise modifier is a life-saver when it comes to this! Select a single color of your model and try it out on a low setting like 2 or 3 and see if you like it, if not, you can always undo.

I hope this isn’t too much info all at once. :sweat_smile:

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quite helpful thanks…I’m going to try and use some pre existing palettes (voxel pirate suggestion) but I have gimp so maybe I’ll steal some “ostrich colors” off some pics and see if that works…

@Relyss here are those Chocobo’s you were thinking of!

Also if you scroll down you’ll see some awesome models of the Avengers.

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Wow…those are crazy.

The colors choices are…interesting. I’m going a little less anime, 80’s windbreaker jacket with my color scheme.

I do like the tail feathers though!

Oh yeah >.<; I forgot that chocobos are usually a really bright big-bird yellow >.>;
Perhaps not use them for color ^^;
But their form is similar to axe beaks I think? Of course that’s kind of irreverent since you were asking for color help, sorry :sweat_smile:

Totally, I dig the shape, the feet and the tail feathers especially are well done. I think I have the beak the way I want it, kind of looks like an axe. And the neck and the legs came out really good this time. I need to put the wings on it and re color it which I’ll try and do after work tonight…

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Cool, Can’t wait to see what you come up with =]

The iconic Chocobo is yellow, but there are a variety of colours. The colour relates to the ability of the Chocobo:

Of yeah I remember! =D

There was this facebook game once where you could trade and breed chocobos and get different colors. It was fun until:
A) They started asking for lots of money.
and B) After keeping records for several generations I realized that (even breeding with other people’s chocobos) practically all my chocobos where completely inbred, really messed up, like, having a brother, who was also your uncle, or having a daughter who was her own great-aunt O.o

The game got decidedly less fun after that >.>;


I thought for awhile that they just added the different colors just for that game, but after I started programming my genealogy tracker for it (shut up, I was really into it >.<; ) I learned that one of the older games also had chocobo colors/breading and I used the sprites from that game for my genealogy tracker.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/#3L61Tw0w0w0w0

Could you make one with this color scheme? Just for me? uses puppy eyes :wink:

Make one, what? The genetics tracker?

HEY!!! That’s my job,

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One Axe Bird. It would look amazing with that color scheme.

I don’t know… I already have my own two mods going, and I don’t even have enough time to keep both of them updated =/ let alone anything else I want to do =(

Besides, this is your mod, it’ll fell a whole lot more satisfying if you do it =D
But if you can’t… maybe you could look around/ask about in the modeling and animation section?

I was talking to @eatpoliticians, not you, but thanks anyway.