Barbatos side-by-side and the modeling process

Since texturing is finished I wanted to show a side by side with the low poly model, high poly model as well as the textured low poly model with the detail of the high poly model baked into it.

So for this project I wanted to make an optimized/game ready model of the Barbatos Lupus Rex . It seems to be the one getting the least love from Bandai in their Gundam games if any yet even though it probably has the most interesting design of the 3 primary Barbatos forms with its massive arms, long/sharp claw-like fingers and overall visceral aesthetic.

One of my main goals with the model was to make it a professional level game model, something that you might actually see in Gundam Versus for example, even though I have no knowledge of their models poly counts or any insight of how they make their models.

For the high poly model for the most part it wouldn't high poly when it comes to the armor. For the most part the high poly version merely has added surface detail to it, not really the high poly standard where one basically makes a 2nd model using retopology. For this I made the low poly in it's complete state first, then from there I added some bevels where I thought they were needed, and used the mutli-cut tool to add surface detail that I skipped out on to save resources. The piping however is what received complete high poly reworks. Quite a large amount of the inner frame has tubing and metal piping going through it and the high poly versions of them benefited the baked low poly model exponentially since they are simply hexagonal on the actual model, however with the added detail as well as the definition baked from the high poly model, I honestly think you wouldn't be able to tell at least not from screenshots alone.