[WIP] Yoko from Gurren Lagann

reereen

This was a character I had been meaning to model for quite some time. One of my favorite anime characters from a very inspirational anime.

One of my goals for the summer(in addition to targeting my portfolio) is to focus on doing art that I enjoy and can get excited about, and just returning to what made me want to go into this field in college, which is why I chose to model her. I started off wanting to do this as a stylized anime sculpt, but based off the feedback I got on my portfolio, I am heavily considering changing the eyes and nose to make it more on the realistic side. Not sure yet.

Before sculpting her in ZBrush, I modeled a generic anime head and body from scratch in order to have cleaner and more optimized geometry for wireframe turnarounds.

Here is my progress so far. 


Here's the character. I do own an artbook dedicated entirely to art of this character, including character design notes, if more specific pictures from the book would help. Thank god for anime figurines.
   

Brian "Panda" Choi

Head proportions off.  Make it smaller.

Take your reference and measure how many head lengths different limbs and elements are.  And I really mean this, do this all in Photoshop or something.

reereen

Since the last time I posted this, I addressed the proportion crits to the best of my ability. I also learned how to use the topology tool in ZBrush and did some retopo on the clothes. How I survived ZBrush all these years without using this tool is beyond me.

Don't worry, she still has high poly subdivisions. They're just not shown because I'm working as low poly for as long as I can.

I modeled her shoes and extracted her clothes from her body since it's all skin-tight. The boots were also blocked in. All that's left is her belt(which I will make with the IMM brush), the chopsticks in her hair, and her gun(which is a separate project in itself)




The main thing that I was struggling with the most is getting the mouth to look somewhat decent. I know there's a way the mouth is supposed to curve on the inside, but for some reason, I can't pinpoint how to do it. Also this is partially me debating whether to stick to the stylized cartoon or go realistic.

Bombshell

2 things, anatomy study and practice,

The legs are much too short, the face is misshapen the shoulders are gooey, the torso lacks shape, so on and so forth.
You need to build up your understanding of human anatomy, how flesh is shaped, how muscles order themselves, how joints appear at rest, how the face is supported and how the shoulders connect, etc. etc.
To do this take to drawing or creating quick models, take a reference image of a human in a pose, try to create a model that captures it accurately, constantly compare the relationship between certain measurements and shapes, when you're done with one, move on to the next and repeat, all artists 2D and 3D do this regularly, its a skill that needs maintaining.

If you want specifics I'll mention specific problems with the face, there appears to be no cheekbones nor brow, there also appears to be no jaw and a wide soft cranium,

This is a run of the mill skull, between men and women and even in anime there isn't much change in the larger forms.
Notice on the side view how flat the face appears to be from the nose hole up to the brow, and how deep the eye socket appears, the brow actually extends strongly past the nose, noticeable in even the most meatiest of faces, the cheeks almost meet it but not quite, and of course given the nature of the eye, the eye must be about level with or recessed from the brow, consider also how narrow the head is compared to its length, even in the artstyle of Gurren Lagann this is reflected, though slightly less so.
Turning to the jaw something easily missed and took me a long time to realize, the jaw is surprisingly pointed, notice how far back its outermost parts are compared to the wide bearing of the cheekbones, compare the locations of things from the side on view and the front on view and strange shapes you'd not realize start to make sense, all the more if you try recreating this image (or at least it's rough shapes) yourself.

So that may have came off as bumbling and rambling but the point is, anatomy study, trying to recreate these shapes and constantly evaluating them to learn from them is your bread and butter and your building blocks as an artist. You don't have to do it right and you don't have to do it well, that comes with time, but in closing, a strong anatomical understanding would help most of this models issues, and anatomical understanding comes from study and patience