Was it the jacket collar blocking her neck that makes it appeared so ? Or is it her actual neck/head that could come more forward in general.
@Ged Honestly I don't know if I want to go with that super slim ankle route..... Especially Mercy... whose shin guards are that slim... Her ankles gonna be like 3-finger width.
Ok, I think I figured out about the posture now. Her weight was mostly over her heels before, and so now I move her centerpoint more forward. Currently resting over the nose of her feet. Though I have seen many examples of the characters resting weight over the toes. I moved her whole body more forward, and a tad more for her head as well. I adjusted her arms a bit, then continued working on her robotic arms.
I suppose I could move her more forward still if I want to. It would be from her hips upward that's going to move.
Here's my newly remade left robotic arm. The underlayer is mostly inspired by... not a direct copy from the concept art. I took some liberty with it. Gonna clean up, and detail some more. Then retop/hardsurface the outer layer.
Its coming along well but yeah in my personal opinion if youre not going to use overwatch style proportions on everything(including the legs/ankles) its not really going to feel like it fits with the other overwatch characters as well as it could.
@Brian Panda Choi I didn't intend to, but I was aware. I was thinking 'she's pretty top heavy right now, lemme beef up her limbs and thighs a bit more to match.' and stuff. ....... Ps. I just realized there's no way anyone could tag you because of the Quotations :P
@Ged Good point. Though this piece wasn't really going to be an exact copy. (It's a fan art of fan art with my spin on it.) I probably should check that's she's at least still in the same universe with the other characters
I kept pushing back posting updates til I have something bigger to show. I pushed in more proportions adjustments, and remade quite a few placeholders... Again, this is more fanart of fanarts. Trying to make something cool.
The wings are not part of the character. But maybe semi-transparency light particle thingy....
Placeholding texture. I test-baked Normal, AO, and Vertex... Works fine, EXCEPT the seams... It's been a long while since I last got visible seams. (I did use triangulated baking cage...) This could be that I subdiv'ed the LP into highres in ZB... and UV border got smoothed too...
Anyhow, gonna sculpt in more face details now, while I fix the seams.
Tested Body LP. The leggings around her hips are a bit... off. Guess that's what happens when baking mesh down to flat planes... Might need more geo around there.
.... My PC crashed once doing this, and ZB crashed twice, Topogun crashed 3 times, and Substance Painter crashed twice (to bake maps)...
Finally overcame baking errors and stuff... Started texturing. Hair is still placeholder, as I am deciding what to do with it... (decimated hair mesh right now). Belts and buckles will come soon.
Something about her hairline feels off the side part feels like it sits too far back maybe. Also you should get some eyebrows on her, you've sketched in all the other details but no eyebrows?
I agree with @jacob thomas eyebrows are definitely needed heh. Even just an indication for now. I don't think it's the hairline placement necessarily that's too high though, so much as the size of her cranium relative to the facial features. I did a quick photoshop edit of your latest face and brought the features into positions that feel better to me, then i hit it a little bit to try and nail the likeness a little more. Slightly more upturned nose, widened her jawline, bigger and reshaped eyes, eyebrows and eyelash. Slapped it into a gif. Hope this helps!
edit- i intended to draw over her cupids bow but i forgot. it's very sharply V shaped in the references i saw though
I haven't had a chance to work on her hair yet. But I definitely started on her face. I placed down a placeholder for the eyebrows, and adjusted the lowpoly. I definitely like the improvement.
May I trouble you one step further ?? Neither of my anatomy knowledge, eyes for details, or taste design is what I consider decent, that's why all the feedback I receive help me tremendously. However, I also want to improve them as well, and not simply blindly follow advice. I don't think I will learn if all I do is just 'listen, follow, listen, follow'. I don't want to sound or come across as rude; because I have great respect to all other artists. And I'd hate to have to ask you to explain yourself, especially after you taking your time to help me.
It's easier when the advice are about (anatomy) mistakes I make, because then after some cross-check with reference or more research, I can see for myself that the advice are sound and true; and it's better to follow. Art style or personal preference or 'good taste' advice is probably very subjective and very hard to make, or to measure, or to judge. (probably why Art Director is very important.) But I also want to improve myself in this aspect too.
I have to admit, I quite like what I currently have. (which could be a bad sign... getting complacent with my skills, eventhough there are mostly a crap ton more to do and to improve further.)
---
Side note here, that I really like your version of the nasal bone area, the chin, how the nose connects to the eye area, and that the eyelashes shouldn't block the eyelids. ... I do like the lips she currently has though !
And that I got quite a nice lowpoly hair mesh working now.
It may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but even though it seems like you are near the end of the journey as far as asset creation steps are concerned (sculpt - bake - texture), it is actually just the very beginning when it comes to developping a convincing and subtle stylized realtime female head.
There are many questions left for you to answer, even besides core design elements like the size of the eyes or the shape of the jaw.
- How will you achieve the concave depth of the iris (always very strongly shown in animated CG charaters), as opposed to just having it painted on ?
As seen here:
as opposed to here:
How are you going to build subtle eyebrows and eyelashes, so that they look as natural as here :
What is your target look as far as skin shading is concerned ? You could start by trying to replicate the shading seen in the following picture with all the tools at your disposal (relying on subtle painted textures, leveraging baked information, using the built-in Marmoset skin shader and/or a simple ramp-based shading effect) :
And so on
Now all these aspects are of course secondary to a solid design (the balance of facial features, the previously mentionned size of the eyes, and so on) BUT getting the crafting aspects just right will be instrumental in making your model "click".
So ... I guess what I am trying to get at is that you might have to consider the face of your character model as a bit of a self-contained project, with its own unique set of design and technical challenges, its own pre-production/research phase, and so on.
Sorry if this post is not very constructive - just wanted to stress out how important it is to be acutely aware of the qualities of your reference material, while attempting to replicate them every step of the way, technically and artistically speaking.
PyrZern, This is your work and you should always keep in mind that critique are always subjective. As this is your personnal work you are free to experiment, apply some critic but also reject some critic or disagree with it. It's the same for everyone, I still do get a lot of crits on my work, sometimes I agree and I apply it to my work, but sometimes I stand by the decisions I took, may they be esthetic or technical. This is also part of learning to be able to have a subjective opinion about your own work (or at least try to) and maybe at first it might seems like just blindlessly following people critic, but after a while you might be able to better critic your own work and be able to know what should be done to make it better all by yourself. The paintover I did somehow corrected some anatomical issue (but it's hard to really judge your sculpt with the harsh light and colors from your last shot) but mostly tried to brings you a bit closer from the tracer reference in a stylistic way.
Anyway like I said, don't be afraid to disagree with some critics, it's still your own work and you should be happy about it too at the end of the day (for now at least, until you work for a client to be happy!)
Thanks for the helps, and the insights. Working on this piece really has expanded my horizon. And it's still isn't over yet.
I'm tinkering away the textures and the shaders. Luckily, I could get Toolbag render to almost match SPainter render. So that's a huge help.
I regret having her hand on a separate texture sheet from her face now, but it's no big deal..... Just inconvenience. I will match the skin tone later. Still working on her face, of course.
I may or may not been having too much fun. (Damnit, Tracer, your armpit UV is stretching like crazy.... Should have modeled this in t-pose instead of a-pose, I guess)
Replies
Sorry, I did not know how to explain it better and I had no access to google images :pleased:
I gotta admit, I'm not seeing the design cogency, but get it textured well and we might have something.
Was it the jacket collar blocking her neck that makes it appeared so ? Or is it her actual neck/head that could come more forward in general.
@Ged
Honestly I don't know if I want to go with that super slim ankle route..... Especially Mercy... whose shin guards are that slim... Her ankles gonna be like 3-finger width.
I suppose I could move her more forward still if I want to. It would be from her hips upward that's going to move.
Here's my newly remade left robotic arm. The underlayer is mostly inspired by... not a direct copy from the concept art. I took some liberty with it. Gonna clean up, and detail some more. Then retop/hardsurface the outer layer.
@Ged Good point. Though this piece wasn't really going to be an exact copy. (It's a fan art of fan art with my spin on it.) I probably should check that's she's at least still in the same universe with the other characters
I pushed in more proportions adjustments, and remade quite a few placeholders... Again, this is more fanart of fanarts. Trying to make something cool.
The wings are not part of the character. But maybe semi-transparency light particle thingy....
Anyhow, gonna sculpt in more face details now, while I fix the seams.
.... My PC crashed once doing this, and ZB crashed twice, Topogun crashed 3 times, and Substance Painter crashed twice (to bake maps)...
edit- i intended to draw over her cupids bow but i forgot. it's very sharply V shaped in the references i saw though
I haven't had a chance to work on her hair yet. But I definitely started on her face. I placed down a placeholder for the eyebrows, and adjusted the lowpoly. I definitely like the improvement.
May I trouble you one step further ?? Neither of my anatomy knowledge, eyes for details, or taste design is what I consider decent, that's why all the feedback I receive help me tremendously. However, I also want to improve them as well, and not simply blindly follow advice. I don't think I will learn if all I do is just 'listen, follow, listen, follow'. I don't want to sound or come across as rude; because I have great respect to all other artists. And I'd hate to have to ask you to explain yourself, especially after you taking your time to help me.
It's easier when the advice are about (anatomy) mistakes I make, because then after some cross-check with reference or more research, I can see for myself that the advice are sound and true; and it's better to follow. Art style or personal preference or 'good taste' advice is probably very subjective and very hard to make, or to measure, or to judge. (probably why Art Director is very important.) But I also want to improve myself in this aspect too.
I have to admit, I quite like what I currently have. (which could be a bad sign... getting complacent with my skills, eventhough there are mostly a crap ton more to do and to improve further.)
---
Side note here, that I really like your version of the nasal bone area, the chin, how the nose connects to the eye area, and that the eyelashes shouldn't block the eyelids. ... I do like the lips she currently has though !
And that I got quite a nice lowpoly hair mesh working now.
It may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but even though it seems like you are near the end of the journey as far as asset creation steps are concerned (sculpt - bake - texture), it is actually just the very beginning when it comes to developping a convincing and subtle stylized realtime female head.
There are many questions left for you to answer, even besides core design elements like the size of the eyes or the shape of the jaw.
- How will you achieve the concave depth of the iris (always very strongly shown in animated CG charaters), as opposed to just having it painted on ?
As seen here:
as opposed to here:
How are you going to build subtle eyebrows and eyelashes, so that they look as natural as here :
What is your target look as far as skin shading is concerned ? You could start by trying to replicate the shading seen in the following picture with all the tools at your disposal (relying on subtle painted textures, leveraging baked information, using the built-in Marmoset skin shader and/or a simple ramp-based shading effect) :
And so on
Now all these aspects are of course secondary to a solid design (the balance of facial features, the previously mentionned size of the eyes, and so on) BUT getting the crafting aspects just right will be instrumental in making your model "click".
So ... I guess what I am trying to get at is that you might have to consider the face of your character model as a bit of a self-contained project, with its own unique set of design and technical challenges, its own pre-production/research phase, and so on.
Sorry if this post is not very constructive - just wanted to stress out how important it is to be acutely aware of the qualities of your reference material, while attempting to replicate them every step of the way, technically and artistically speaking.
Good luck !
As this is your personnal work you are free to experiment, apply some critic but also reject some critic or disagree with it.
It's the same for everyone, I still do get a lot of crits on my work, sometimes I agree and I apply it to my work, but sometimes I stand by the decisions I took, may they be esthetic or technical.
This is also part of learning to be able to have a subjective opinion about your own work (or at least try to) and maybe at first it might seems like just blindlessly following people critic, but after a while you might be able to better critic your own work and be able to know what should be done to make it better all by yourself.
The paintover I did somehow corrected some anatomical issue (but it's hard to really judge your sculpt with the harsh light and colors from your last shot)
but mostly tried to brings you a bit closer from the tracer reference in a stylistic way.
Anyway like I said, don't be afraid to disagree with some critics, it's still your own work and you should be happy about it too at the end of the day (for now at least, until you work for a client to be happy!)
cheers
I'm tinkering away the textures and the shaders. Luckily, I could get Toolbag render to almost match SPainter render. So that's a huge help.
I regret having her hand on a separate texture sheet from her face now, but it's no big deal..... Just inconvenience. I will match the skin tone later. Still working on her face, of course.
Lots more to do.
I may or may not been having too much fun. (Damnit, Tracer, your armpit UV is stretching like crazy.... Should have modeled this in t-pose instead of a-pose, I guess)