@Colton, thank you! Some of the Marvelous Designer exports were a bit too early to show so I hid them by way of polypaint.
I've started blocking in the rest of the character, although I'm not very happy with his outer shirt. It's been pretty difficult to get close to the concept art while still physically preserving the uv orientation for the stripes in its pattern, but I'll definitely be going back to experiment some more.
@Lucospade, thanks! Making the sound hole cover was a simple matter of box-modeling a single quadrant on top of reference and then applying symmetry in both directions.
Finished detailing this lute. I'm hoping to make some final adjustments to the overall highpoly this week and then I can move on to texturing.
Looks super awesome, what is your workflow for creating all this microdetail and the torn cloth edges? Also, the clay render setup is really nice, what's this renderen in? Keyshot?
Thanks @Shyralon and @OFPismySOP! The software used so far are Marvelous Designer, ZBrush and Keyshot. The render scene is pretty basic with a few different materials for cloth, fur, skin and metal.
For the cloth I preserved the uvs from MD and applied a pattern with big variations in intensity. The torn edges are a combination of pulled vertices, fibermesh and some clay tubes. I should experiment some more with tearing individual threads out of their pattern in a much more realistic way by using clever topology and nanomesh, but maybe some time later.
I'm pushing hard to finish texturing this character in time for the upcoming ArtStation challenge so here's a quick update with the first texture pass. Still lots of work to do, including face and hair.
Thanks @Jakub, there's still a lot to work on but it's slowly getting there!
I felt so bad for not joining the ArtStation challenge but I had to slow down and pay closer attention to the process of modeling realistic faces and hair. The sculpt had some problems with the anatomy around the eyes and the direction of the skin pores which I only noticed while texturing. It looked so bad that I decided to buy some tutorials/resources and start from scratch.
This is where I got so far but I'm running out of ideas on how to improve it further. Worked a lot to soften the transition of the beard and eyebrows but they still feel a bit fake.
Next up is the hair which I suspect will be even more difficult. Let me know if you have any suggestions!
Yeah, the skin tends to be pretty thin on the forehead so wrinkles tend to be a bit more subtle, right now the 3 big wrinkles on the forehead really stand out, especially because of the bulging skin around those wrinkles. Placement seems a little strange too, they almost look more like scars than what I would expect from natural forehead wrinkles in a neutral expression.
Just a nitpick though, overall this is looking great
Thanks for the feedback, @Winstone, @artofmars and @Shiniku! I did go back and make a few more adjustments to the sculpt, including reworking the top of the skull and forehead. Also made some small changes to the textures and shaders, hopefully for the better!
Next up was the hair which was also a first and a great learning experience. It currently sits at 37k tris, but I'm sure a lot of the strips don't add very much value, especially towards the back. Also most of the messy strips towards the surface are cloned and flipped, as the shader required culling back faces. Would love to hear some feedback on how to improve it!
Thanks, @Mark Dygert! Sharing this stuff is what makes polycount such a good place to learn and improve.
@Brian "Panda" Choi, haha that's awesome! Now I feel bad I didn't follow the concept as closely as I probably should have. The skin shader has been a real challenge for me, but I will definitely strive to improve in every necessary area.
Replies
I've started blocking in the rest of the character, although I'm not very happy with his outer shirt. It's been pretty difficult to get close to the concept art while still physically preserving the uv orientation for the stripes in its pattern, but I'll definitely be going back to experiment some more.
Worked some more on detailing the pants, their laces and some of the remaining leather parts.
Finished detailing this lute. I'm hoping to make some final adjustments to the overall highpoly this week and then I can move on to texturing.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/DBmgG
Also, the clay render setup is really nice, what's this renderen in? Keyshot?
I felt so bad for not joining the ArtStation challenge but I had to slow down and pay closer attention to the process of modeling realistic faces and hair. The sculpt had some problems with the anatomy around the eyes and the direction of the skin pores which I only noticed while texturing. It looked so bad that I decided to buy some tutorials/resources and start from scratch.
Just a nitpick though, overall this is looking great
Next up was the hair which was also a first and a great learning experience. It currently sits at 37k tris, but I'm sure a lot of the strips don't add very much value, especially towards the back. Also most of the messy strips towards the surface are cloned and flipped, as the shader required culling back faces. Would love to hear some feedback on how to improve it!
@artofmars, haha I didn't know that was a thing!
Made some proper renders of the final a-pose. I'll make him a pose, a viewer and some breakdowns sometime soon.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gde8Q
Check the Marmoset Viewer on my ArtStation!
Felt he needed a combat stance so I went ahead and made a couple more renders.
@Brian "Panda" Choi, haha that's awesome! Now I feel bad I didn't follow the concept as closely as I probably should have. The skin shader has been a real challenge for me, but I will definitely strive to improve in every necessary area.
I'm giving away some of the project files for this character for educational purposes, feel free to pick it apart!
Check the Marmoset Viewer + breakdowns on my ArtStation:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ln08O
Get it for free on my Gumroad:
https://gum.co/nnmr