I have had a rapid learning curve with Hero Forge, as well as upgrading both my account and the computer that I'm using to finish all of my models, I've had three iterations in just a few days for my "main" hero, Stefan Clevenger, a young(ish—late 20s) ex Shadow from the Hillmen Rangers who now works as a "free agent" with some friends and allies, hunting witches, monsters, daemons and such. They'll range across the entire Three Regions, now that they're free agents, but they still mostly focus on the rural Hill Country and some of the eastern areas of Timischburg. I'll talk more about that in a YouTube video, as I talk about the three regions and the various human ethnicities that inhabit them, but for now, just imagine what would have happened if a mostly empty frontier America were settled by Robin Hood and Ivanhoe era British instead of British from several centuries later. That's the Hill Country. Timischburg is more Transylvania during the time Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, i.e., it was an integral part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and superstrate of Austrian-like people serves as a somewhat privileged minority of nobles and burghers over a substrate plurality of Romanian-like people, who make up both an entrenched peasant class as well as some lingering nobility. I know that as an analogue to ~1900 era Transylvania, that's not exactly accurate; since it makes no allowance for Slavs and Magyars, but that's OK. It's a simplified calque, not an exact one.
Anyway... not to let the cat out of the bag on a separate subject, but I've obviously improved greatly my ability to make good-looking models since I started. Here's my very first pass on this guy. He wasn't the first model I made, but he was certainly part of the first wave.
Luckily, my timing is such that there are some pretty good high quality textures, although the pose is pretty static (although not necessarily unusual by fantasy mini standards) and there are some pretty cool default colors too.
For my second pass at the character, I improved some of the angles, and screenshotted him in a better system, because I had a different computer and a Pro subscription now. I also stuck a Davy Crockett style raccoon hat on his head, for those cold days of travel across the countryside, not to mention because it looks cool.
I hadn't really discovered decals, and he's one of the first that I used them on, when I created a bit of stubble on him. Not sure why I had used a barrel on the base; I probably just stuck that on there just to stick some kind of detail, but the grass and barrel without a base probably looked pretty silly.
Finally, my last version of the character used a number of facial customizations, decals, lighting effects, and tried to make him have a slightly more dynamic pose, like he's got his lantern set on the ground and his weapons are out, because he's having a tense discussion with some suspicious stranger on the road at night, or something like that.
I also tuned down some of the warmer colors to give him more of a well-traveled, faded look, and made a few other customizations to some colors and facial features. I actually don't mind the somewhat cartoonish look of the default Hero Forge stuff; it looks a lot like fantasy minis do in general, or at least the fantasy minis that I've known for decades. But a few minor changes made him a bit more realistic looking.
I probably over-like or over-use the campfire or lantern, or just fire-light at night look, but it is actually quite appropriate in many situations. I tried to give a more subtle moonlight look from the other angle too. Sigh. While I like the upgrades, that means that I need to go through tons of my other characters now and update them to the same standard. Oh, well. Maybe that'll discourage me from making and copying more and more characters.
I tried a few angles, and tuned down the moonlight, because it was making his upper lip glisten.
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