Female Character WIP - Critique wanted!
polycounter lvl 2
Edit: This character looks like this currently. Still working on her though and still want feedback! ♥
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I would love some help with this, I'm having a hard time making it look like how I want it. She's supposed to be in her 20s, healthy and a bride.
Any help is loved! ♥
----I would love some help with this, I'm having a hard time making it look like how I want it. She's supposed to be in her 20s, healthy and a bride.
Any help is loved! ♥
Replies
Is this for a school assignment as well?
Something similar to her, I've used multiple refs though.
And yes it is.
You're definitely trying to detail her way too much so early on. I get that hair is great for visualizing the final piece, but that doesn't work if you don't have a solid foundation for the facial structure.
I really do recommend going back and brushing up on your anatomy. You get a solid foundation for that, likenesses become a lot easier.
For likenesses, which are arguably the hardest things to do, there are a few less obvious areas you've gotta keep an eye out for: the forehead outline, the nasalabial fold, how prominent the cheekbone is, and the jawline (if you can get refs of underneath, even better). With actresses like Milla Jovovich, you're going to have a lot of references to help you sculpt the likeness.
If you're going to use side shots like this, be sure to line them properly and readjust them. Remember that focal lengths matter when you're using reference to directly influnce your sculptures proportions. Too many people (myself included) will pile references and then realise they've all been shot with different lenses under different lighting conditions.
I created a very, very quick line-up for you to show some of Milla's proportions. It's not perfect, and I think my angle is a bit off, but you get the idea.
Slow progress.
Aka, you need to literally make planes on the face before you even decide to smooth things out to make it more realistic. Get the trimDynamic brush out and start making those planes. It's going to look weird if you do it right, but it's going to make your life a lot easier in the long run.
The planes are good reference points but I can't see the face like that. I'm not trying to recreate Milla either, I just kept working to all the refs of her.
Slow but steady progress.
Not to make assumptions, but I'm hoping you're not being lazy and just not willing to take the time to make the planes. You will be worlds ahead and make the beginning of most of your human characters easier if you focus on creating a solid foundation to work from. Right now your sculpt still reads as lumpy, and I think that's because you moved too fast, subdividing when you didn't have bigger forms down first. You're lettin this mental image, which doesn't quite defined beyond abstract concepts of beauty or what a woman looks like, take precedent over underlying foundations and bigger elements.
Get back to the basics, recreate the planes as we've drawn and represeted on the thread. If you can't see it, now's the time to literally look at and recreate what other's have seen already so you can see what they see. This is a discipline, not an instinct.
There might be a time when you can skip the foundational pre-work, but:
Here's something else that helps me out from time-to-time.
Fat pads will essentially give you pointers on where to add build-up. This, along with understanding the muscular structure and anatomy of the human face will be incredibly helpful to you as an artist.
It's hard work, taking all of this in. I recommend just taking a bit of time to figure it all out. You can continue to work with what you have if you'd like, but in the future it'll pay to know this stuff. You'll work faster and with greater understanding.
I feel like it would be going backwards to do the planes now so I carried on working into it.
I feel it looks a bit weird still but I can't pinpoint why.
Look at Marie-Pepin's Ellie character bust Look at the lack of abberant bumps and lumps she has. It reads as a female face, but it looks clean, even with the natural blemishes and pores.
Does it feel weird to go back again when you're this far ahead? Yes. Is it necessary sometimes. Absolutely. It's better to cut your losses in this case than continue down a bad path that will just end up with more pain. Game development is this a lot of time: cut features that are not working so you have a tighter game instead of delivering badly made features.
I'm still recommending going back and defining your planes. The fatpads still apply to a planar head because you're defining the surface of the head, which includes the fat. Doing that, you'll most likely avoid what happened with your last project you posted:
Dd you ever get the chance to finish the anthropomorphic fox and get it rendered in a game engine?
You're not any less skilled for recognizing you need to fix things by going backwards. In a lot of ways, it's easier for artists since we're not determining the monetary system like the US Federal Bank. It requires skilled people to know when to go back to fix the foundation so the future ends up looking better.
Also, you don't need to dynamesh your clothes to the body. Keep it clean, create it as a separate subtool.
i agree that the face is still a bit lumpy so i would duplicate the mesh, go to zremesher for a real quick and dirty low poly and steadily go up in sub-divisions, that'll smooth out the face a great deal
for the eyes, the shape is a bit off, the outside corner of the eyes are too high, and u need to space the eyes apart more, generally u should be able to fit an eye in between the eyes
i would also recommend checking this out too for female faces, Hazardous Arts, he has a very specific style for female faces but he has a few good tips and tricks to think about when making a female face
There's no wrong or right way, just try different methods and see what works for you.
It's going to look bad at first, looking good and making it look how you want it will come with practice , even then it will still look bad to you at times or you will always find things wrong/off, that's a part of being an artist. But just work as much as you can on it if you're serious about it like that. Wishing the best
Oh and brian lol this Last of Us sculpt is by "Michael Knowland"(catstyle) :P
I think the lumpiness is more me not knowing what the 'correct' way to sculpt in Zbrush is rather than the planes. Although I might try doing the planes on her face for my own practice as I'm scared all the tweaks I've adjusted her face to will be all a waste.
Also yes I did finish the fox/wolf guy, I kind of rushed the end due to time constraints (I'm working on time management) but I wasn't happy with it enough to post it up.
Also, I seem to lose my lower divisions halfway through a sculpt and I'm not sure how I can keep them or get them back (It may be because of dynamesh?) But that's probably why it looks lumpy. I like working with clay so I don't mind the lumpiness as it's more clay like but it does look better smoothed when finished.
Right now will be a good time to learn a good workflow, instead of hacking away at a workflow that won't help you as quickly in the future. And it's totally possible that later, you won't need planes. You'll be comfortable enough to just sculpt a bust straight up.
Dynamesh does remove lower subdivisions if you don't freeze them.
You can't really lose progress that you've made because it is internal progress, rather than progress on an individual piece of work. Doing in depth studies of anatomy and form, iterating/starting over, studying the work of masterful sculptors, will lead you to knowledge and confidence that will allow you to remake better results in less time.
Studying the planes of the face as suggested will help you understand what your model is currently lacking. Also I would suggest to get rid of all of your subdivision levels and spend as much time at lvl 1 or 2, depending on your starting mesh. Get as much form and read as you can at the lowest sub-d level you have, and you will be able to avoid the lumpy look you are currently struggling with.
Don't increase the range of the dynamesh/zremesher too much too quickly. Slowly increase it as you need more geo to work on. Or it will get all muddy looking again.
Replace the zspheres with actual spheres. Place them a bit further apart. There should be almost enough space for another eyeball inbetween the two.
Move ears up higher. Adjust the jawline. Sculpt in the brow ridge. Don't be afraid to destroy what you currently have. It's easier to remake it from scratch.
I'm not posting real girl faces yet. You need more/correct face planes in there first. Follow the references we posted from before.
Post picture from FRONT, SIDE, and 3/4 angle.
UPDATE:
I softened the jaw, I wonder if that's what you meant?
Again, don't go in details yet. Just block out the shape and planes of the face. Once that's done, then build feature on top of it, not to replace/destroy it.
Let's just do this first. Note that I'm far far far from knowing my shit about anatomy, but this should more or less move you in the right direction.
Oh my gosh I didn't realise it didn't post! -___-
Fill in some of her cheeks, and maybe widen her forehead a bit is something I would do next. And keep working on her eye lids.
EXTRA
If you want the toes, sculpt them in now.
You can retop in Maya, 3D Coat, Topogun, or within ZBrush itself. That's up to you.
Feel free to ask questions if you need help in this step.
When it comes to topology, you want these loops. It helps with animations and stuff....
Notice loops around each eye, and loops around both eyes, and loops around the lips, and loops around nose and lips. Also, loops across the chest, loops around each boob, And so on.
There is more than just one single way to do topology, so I wouldn't get too hang up on it too much.
If her costume/clothing is going to hide her neck seam, then you can even separate the head from the body.
Added: Oh, do the retopology by hands. Don't use ZRemesher for it.
Added: You have to show me where you are, or I can't tell if you lack technique, or knowledge, or tips.
You will get to do retop by hands eventually, though. (way easier to retop in other programs. Retop in ZB sucks badly.)
Start looking up Milla Jovovich's nudes/fakes/photoshops, and follow what you see, I guess. More space between eyes, get rid of her eye bags, and adjust her facial structures to match up.
* Spend more time looking from 3/4 angle when sculpting face/head. Use reference.
* Don't get hung up on the clothing mesh you have. You most likely gonna have to redo it a few times. It's muddy and mushy atm, and wrinkles don't exactly work that way.
Depends on the material of the fabric...
Edit: Also fixed up the head a bit cause I realised from 3/4 view it lost some of the fat in the cheeks.
Edited: