Westworld; Dolores - Game Ready Character
Excited to have some time to start a new personal project and as my freelance work is mostly stylised characters I thought I'd learn the most from working on something more realistic. I also decided it’s about time I gave likeness another shot as it always seems to teach me a great deal about my weaknesses as a 3d artist.
I chose Dolores because Westworld is great - and her costume is limited to only a few pieces, meaning I can focus on the quality and execution of a few things without the project dragging on for a year.
Despite only having a few things to focus on I still find it really helpful to break projects down into subtasks... so I made a spreadsheet. Yikes.
It obviously helps with not feeling overwhelmed but also displays my options of things to jump between when I just get really sick of placing hair cards. I'll probably add more things later but this is a general outline of the entire project:
Early block in, I've already tried to hit her likeness in the bigger forms but still needs a lot more work.
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Working on the likeness in short stints in order to be able to see the problem areas whenever I come back to it. Still not right - but getting closer (feedback welcome!)
Also been working on the base for the clothing, initially doing a quick retop and unwrap of the sculpt to provide a pattern. The costume is pretty simple so this probably wasn't necessary but seeing as the retop can be used later it seems like a really efficient pipeline.
I also like to get the eyes done fairly early in a project so I can make sure they fit with the eyelids properly. I previously made an eye from XYZ's displacement textures (Female HumanEyesGreen Iris #03) so I kept the mesh and altered the textures for Dolores.
Getting closer to a likeness, profile still needs more work.
I've been working on ways to have more control over the pleats in the skirt. A circle skirt with folded internal lines seemed to cause a lot of problems from the outset so I tried to simplify the construction method down into rectangular strips. For the final version I will use fewer pieces to prevent unnecessary seams but the pattern below should still be really useful as a guide. I intend to decrease the number of pleats in the back and add a large loose box pleat to the centre front.
First pass on her accessories
Belt needs to end sooner after the buckle and the embossed border needs to be thinner
Refining the MD pattern for her top
For the creases I plan test posing her arms in different positions and hopefully store different creases as morph targets for use when sculpting.
For the next part of the dress I'll be looking into the best way to create the memory folds that add a lot of information to the cloth texture.