The Bi-Monthly CHARACTER ART Challenge | December - January

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Alemja quad damage


Welcome to the Bi-Monthly Character Art Challenge!

Challenge will run until the end of January
Previous Challenge Thread

How it works
  • Every new challenge, 3 Character Concepts will be provided
  • Pick one concept to work on for the duration of the challenge and post your progress here!
  • Complete a 3D game res model of your chosen concept
Guidelines
  • Help other artists grow! When you post an update, also leave a critique for someone else. Share knowledge you have learned
  • There are no software restrictions; you're welcome to use as little, or as many different software packages as you like.
  • There are no polygon or texture restrictions, it can be a 3,000 triangle hand painted model or a 100,000 triangle current gen model. Just make sure the final result is a game model, not a sculpt!
  • You are welcome to cross post on different sites (Artstation, Facebook, etc.) for additional feedback
  • Before starting your character, break down the concept and plan your work accordingly. Being able to effectively estimate how long it will take to complete a project is an important skill, especially for freelance artists.
  • Your final presentation should be posed and rendered in any real time engine. (Marmoset, UE4, Unity, etc.)
  • Don't be afraid to ask questions, but don't hesitate to find the answer on your own - chances are, the answer to your problem has already been answered within these forums
  • If you feel anything should be modified or added to these guidelines, please let me know!
Resources


Concepts

Please credit and link to the artists when posting on other sites!

A chinese assassin by Yuankai Li


Samurai by ㅇㅇ Joo


Baby Snatcher by Beth Hobbs


How concepts are chosen:
  • Trying to keep it consistently one male character, one female and one other non-human (robot, creature, humanoid, etc)
  • Trying to keep the 3 concepts look like they are part of a theme or could fit in similar universe.
  • Concepts must be full body and clearly drawn. There shouldn't be a lot of guesswork on what the details or proportions are. Turnarounds are a good thing to have, but not required
  • Concepts shouldn't be too complex or too simple to allow people to get them done in the time-frame while also finding something interesting and giving a challenge.
  • Must be able to link back to the original source artist to they can be properly credited, places like Pinterest can lead to link rot. If I cannot find the source or original artist, the art will not be used
  • If you are a concept artist and want your concept removed or want to create a concept for a future challenge please feel free to contact me.
  • If you have any suggestions of themes you would like to see in the future, send me a message!

Replies

  • Justo
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    Justo polycounter
    Love these concepts.
  • Quick Brick
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    Quick Brick polycounter lvl 2
    I'm liking the second concept, so I'm giving that one a shot. I started by laying down some shapes in ZBrush, then I did a quick sketch-over to see how the clothing would fit.

    And here's my progress so far:

    I'm pretty happy with the legs and torso for now, but there's still a lot of work to be done on the hands and face. And it's a shame that this thread's so quiet, I think these concepts are really cool. So if you guys are just lurking, please let me know what you think  :)
  • Drocho
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    Drocho polycounter lvl 2
    Making a good start! Sketching over the clothes, now that's what I should've done. ;)

    I'd say it looks a little like either the shoulders there are a tad too wide, or the hips too thin. Looks a little masculine to me, but perhaps that's the idea. Feet also look too small, but it's a good base to build upon.

    Me, I've been building up geometry from the bottom, from the same concept:


  • E4sY
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    E4sY polycounter lvl 11
    I'm going with the second concept. Here is the start for the body.

    It's kind of early for me to critique, but for Drocho would say working on the characters body proportions would give a more true to concept silhouette. 

  • Quick Brick
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    Quick Brick polycounter lvl 2

    Here's where I'm up to with the head.

    @Drocho How did you go about making her cape, and those knots? I'm not 100% sure how I should do them, and I'd like to see your process
  • carvuliero
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    carvuliero hero character
    Quick brick she look nice . I have added few thing for you to consider :
    - lateral corner of the eyes looks a bit flat 
    - she need cheek bones 


  • Quick Brick
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    Quick Brick polycounter lvl 2
    I worked on it a little more, and I think it's a lot stronger now. Thanks for the advice, @carvuliero, it was really helpful:



    @E4sY That's a decent start, but your model is looking a little bit lumpy right now. If the regular smooth brush is being a bit slow, you could try using 'Smooth Stronger', which works 10x faster. To get it, open the brush menu with B and click on Load Brush in the bottom left corner. Then browse to ZBrush4R8/ZBrushes/Smooth then click on Smooth Stronger (If you want it to load every time you start, copy it into the ZStartup folder). There's loads of cool hidden brushes, so maybe have a look around.

    One more thing, remember to turn the ZIntensity of your brushes way down for more control. By default, most of the brushes are WAY too strong (especially dam standard. If you turn it down, it becomes much better at making subtle cuts and plane changes) so give that shot.

    Keep it up!
  • carvuliero
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    carvuliero hero character
    Looks to me that your nose tip and wings are proportionally smaller then the rest of face features :
    Height - most people conform to 1/3 for a wing height of nose length 
    Depth - it relation 2:1 or 1:1 for part of the nose that stick out the face and part that in on the face 






  • ruebenDodds
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    ruebenDodds polycounter lvl 11
    Great concepts!! I love everyone development so far with their characters. @carvuliero you give great feedback. Wish I could join but trying to finish off other projects that I have completed in awhile.
  • Captain_Bristle
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    Captain_Bristle polycounter lvl 4
    Hey folks, posting a little late but I had to show something! I spent my weekend sculpting the base figure from the second concept, the samurai woman. Still tweaking some of the the features on the body, the knees, calves, and torso need a bit of adjustment. I'm planning to change the face quite a bit before I settle on the final look. I'm using my friend's face for reference, she has interesting features. Currently I'm resurfacing this decimated dynamesh model so it smooths nicely, and so I can make quick adjustments without nasty deformation. I fucking love clean sub-d models that smooth 0_0 
    The character wears armor and swings swords all day so I reckoned that she has more muscle mass than the average woman. I don't want her to be too lean either, a soldier/warrior has to eat a lot to fight so she has a bit of extra fat as well. Honestly its more natural proportions, with exception the the neck and legs. They are about 15-20% longer than usual so she can fit into the armor without feeling too bulky. I want to push the features in more of a Korean manga direction. I think the figure leans closer to eight heads tall.

    I aim to have a complete resurfaced basemesh by the end of the week so I can start building the clothes and simulating.

    CC the shit out of it BOIZ


  • derpderp101

    Hi everyone. This is my progress so far. Aiming to turn this into a game mesh. Gonna have a "fun" time retopoing this T.T

  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    good start ya'll.
  • Mr Flopsie
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    Mr Flopsie polycounter lvl 5
    @derpderp101 It looks pretty good already with her armor on but naked she has a lot of anatomy problems I think. Especially around the waist/upper legs.. But not sure if its worth fixing since you won't see it in the end result.

    @Captain_Bristle Looks amazing! I'm excited for the end result!!

    I might join as well!
    Happy holidays everyone!
  • E4sY
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    E4sY polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks for crits and comments. I'm starting to develop the basic clothing and equipment in this update. 

  • MRM
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    MRM triangle
    Hi all, 

    I am currently working on the first concept art piece. Here is my progress so far. Any feedback will be much appreciated. 

    Thanks,

    MM
  • E4sY
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    E4sY polycounter lvl 11
    MRM - the character is coming along nicely. The cloth areas, in my opinion, need more work. Looking too bumpy at the moment.


  • MRM
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    MRM triangle
    Hi All, 

    Here is an update of the character. Headscarf is WIP atm but will move onto the bag and sword next. 

    Thanks, 

    MM
  • MRM
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    MRM triangle
    Also, still working on the clothes and I agree they did look a bit bulky and unrealistic. 
  • MRM
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    MRM triangle
    Hi all, 

    Character update. Have all the parts done just need to add the straps that attach the side knives and detail the face up and add skin pores and details. Then onto uving. Any feedback is appreciated. 

    Thanks,

    MM
  • MRM
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    MRM triangle
    Hi all, 

    Here is the character so far. Textured in Substance Painter and Rendered in Marmoset. 
  • Sequencer
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    Sequencer triangle
    I'm really late on this one to the point where I probably won't make the deadline but I still wanna give the samurai by o o joo a shot.
    Here's my initial blockout. 
    As next step I'll go over the blockout as a whole again and adjust some proportions.
    In the concept her neck seems pretty long to me so I'm not sure if I can get that area matching well, but I do think I could bring down the shoulders a bit more at least.
    Her chest piece also seems more rounded to me.
    Also the overall shape of the skirt thingy looks off but I'm not really sure why right now.
    One thing I definitely need to play around with is that her knees seem a lot higher in the concept. The whole knee guard thing also just needs to be bigger I think.
    Under the cloak so far I only have a few overlapping armor pieces for her upper arm, similar to the forearm. Not too sure what to really do with that yet.
    The pouch is just a placeholder I had lying around so that'll look closer to the concept in the end.
  • Alemja
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    Alemja quad damage
    @MRM Nice to see you close to finishing up. I think you could easily cut out half the polygons and it will barely affect the shape.

    @Sequencer Nice start! Don't worry about the deadline, it is not a hard one. It's mostly to keep a fresh rotation of concepts going, you're more than welcome to keep working on this model, I even highly encourage it! Some people have gone on to finish a concept on their own time and have come out with very nice work.
  • Sequencer
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    Sequencer triangle
    A small update, I mostly just spent time sculpting the head though.
    I did some smaller changes to the overall proportions. Lowered the shoulders, rounded out the chest piece a bit, moved up the knees and tried to make the knee guard a bit bulkier. I'm a bit hesitant still though to move the knees up even further and make the whole leg armor straighter and bigger like in the concept.

    For the head I initially tried to get some sort of likeness going but that soon ended up with me just trying to get a halfway decent looking head done first of all. I'll have to see if I can actually get something looking similar to the concept in the end. Here also a thanks @carvuliero for the references and feedback earlier in the thread. 

  • carvuliero
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    carvuliero hero character
    I see you need some help with that head
    I would check proportions one more time if I ware you - nose take most of her face
    Neck structure is kind of opposite of what you made , its widest on both ends where connect to head and body and its narrowest above clavicle and C7

  • alange
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    alange polycounter lvl 5
    Better late than never, so here it is! Still in progress but hoping to finish up before the deadline.
    Working on the textures at the moment; I'd like the armor to be less reflective, and the hair has not been textured yet.
    I took a lot of liberty with the look of the face:

    Just for fun, I tried quickly rigging the model and posing from the reference picture (ignore the many weighting issues  :#... 
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Palms down.  Most rigs are rarely palm forward since it's not the most netural wrist position.
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    @MRM is it too late to resculpt the clothes?  A lot of it feels too muddy.  There are few noticeable strong planes and sharp transitions in between the flows of the wrinkles.
  • alange
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    alange polycounter lvl 5
    Thank you Brian! Tweaked the hands to face inward..

    Close up on the face/shoulder armor. This was my first time using Marmoset, so I'm still working out how to best use it:


  • alange
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    alange polycounter lvl 5
    Here's a wireframe shot: 

  • Alemja
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    Alemja quad damage
    Hey everyone a new challenge is up! http://polycount.com/discussion/197795/the-bi-monthly-character-art-challenge-february-march/p1?new=1

    If you want to keep working on your models you are more than welcome to do so, you can post either here or in your own thread, this thread just no longer be stickied.