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Modeling Women...

polycounter lvl 14
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Havok polycounter lvl 14
So, I recently noticed the Gender Bender contest over at Threedy and thought "Oh, that sounds cool." (If you don't know what it is it's where you take a character from a game, movie, tv show, etc. and turn it into a character of the opposite sex.) So I decided to take Francis from Left 4 Dead and make him into a female. I had it in my head that I wanted to give her tatoos and some other biker stuff. I started the model thinking it was gonna be fairly easy to model but I have had such a hard time with it it's not even funny.

I have attempted to model her at least ten+ times now. I've started with a plane, a box, cylinders, started from legs. started from torso, and man am I having trouble. Originally I was just going to make a base mesh and try to sculpt in Zbrush (which I also haven't really done before so that is an entirely new thing I will have to learn as well :() but now I want to do the high poly only in Max. Below are five of my attempts at doing this:

femalebody2.png

I used the same reference for every model. Not exactly the greatest but it's mainly just to reference and I wasn't following it exactly. I doubt it was the reference I chose and probably just my lack of experience with modeling women. Below is the concept I drew out for the character and as you can see, her stomach shows:

conceptpost1.png

Since it shows, I really wanna have some good stomach detail. Also, I am straying away from big breasts as it is too common. The model may have bigger ones than the concept but not too much bigger. Well anyways I want to have here stomach look something like this:

SuperStock_1439R-1076089.jpg

Not TOO defined but enough for you to see some details and for it to look somewhat sexy. I also have a ton of trouble trying to get the flow from the breasts to the deltoid right.

While my reference and concept aren't the greatest, that is why I am posting. I was hoping you guys would be able to do paintovers, post links, and hopefully give as much advice as possible but maybe I am asking too much. Thank you for any help you may provide.


Mike

Replies

  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Regarding mesh flow for chest to shoulder, here's how I did it on my female base mesh:
    female_torso_base_mesh.jpg
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Ooh, that's really nice, MoP. Will definitely follow this when I try again. May I ask what method of modeling you use for base meshes? I've always like your bases for some reason, especially the one you did for you and Tully's DWII General. It was simple, but awesome :).

    EDIT: After looking at it a bit more, I will try to stray away sphere-like breasts more, kinda like you did.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Box modelling... start with a box, use Connect to subdivide it, Cut tool here and there, that's about it. Nothing special. Just a bit of thought and a bit of trial and error.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Alright, thanks. Seems that is how most people do it. Maybe I will practice that a bit. I have a bit of trouble getting the geo for the butt and pelvis to look nice when box modeling also. Any advice for that? Sorry if I am causing you any trouble with this :).
  • glib
    Havok wrote: »
    I have a bit of trouble getting the geo for the butt and pelvis to look nice when box modeling also..

    It's a tough job, but you're probably going to need to have lots of photos of women's asses (possibly nude) on your desktop as reference for hours or even days!

    Man I hate this job sometimes.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Ugh, do I really? That sucks. Does video reference count? :D
  • |Buddy|
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    |Buddy| polycounter lvl 11
    give me her number MoP
  • DEElekgolo
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    DEElekgolo interpolator
    |Buddy| wrote: »
    give me her number MoP
    1352
    :D
  • numo16
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    numo16 polycounter lvl 9
    When I did my first female base mesh, I found this tutorial to be somewhat helpful:

    http://www.arildwiro.com/tutorials/modelling/body/body01.html
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Yea, I followed that one for a little bit but then stopped. Don't know why. Thanks though, may use it for tips when I get stuck.
  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    nice boob jobs ^^
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    Go look for some life drawing classes. You know the nude type? ;)



    It really does help.

    Also why do all the women modelling tutorials i see feature really cartoony proportions? That is the most horrid way to learn :/.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks. I probably wont take classes any time soon and just learn on my own. Also, I agree about the cartoony proportions. It's quite annoying.
  • CheeseOnToast
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    CheeseOnToast greentooth
    I have to say man, the one you did at the top left looks promising. Mop has defined the boobs a bit more on his, at the expense of having a few more poles (verts with more or less than 4 edges attached, which can make little pinches and nipples occasionally when sculpting). Either way is fine. Keep it simple and even, which you have, and you'll have a nice base for sculpting. I'd persevere with that model, it's going fine so far.

    I'd skip that tut that Numo16 posted. It's not that great to be used as a base mesh.
  • AaronF3D
    Im currently modeling a woman as well, my suggestion is obviously study reference materials. Also i found it helpful to look at someones work that looks good and try to make your wire frame similar to what they did. Last and most importantly is practice, just keep trying eventually you will like what you see.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    CheeseOnToast - When I modeled that one, the entire time in my head I was thinking how I have to keep the quads evenly spaced and since you think it looks like a decent start, that is probably the road I'll take from this point on. Thanks. And with the tutorial the only reason I followed it was because I was gonna do the high poly completely in Max. I think I'll try sculpting instead now.

    AaronF3D - Oh yea, reference is a must. I've been looking at stomachs, full bodies, and various things like that. I learned a bit about female anatomy when I looked for refs for my concept (even though it probably doesn't show :S). I also recently began right click+saving a lot of images and it has definitely helped me out a bit. Would you mind maybe posting a wire of your model? I always like to compare my work with others.

    EDIT: Sorry Aaron, just noticed you had a thread, taking a look now...
  • Renaud Galand
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    Renaud Galand polycounter lvl 19
    Sze Jones (from Blur Studio) is always doing a great job with her female characters. I'm used to watch her wireframes before starting the retopo.

    http://szejones.cgsociety.org/gallery/

    http://szejones.com/
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Wow, Renaud, thanks for that. Her stuff is really amazing. Also found this interview on her site: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=062056. It's a really great read.
  • CheeseOnToast
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    CheeseOnToast greentooth
    I'd also check out Arshlevon's ridiculously famous male base mesh. It'll help you construct some of the trickier areas such as hips, shoulders, hands and feet. I'm not a huge fan of the head and ears on it, but the hands are amazingly good. If you have problems getting hold of it, give me a shout and I'll mail it to you.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Alright guys. After tons of experimenting I finally have this and I think it turned out quite well. What do you guys think? I actually used Arsh's base hands for this. If you need to see wires just let me know.

    francine1.png
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Mop has defined the boobs a bit more on his, at the expense of having a few more poles (verts with more or less than 4 edges attached, which can make little pinches and nipples occasionally when sculpting).

    Although when ZBrushing breasts, I'd argue that you want little nipples occasionally when sculpting...

    :D
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Hey, any tips for doing belts? I tried making it with Path deform but it wasn't working right. Nice job on Mystique by the way MoP, lookin' good :).
  • CheeseOnToast
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    CheeseOnToast greentooth
    Although when ZBrushing breasts, I'd argue that you want little nipples occasionally when sculpting...

    Any more than two nips is overkill, even for polycount ;D (quad-boob characters excluded)

    Havok : looks like a good base to start with, although I'd probably align the hands with the rest of the arms a bit more. No big deal though. Get the head done and show some wires please. You win a cookie if you don't give her fish lips.

    As for belts, I tend to just start with a cylinder with the caps cut off, surface-snap to the main mesh then extrude. Extruding along a spline is also handy, but I'm not a Max guy so can't help you there.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Ok, thanks. I will do my best to not give her "fish lips" :D.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    For belts and stuff in Max I always use the Shell modifier. That way you just need to model a plane really, wrap it around the body or whatever, then use Shell to control the thickness/outline of the resulting mesh. I use it on all my straps and it's awesome :)

    A sneaky detail trick you can do after that to add some trims, is to add an Edit Poly modifier on top of your TurboSmooth, grab an edge loop selection and do "Create Shape From Selection" in the EPoly Edit Edges rollout. Then you can make the resulting spline shape renderable, and give it a thickness. Instant trim!

    You can also use those resulting splines as guides for using Path Deform (WSM) modifier, or the Spacing Tool to distribute smaller detail meshes along the highpoly shape, neat and perfectly accurate.
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Yea, I use shell all the time. Handy tool. What I was talking about is making a detailed belt ( with holes, pointed end, end loop, etc.) so should I just make a regular cylindrical plane and edit it from there?
  • Frump
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    Frump polycounter lvl 12
    I usually just duplicate belt-area faces right off of my mesh so that it already conforms to the shape and has the same number of loops. Then I add bits like the end of the belt or the holes and extrude/shell modifier it out. If it is off shape a bit then just move it back. I made a script to automatically make me a belt shape from a selected edge ring. Pretty simple stuff. :)
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Alright, thanks guys. I will give it a shot in a little bit.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    If you're using Shell then making holes and pointed ends is easy too. For holes you just have to Inset a quad, then delete the inset quad. That'll leave you with a hole in the belt which, when Turbosmooth is applied, looks circular.

    For pointed ends... uh... just edit the base mesh to be pointy at the ends? o_O
  • Havok
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    Havok polycounter lvl 14
    Yea, I knew how to do all that but I was wasn't sure if it would be best to use path deform or start it with the correct shape. I got it now, nevermind :).
  • pixeldamage
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    pixeldamage polycounter lvl 14
    MoP wrote: »
    A sneaky detail trick you can do after that to add some trims, is to add an Edit Poly modifier on top of your TurboSmooth, grab an edge loop selection and do "Create Shape From Selection" in the EPoly Edit Edges rollout. Then you can make the resulting spline shape renderable, and give it a thickness. Instant trim!
    .

    Awesome thanks for sharing! Never used the Create Shape from Selection before and though i'd usually do this by other means its definitely got good potential!
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