Arenanet female, ysalex

ysalex

I've been doing the arenanet female from the latest internship art test. I'm too late unfortunately to do the test, so this is just for me.

I started this in my anatomy portfolio thread, where I got a ton of awesome feedback, but it's jumping out of anatomy at this point into character, so I'm going to start posting just actual anatomy to the anatomy thread from now and will post updates to this here.

The concept, although I'm sure pretty much everyones seen it at this point:



And where I'm at:





Basically at this point I'm still doing first drafts of all the armor and clothing pieces. Then I'll fix any mis-proportions in my armor, then go and do a second draft of the pieces, split things up, and do a proper high-poly sculpt of everything.

Please ignore the crappy stand-in fur and hair.

Last, I got a lot of awesome feedback in my anatomy thread on this girl, so I'd like to thank Neox, Almighty_Gir & FNITROX, and then really super big thanks to both MM and Crazyfool. MM for pointing out and explaining a few nuances that I feel like I'll never understand but am working on, and Crazyfool for his paintovers. Thanks guys.

Feedback much appreciated.

Neox

this is what i meant with the nose



i'd just align the alar wing with the septal cartilage

http://www.idrawdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/nose-anatomy.jpg

having the nose pointy is totally fine with me, it just feels kind of wrong to me, it doesn#t have to be 100% aligned, but i'd move the septum a little up and the wings a bit down to even that space out a bit.

as far as the anatomy goes, i'd widen this area a bit, overall don't make the shoulders too narrow, i know i know its cool to make them smaller on females, to give them the cute girlish look, however, usually they are wide enough so the arms don't hit the hip bones when hanging down, otherwise they'd always have to pose the arms to not interfere with the rest of the body.

ysalex

Thanks Neox, much appreciated.

A quick update. Didn't get a ton done today but that's the holidays I guess.

crazyfool

hey Yuri, shes looking really good, last paintover I swear haha



so now you are in a good place I think you can try and push her more towards the concept. Ive done a quick paintover on the direction I would go with, Ive made heavier set upper eye lids, wider jawline so you get fuller cheeks, raised philtrum whilst keeping the pixie nose, smoothed out transition between chin and lower lip (need to look up what thats called hehe) high cheekbones, angrier eyebrows/expression and more volume to the facial features so they arent so flat. Going low in your subdivs makes this stuff super quick to edit. Its only a quick analysis so dont take everything to heart.

Probably most important though is to hide out all your armour/cloth additions and get an anatomy sculpt going that is closer to the concept. Ive listed a few suggestions that may help. Her arms are very long at the moment, usually you should be able to rotate the arm inwards and the wrist should meet the genitals. A more top heavy lady will look really good compared to your other super thin ladies I think aswell, showing a bit of diversity.

Also when you start on the armour, try to go big and really push her silhouette like in the concept art. Its a bit restrained at the moment which goes against the concept art. You'll see that Ive done it to the shoulder pads and skirt pieces which give alot more interesting shapes to the model.

hope that helps man, you are doing really well, should be quite quick to pull things around and try not to get too precious over things. Took me a while to let go haha

cheers

ysalex

Thanks again crazy fool. I haven't implemented some of the armor scale suggestions, but I will, I'm just trying to finish getting the base pieces of the armor all done and in zbrush before I start fixing all the proportion and silhouette errors.

More work done. Approaching the point where I have the base meshes of all the equipment done.




And here is the alpha for the hair tubes, so anyone can use it. Not super complicated but I guess but maybe it'll save someone some time on braids or rope.

Also a mini-tut on how I used it. Again, I know this is old hat to most people but I'm sure someone somewhere wants a quick tiling rope alpha, or a primer on how to get something strange like this modeled without too much fuss.

ysalex

I forgot to add that it makes a decent ponytail as well, if you apply it to a flatter box with the right uv unwrap.

Neox

looks much better now!

almighty_gir

i think you're following anatomical rules more than the concept itself. the eyes should be lower than they are (keep the eyebrows where they are) and slightly closer together, the lips need to be much much narrower, and the nose more slender and stylised.

crazyfool

Fantastic progress man, she looks great from the front, 3/4 view is showing a few minor issues that the guys have highlighted. Looks like some study of the forms around the mouth could help you a bit. At the moment the corners look pushed in too much. You should try out Neox's advice on the philtrum aswell to see what it looks like.

She's looking fantastic though man, pushing her towards the concept more shouldn't be too hard now but it depends on which direction you want to take her.

D4V1DC

Really love the way she's looking and the colors on her, just sort out what you think needs sorting and keep going, love to see this finished, more tuts for the pile thanks for that as well.

moof

this is cool, looking forward to more progress

ysalex

Small update. I redid the skirt in a way that would better let me rig it for movement and apply texture/noise patterns. I also changed some proportions and did some body work on parts that were bothering me.

silence44

Really great job! I have learnt a lot from this thread:)I Here are some small anatomical things I notice, hope it helps~

Add3r

I LOVE the face work you have done. It has a TON of character in it. (See what i did there?) I agree with Silence on the thigh crit though, the thighs/knees area is easily your weakest section of anatomy. The lower leg feels short (maybe just the armor giving it the look), the knees lack shape and muscle/bone definition, and the thighs are simply just way too thing and wonky looking. Give her some meat man! No guy likes an anorexic The collarbone could be moved up SLIGHTLY as well, the neck/upper chest area feels sllliiigggghhhtttlllyyyy off. Other than that, awesome work so far. Love the life you have brought to the character/concept.

ysalex

Still slowly getting there. I have a list of all the stuff I need to do before the next stage, and it's gonna take me some time.

The flying skirt/straps is just for me. I've got a smoothed out, 'skirt down' version that is suitable for baking, but I think seeing some movement in the high-poly sculpt helps me think about how the character armor etc. works together as a whole.

butt_sahib

Shaping up to be something great!
Great to see everyone chiming in

Fnitrox

The armor is coming along pretty well, but i wonder if the mouth has changed since the update with the braids tutorial, because it seems to have gotten back to the "sad face" look a little... may just be an impression tho

Also for polypainting the face i find that giving some more reddish tones to the tip of the nose too give it a more lively appearence

anyway i'm enjoying your progress cause i'm learning a ton from it too! keep going!

ysalex

Thanks FNI and sahib. FNI I've done no work to the face since the earlier updates. Maybe the angle?

Finished all the armor. Now a detail pass on everything, and creating the weapon.



and a basic coloring:

ysalex

Worked a bit on both the high-poly pose and the low-poly. 7.5K tri's is ridiculous for this armor. The chains in particular I have no idea how I'm going to deal with. Good ideas welcome.

Sukotto

Looking good! For the chains I would recommend using an alpha for them, it seems to be the popular solution for this particular character.

ysalex

Thanks sukotto, that's kind of where I was headed.

More images. Sorry, I got render happy. I'll only post a couple and then link the rest.











http://i.imgur.com/T9ETM.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/rlkB6.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/nOcBN.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/TzAuM.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/TZs2e.jpg


http://i.imgur.com/Y5zff.jpg

Torch

Excellent work Yuri, looks like you're really going the extra mile with this! Nice one

almighty_gir

not sure why nobody brought this up yet, but her torso is too long, check your reference, look at where the skirt begins in relation to that metal triangle above it.

zeezee

Well done man! Saw this on reddit earlier, I see you're trying to have it 3d printed. I'm also looking at shapeways, so let us know how that goes. In the concept, the torso is turned further to the left, with the left arm reaching forward and forearm pointing more to the right. I like that pose better. It seems more dramatic.
Also I'm not sure if this is a good idea. It cheapens the character IMO.