Band of Brothers - Cpt. Lewis Nixon WIP

Stirls

EDIT 20/07/2014 - Gotta get back to my job, so I'll have to leave this guy for a bit. About 11k tris with a single UV map. 2048 Albedo, Spec, Gloss, Height and Normal.

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Haven't posted here in a while for critique. Thought it might as well be now, when I'm on my break.

Noted, he's too gaunt right now. Only picked up on that when I rendered. Aside from that, I wouldn't mind some critique. He's not really all that Ron Livingston-y right now.

Also face and ear distance seems a tad far. Help me out, please!

Abidus

Besides being a bit gaunt as you mentioned, I think the eyes are too large and the bridge of the nose seems a bit too wide. The transition to the upper lip seems a bit too sharp as well.

I think once you sort the facial fat out, it will start looking more like him.

Stirls

I'll give that a try. Thank you.

Suba

Shape of the skull also looks really unnatural and way too big.

Good luck with this project man.

skyline5gtr

Nix had very squinty eyes

Stirls

Suba - Indeed, the skull is massive. I'll fix that up, though I was hoping not to bother with it, considering it's going to be covered by a helmet. Perhaps this is a take on an alien Nix?

Skyline - Yeah, I think I got a bit closer with my more recent update. Definitely a very defining feature of Livingston's character.

Speaking of, I'm going to leave this for now and move onto the helmet. Feel free to critique the face regardless. It ain't perfect.

jaffajuice

Zbrush has a see through mode which will reveal anything behind it ..like your reference. It helps with quick ref alignments for things like faces. Go to you lowest subD and hit wireframe and put see-through to 95. Keep at it.

Stirls

Yeah, I've been using see-through for slight adjustments. Can't go to the lowest subdivision because of Dynamesh, unfortunately. Thanks for the heads-up, regardless.

I'll go through and re-align some features.

Edit: messed around with it some more.

Neox

not much time, therefore some quick notes

the eyes are really way too huge
the ears look really flat, you should check ear anatomy ad how they are connected to the head. especially the back if the, if you undersand that it will look better in front as well.
in general ou have a lot to learn about facial structure, get a mirror and touch every part while you look at it. sounds strange but it will really help ypu. you are your best reference

Stirls

I'd like to think I know my way around facial anatomy to a relatively decent extent.. Improvements shall be made. Thanks.

So I'll jot some notes here which I can then add to later:
- Sink brow closer to eyes
- Bring eyes down slightly
- Work on ears
- Shrink eyes

I'm impartial on shrinking the eyes and just making this guy a bit stylized. Partly out of laziness, but mostly because I'm afraid of monumentally fucking this up. I've tried a few different times, but I just can't seem to get the eyes small and retain that (minimal) amount of Livingston present in the sculpt. Smaller eyes is something I want, however. Makes the work look a lot better.

Stirls

Alrighty. Pretty happy with how he's going now. I really want to start moving onto other stuff. Got a helmet all ready to sculpt over, just trying to figure out how to create the webbing.

Stirls

circle of friends

I'd really like to see him with some basic hair just to ground his face. It's so hard to tell without it. Have you tried overlaying photo ref and looking for any discrepancies? It's looking pretty good but it's not quite there yet.

Stirls

I'll definitely give hair a crack. Should I sculpt hair, or use Fibremesh? On the next update, I'll throw in an image of it overlaid with an image of Livingston. Getting there, I hope!

Stirls

Took a break from the face and hair for a bit, working on an M1 helmet. Going to play with the forms a bit, it doesn't match the look of an M1 helmet 100% just yet. Good fun, though!

Lloth

Hey man. What could help you is to quickly block out the hair with just a blob of mesh. You can quickly check the position and the shape and make the final hair properly once you are further in the project. A stand in mesh like that can do wonders to check the liking of your character. Hair does a lot in that aspect.

Ace work on the helmet. Although it looks to me the amount of strings over the helmet is way lower than in your reference images

Stirls

Thanks a tonne, Lloth! I'll get on hair now. Blocking it out is a great idea.

Much appreciated. I sorta toned down the amount of webbing to save time, plus I feel it looks less cluttered.

Lloth

Fair enough. Though keep in mind it will influence your proportions and sense of scale

Keep it up!

Abidus

Nice job on the helmet. How did you go about modelling the webbing? curvetubes?

Stirls

Abidius, the webbing was made via an insert-mesh with curves enabled. I wouldn't recommend this method if you had a deadline. IMM is just too inconsistent.



Quick update, too. Sorta crossing into "chiseled supermodel" territory. Really got to look at adding some noticeable fat around the jawline, I think. In time! Jacket/scarf creation begins tomorrow.

- nose too flared
- not enough fat

Stirls

Trying to make moves with cloth sculpting, but I hate it. First time I've tried it with a reference of what I want, and it just doesn't seem to be doing it for me. Too light and puffy for a rough, 1940's jacket.

Long way ahead. I'll just keep picking at this model, seeing what I can do.

butt_sahib

Seeing loads of improvement man! keep at it
Why is your arm cloth so triangulated? is it decimated/out of MD?

Stirls

butt_sahib wrote: »

Seeing loads of improvement man! keep at it
Why is your arm cloth so triangulated? is it decimated/out of MD?

Thanks! And yeah. The mesh itself was out of MD, but I was unhappy with the folds so I smoothed it and began reworking it. I'll dynamesh it soon enough!

I've seen some crazy stuff come out of Marvelous Designer, but I just can't manage to pull any of it off.

Neox

if you'd angle the arm/ellbow more you'd already get much better wrinkles. Md has no memeoryfolds, so you'll have to give it something to compress and wrinkle on

Stirls

Neox wrote: »

if you'd angle the arm/ellbow more you'd already get much better wrinkles. Md has no memeoryfolds, so you'll have to give it something to compress and wrinkle on

Of course! Great idea. So that's what memoryfolds are. I'll definitely give it a go after the new layout I'm creating.

Stirls

I've brought the arms down for simulation. Working on the layout bit-by-bit. Fingers crossed this works out. It's already turning out to be far more promising.

TO DO:
- Create cuffs out of loose sleeves
- Add more pockets
- Match density of material
- Probably start all over as per usual

RobSamuel

The face is looking really nice. Hope you get a good result out of MD.

Stirls

Thanks, RobSamuel. I'm going to keep trying to get results out of MD, but it's not being very kind.

Stirls

Pretty pleased with the jacket! 6th time lucky, I guess. The above picture, and numerous other attempts existed, but I was not happy with them. Onto the scarf, hands, and pants next.

Abidus

Nice progress! Although, I think the jacket looks tighter than it should. I think it should have more slack to it in some areas like the chest and upper arms . Keep it up!

Torch

This is really coming along, nice one Stirls

Stirls

Thanks, guys! It means quite a lot to be receiving kudos on Polycount

Now, I like the pants a lot. I feel like the jacket is a bit bubbly around the chest area, though. I might mess around with it as well as the tightness of the lower jacket, as Abidius said.

Pants have yet to be detailed. Will do that tomorrow.

Stirls

Any criticisms? Added a scarf and belt (scarf mainly because I want to look at this being the winter version of Lt. Nixon)

Stirls

Gonna work on some boots tonight/tomorrow. Also a pistol holster on his belt-loop. I made a mistake with the concepting initially, as Nixon's collar is pressed flat in a lot of his scenes, as opposed to being raised and rigid. It may be a different jacket, but I'm not set on going back and changing stuff.

Any tips for boot/shoe modeling in Maya? I've done it a few times, but for the first time ever, I'll be building it entirely in Maya, using zbrush solely (heh) for detailing.

Neox

i think you should work over that one fold that crosses the ellbow in the front, it will totally break the look of your asset once the arm bends, thats why i said you should bend the arm more to have more compression there

also this is how i would do the boot



also the belt on his waist has no influence on his shirt whatsoever, it looks pretty floaty

Rumkugel

Hm... having sculpted some cloth in the past, i dont really feel comfortable with the scuffs and rips on the clothing.
they rather look like scuffs/scratches on plastic,metal or clay

Same goes with the fabric pattern on the cloth, its way tooo big. Makes it look like being made from haversacks.


Will you give him some webbing?
If so, you can keep the back of the jacket like this.
If not, id definately make the back of the jacket (around the belt area), more saggy.

GI´s usually wore fieldjackets over their shirts and those jacket were quite roamy.

Stirls

Thanks for the crit. I'll get rid of some of the rips and stuff. You're right. They're not really fitting. I'll also fix the sizing of the fabric. I don't know what I'm going to do with the jacket area just yet. I might go back into MD and play around with the body some more.

Rumkugel

One more thing,

eventually it might help you with md.

The jackets were made of some heavy gaberdine twill. It´s pretty thick.

Stirls

True. The folds don't really translate the weight of the garberdine. I'll look at thicknessing the sleeves. As for the stomach-area at the front, does it come off as... unappealing at all? I don't really like the look of it, but that might be because I have been doing so for the last few days.

And sorry Neox, didn't see your comment. Indeed, I did bend the arm, but I believe you mentioned it so that I could get more intricate folds, not so that I could have less jerky bends. Regardless, I shall work on those again. Much appreciated.

Rumkugel

The stomach area looks alright, if you add the belt and webbing.
You could easily pull that off, but youd have to tighten the waist a pit, as the belt sits tight on the hip, which also creates some nice wrinkles.

without the belt, you could do both.
either have it loose, then you´d have to get rid of most wrinkles, or proceed similar to the webbing approach.
But on this, you´d have to make the jacket more baggy but tighten the waist.
I think the folks tightened the jacket around the waist with a insewn belt, similar to what brits do today.
google breacon or kangoroo pouch.


you missed the compression bands around the leg pouches.
they were utilised to keep the stuff stowed inside them.

Stirls

Damn, those compression bands are big part of the uniform. I can't believe I missed them. Sorta grown complacent, wanting to get this out the door. I'll just keep reworking it. Thanks for the help

Nixon has his belt on, so I'll have to keep it. Time to re-evaluate.



- Helmet doesn't have webbing (keeping it anyway)
- Jacket a LOT saggier. Doesn't have those odd flares I've included in it.
- Nixon is dressed to be pretty relaxed, as he's recon (I assume that's why)

Rumkugel

Aye.
His jacket is pretty saggy.
Look at his lower back.
His belt is tightend, making the back cloth hang around.
Also, the shoulder/armpit seam hangs nearly on the biceps.
Your´s on the model doenst to that.

The jacket is like two sizes bigger.

Also, i´m not sure on this, but i think that the kneepads on the uniform shouldnt be padded like on your model.
At least they look padded and stiff.

On the uniform pics ive posted, it looks just like 2 layers of fabric sewn ontop of each other.

Stirls

Yeah, I see that too. Damn, damn, damn!

I'm just going to leave the padding there unless I go back to fix the pants. I guess I should hey? Oh well! It's really hard to get that baggyness in MD without it going overboard on the folds. Stiffness modifiers really don't help.

Rumkugel

do as much as you can in md, and then take it to mudbox or such.

the padding can be tricked in with just some photoshop overlays.
you could easily omit that in either md or mudbox.

the sagging on the shoulders shouldnt be too hard to fix.. just some pulling in the sculpting prog.

Stirls

Indeed! I'm messing around with just pulling the mesh and adding some folds here and there. Quite a way to go, I'm going to rework the back area to be similar to the sagginess seen in Nixon's jacket.

Neox

is is btw the compressione i meant

Stirls

Thanks a bunch, Neox. I'm working on the boots for now, then I'll go back and rework his jacket. I've fixed the sleeve up (in a similar fashion to what you posted). The folds shouldn't look strange when being deformed, now.

Stirls

Going to leave the compression bands off, as Nixon only has them on when he jumps (I think). Gotta give him his pistol holster and a few pockets, as well as his LT/CPT pins.

Stirls

Final update before I move onto retopology. After that, I'll definitely be making a Browning Hi-Power. Thanks for all of the critiques and responses. Any more input will be worked on, for sure.

Rumkugel

you forgot the shoulder parts´s saggin.
Also the back part of the jacket doesnt look puffy enough.

There shouldnt be any seams on the sides of the soles either

Dont rush things.

Torch

Looks cool man! Good progress Just out of curiosity, how did you create the webbing on the hat - micromesh to geo?