The wrinkles do look out of place. I don't think you need to remove them entirely, just finish them a bit, work it into the fabric. Right now it looks like there are 3 skinny protrusions sticking out of the cloth, as opposed to wrinkles occurring from tension. Look up some reference to get some good ideas on how to get that looking right. Make it a little more subtle.
Right now the face needs a lot of work. It's looking too manly, and even a little alien. And it looks as though the ear is sculpted right into the side of the head, rather than being a part that protrudes. I know you said you were mainly focusing on the armor right now though, so you were probably gonna fix that up.
Anyway, I like the direction this is taking, keep it up!
Dude, before you do anything else just perfect your anatomy. The pieces you are adding aren't helping this piece at all because your anatomy is way off.
@Shiniku: I smoothed out the wrinkles for now because they didn't really look right to me at all after coming back to it. And others have told me the face is manly lol. Believe me, I'll get to everything in due time! This isn't something I'm half-assing lol.
@Loraine Howard iii: I'm including screens of the base body mesh if you wanna draw on them and show me what you mean. I used quite a bit of reference for the body and it looks correct to me...Maybe her gear is throwing it off?
Anyways...here's today's progress + the body mesh by itself!
Heh, I've never been the greatest with women (oh the double meanings) but there are people on these boards that you could probably pick up a few things from.
a great example being all the Hazardous course threads http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98113
just click through the links on the first page and check out everyone's posts. Check out what they have in common and how they really sell the feminine qualities of their characters by stylizing certain details.
Also all the other arenanet art test threads have been helping me a lot - even though everyone has a different style there's always something to learn. For example the fur tests that Ravenslayer is doing look really slick http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100920
posting some references of the anatomy or look that you're going for with your model can really help other people with crits. Paintovers take a good chunk of time to do and aren't always the easiest way to convey a person's point - but having a side by side shot of 'this is what I'm going for and this is where I am' seems to usually help in identifying weak spots.
Oh, and this is personal preference but turning on perspective in zbrush is a good idea. It screws with my eyes looking at an image without any perspective on it.
Keep at it, it'll be cool to see how this turns out.
Thanks for the advice! I took a look at those threads and reshaped her face a bit according to the "feminine curves" in the Miku thread. Really, REALLY helped, now she looks like a female haha. Also altered some of her proportions slightly, making a better overall feel. I added 3 new pieces of armor; the outer skirt, fur at the knee area, and one piece of her boots which I can duplicate to save UV space.
A little insight to my process: I prefer to retopo the armor as I go, then sculpt it to near completion before moving to the next piece. This is actually my first time using this workflow, so it's a bit of a learning process. I'm liking it a lot since it cuts out using other 3D packages, unless I need to flip normals or patch up a bad retopo (Zbrush does some VERY weird things in this respect, even though the actual drawing of the wireframe feels natural and easy).
As soon as I finish the boots and hair, I'll extract and sculpt the skin-tight elements. After that, I will add the fine details such as nicks/chips in metal, wrinkles and skin pores in the face, and the noisy detail in leather.
EDIT: And here they are... All screens have perspective on.
I made the head less...alien-like and more female, and put in some new wrinkles around the eyes since the old ones were fading. I'm going somewhat for the look in the concept art, I.E. wider nose bridge, larger eyes, small nose and mouth. I think it's looking fairly decent shape-wise, but if anyone sees something wrong please let me know! Here's a link to the concept if you guys haven't seen it: http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Hyojin-Sample-A.jpg
The cloth folds/wrinkles on the skirt were surprisingly simple to do...The other side is the same to save texture space. I'm also going to put an alpha on the fringe to make it look frayed/shredded/weathered. I'm getting close to the final sculpt! In fact, my next progress update will be just that
And I apologize for the lack of reference in my posts...This is my first WIP thread on Polycount, so it's a bit noobish lol... The next character I make will be much more in-depth!
Finally an update! After lots of hard work, I got her baked and textured, and am ready to rig and pose for the final renders! Here's a few screenshots from UDK:
Critiques are still welcome, but as many of you know, the model is pretty much set in stone at this point. I am planning on reducing the saturation of the diffuse, though. It's a little too vivid for me. I also still have to reduce the size of the texture maps down to 1024.
My next update will be the final one, with the completed and posed model!
I'm not trying to be a jerk but I take it very seriously when critiques are asked for but aren't implemented. Plain and simply, you didn't take it seriously. Loraine Howard iii gave the best critique so far because it got right down to the root of the problem. Your last post was very evident that you are a resistant artist. One who cares too much about parts of the design rather than the whole and does not implement critique well. This industry is about constant critique and what you do with it is going to determine whether or not you make it. Take all critiques seriously. They are going to help you grow as an artist. The critiques that are going to take the most time are the ones you want to focus on first. It's tough to spend so many hours on something just to be told that it's not up to par, but this is the nature of this industry. If I were you at this point, I would finish it up and chalk it up as a learning experience and seriously take on an in depth anatomy study.
Isn't the whole point of doing something an effort toward the search of learning?
What difference does it make if the anatomy is off, or the edgeflow is wrong, or the colors are too saturated? ( I'm not talking about this model specifically)
The point is to finish and get better over time.
Gawd I hate this bandwagon mentality Polycount has.
ZerothEnder : Here's my advice...take it however you feel you need too.
Finish it the best that you can.
Submit it on time.
But just finish it.
Then move on to the next one. Each time an artist finishes a project, it goes a lot further to improving that artist's skills than anything else.
It also ingrains the idea of "Finishing" instead of being brought down by the depression and doubt brought on by internet "citics", who have no clue how to give a positive critique.
Isn't the whole point of doing something an effort toward the search of learning?
What difference does it make if the anatomy is off, or the edgeflow is wrong, or the colors are too saturated? ( I'm not talking about this model specifically)
The point is to finish and get better over time.
Gawd I hate this bandwagon mentality Polycount has.
ZerothEnder : Here's my advice...take it however you feel you need too.
Finish it the best that you can.
Submit it on time.
But just finish it.
Then move on to the next one. Each time an artist finishes a project, it goes a lot further to improving that artist's skills than anything else.
It also ingrains the idea of "Finishing" instead of being brought down by the depression and doubt brought on by internet "citics", who have no clue how to give a positive critique.
Finish it.
People don`t learn anything from asspatting
Finishing something sloppy just so its finished is a bad habit to learn yourself.
I do agree that you learn from each project you do but if you sculpt the same bad anatomy over and over again without taking a step back and trying to figure out whats wrong then you`re basically not learning anything.
Tbh i`ve learned more from small tests and unfinished stuff then i did from doing full characters
Then again on topic i do believe ZerothEnder here tried to apply the crits given, but you`re trying to go to fast, imo i`d go back to the zbrush stage and reevaluate the anatomy with some proper reference images next to it and look at some anatomy books like the ones from andrew loomis or bridgman.
FruitBomb:
That was a completely useless post that adds nothing to the discussion.
Anyway, I agree with Ravenslayer. I don't think katana's wrong about the usefulness of finishing projects, but you really need to take a step back and really examine what you're doing, ZerothEnder. Try taking a look at some of the Hazardous Course threads to get some good reference on how to do stylized female models.
Wether it is finishing projects you started or only trying stuff and testing some things out. I don't think one will help you more or less. One thing I can say is, from my experience, make sure to do as many as you can. It's like the "pen mileage" in drawing, the more you do the better you'll get, it just can't go the other way.
Oh, and learn to ignore comments that will only slow your learning curve (like FruitBomb's comment for exemple).
Isn't the whole point of doing something an effort toward the search of learning?
What difference does it make if the anatomy is off, or the edgeflow is wrong, or the colors are too saturated? ( I'm not talking about this model specifically)
The point is to finish and get better over time.
Gawd I hate this bandwagon mentality Polycount has.
ZerothEnder : Here's my advice...take it however you feel you need too.
Finish it the best that you can.
Submit it on time.
But just finish it.
Then move on to the next one. Each time an artist finishes a project, it goes a lot further to improving that artist's skills than anything else.
It also ingrains the idea of "Finishing" instead of being brought down by the depression and doubt brought on by internet "citics", who have no clue how to give a positive critique.
Finish it.
If I came off as "You should just quit.", that wasn't my intention. (I'm pretty sure I said finish it and chalk it up as a learning experience anyway.) Critique is about learning and growing. Like RavenSlayer and Swizzle have said, finishing is great but if you are doing it for the sake of just finishing, you're not learning much except how to become a human factory of mediocrity. A person who has two mind-blowing pieces of work in their portfolio is going to get more attention than a person with 200 "meh" pieces of work.
ZerothEnder: If what I said is too harsh, I apologize. I don't want you to fall into a state where you feel like you can't post on Polycount. I encourage posting all works on this site because everyone(aside from whoever posted the wtf image) here wants you to get better and learning how to implement critique is the backbone to becoming a better artist.
FruitBomb:
That was a completely useless post that adds nothing to the discussion.
Anyway, I agree with Ravenslayer. I don't think katana's wrong about the usefulness of finishing projects, but you really need to take a step back and really examine what you're doing, ZerothEnder. Try taking a look at some of the Hazardous Course threads to get some good reference on how to do stylized female models.
Agreed 100% with Swizzle. Look at those Hazardous course threads and especially pay attention to the references they've gathered. Look at the shape of the female face and practice drawing it, and then practice sculpting it. Look up anatomy reference, look at the way muscles flow into each other. Look at female silhouettes and practice drawing them.
In one of the other arenanet threads someone mentioned that the guidelines somewhere mentioned that you should allow yourself up to three weeks to complete the art test. My suggestion would be to gather a lot of female reference, take it back to the sculpt and try to match the references. Does it look like one of the Hazardous course models? If not, keep working at it until it does. Don't rush through a test like this just to submit it so that it can get passed over.
Nope, I didn't see your comment that way. I agree with what the other and you have said. I would point out that those who have been doing this 3d thing for awhile can pick out artists who are at the beginning of their learning curve and those who are not.
In the former case, I feel it's about finishing. In the latter, about perfecting.
When I first came on Polycount, I thought that the people here were harsh, immature and rude, so I went away and learned the basics somewhere else.
The WayWo thread however was the one reason I kept coming back. Eventually I saw the wisdom that so many here have posted.
Now I wouldnt go anywhere else.
I would chalk that up to the learning curve and developing a thicker skin.
In the end though, I feel the Polycount is about making 3d artists better so that they can make a living in a very difficult world to navigate.
I am hoping that comments (like Fruitbomb's for example) don't dissuade a future 3d artist from turning out some great and unique ideas.
Ok...quite a bit of comments but I'll try to reply as best as I can.
TipsyMonk: This has been a HUGE learning experience for me, and I did sink a lot of hours into it. Even I'm kind of disappointed by my final product. But in actuality, it's still my best work, which means I'm moving forward as an artist. I know I need to work on my anatomy as well. For everyone's information, I'm still a newbie on the forums, and in the industry as well. I literally graduated from college 2 months ago, but I know that's not an excuse. By the way, you didn't come off that way, you were just a bit harsh lol. I'm not offended.
Katana: Thanks for defending me lol. I think I covered a lot of what you said too above.
Ravenslayer: I'll admit that I got impatient...but I spent 3 weeks on this. Yes, I'm probably a little slow, but I am still learning. Zbrush is an extremely complex program and I'm sure everyone here knows that.
Fruitbomb: I agree. Like I said, I'm kinda disappointed in my own work.
Swizzle: I'll take a look at those and probably bookmark them. Thanks!
theslingshot: I agree...I need to just do more art in general!
ablain: I took three weeks to finish this. And I gave the best shot I could give. So...yeah lol.
Overall, I tried to implement what critiques I could, while still trying to move forward and complete the character. I am new in the industry, so I'm trying to get an entry level job. Also, if anyone didn't know, the tri limit for this test is 6500 tris. It's really hard for someone of my skill level to make something that complex look good with that few tris. I probably should not have included mouth and eye cavities, as well as teeth lol.
Thank you all for the critiques you gave, harsh or not. I'm not intimidated by them at all, and I'm not trying to be a resistant artist...I think I should blame inexperience on that lol.
And one more thing...I'm going to pose her and do some nice mental ray renders tomorrow, as well as some more UDK renders. I have a good feeling that this thing is going to look better than the crappy T-Pose test renders I posted yesterday. But I'm going to get some sleep now. Goodnight everyone, and thanks again!
I think a few things jump out at me immediately. Her skin texture is rather boring especially in the face which is making her look really weird. Also her legs look really funny since the thigh is about the same size as her calf, which also appears to be non existent. Also legs have an S curve to them from the side view, and they are almost like two offset cylinders on top of each other. Yours are like straight down cylinders from the from and side view.
Replies
I dont think those wrinkles on the skirt should be there, isn't that leather?
The wrinkles do look out of place. I don't think you need to remove them entirely, just finish them a bit, work it into the fabric. Right now it looks like there are 3 skinny protrusions sticking out of the cloth, as opposed to wrinkles occurring from tension. Look up some reference to get some good ideas on how to get that looking right. Make it a little more subtle.
Right now the face needs a lot of work. It's looking too manly, and even a little alien. And it looks as though the ear is sculpted right into the side of the head, rather than being a part that protrudes. I know you said you were mainly focusing on the armor right now though, so you were probably gonna fix that up.
Anyway, I like the direction this is taking, keep it up!
@Shiniku: I smoothed out the wrinkles for now because they didn't really look right to me at all after coming back to it. And others have told me the face is manly lol. Believe me, I'll get to everything in due time! This isn't something I'm half-assing lol.
@Loraine Howard iii: I'm including screens of the base body mesh if you wanna draw on them and show me what you mean. I used quite a bit of reference for the body and it looks correct to me...Maybe her gear is throwing it off?
Anyways...here's today's progress + the body mesh by itself!
a great example being all the Hazardous course threads
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=98113
just click through the links on the first page and check out everyone's posts. Check out what they have in common and how they really sell the feminine qualities of their characters by stylizing certain details.
Also all the other arenanet art test threads have been helping me a lot - even though everyone has a different style there's always something to learn. For example the fur tests that Ravenslayer is doing look really slick
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100920
posting some references of the anatomy or look that you're going for with your model can really help other people with crits. Paintovers take a good chunk of time to do and aren't always the easiest way to convey a person's point - but having a side by side shot of 'this is what I'm going for and this is where I am' seems to usually help in identifying weak spots.
Oh, and this is personal preference but turning on perspective in zbrush is a good idea. It screws with my eyes looking at an image without any perspective on it.
Keep at it, it'll be cool to see how this turns out.
A little insight to my process: I prefer to retopo the armor as I go, then sculpt it to near completion before moving to the next piece. This is actually my first time using this workflow, so it's a bit of a learning process. I'm liking it a lot since it cuts out using other 3D packages, unless I need to flip normals or patch up a bad retopo (Zbrush does some VERY weird things in this respect, even though the actual drawing of the wireframe feels natural and easy).
As soon as I finish the boots and hair, I'll extract and sculpt the skin-tight elements. After that, I will add the fine details such as nicks/chips in metal, wrinkles and skin pores in the face, and the noisy detail in leather.
EDIT: And here they are... All screens have perspective on.
I made the head less...alien-like and more female, and put in some new wrinkles around the eyes since the old ones were fading. I'm going somewhat for the look in the concept art, I.E. wider nose bridge, larger eyes, small nose and mouth. I think it's looking fairly decent shape-wise, but if anyone sees something wrong please let me know! Here's a link to the concept if you guys haven't seen it: http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Hyojin-Sample-A.jpg
The cloth folds/wrinkles on the skirt were surprisingly simple to do...The other side is the same to save texture space. I'm also going to put an alpha on the fringe to make it look frayed/shredded/weathered. I'm getting close to the final sculpt! In fact, my next progress update will be just that
And I apologize for the lack of reference in my posts...This is my first WIP thread on Polycount, so it's a bit noobish lol... The next character I make will be much more in-depth!
Critiques are still welcome, but as many of you know, the model is pretty much set in stone at this point. I am planning on reducing the saturation of the diffuse, though. It's a little too vivid for me. I also still have to reduce the size of the texture maps down to 1024.
My next update will be the final one, with the completed and posed model!
What difference does it make if the anatomy is off, or the edgeflow is wrong, or the colors are too saturated? ( I'm not talking about this model specifically)
The point is to finish and get better over time.
Gawd I hate this bandwagon mentality Polycount has.
ZerothEnder : Here's my advice...take it however you feel you need too.
Finish it the best that you can.
Submit it on time.
But just finish it.
Then move on to the next one. Each time an artist finishes a project, it goes a lot further to improving that artist's skills than anything else.
It also ingrains the idea of "Finishing" instead of being brought down by the depression and doubt brought on by internet "citics", who have no clue how to give a positive critique.
Finish it.
People don`t learn anything from asspatting
Finishing something sloppy just so its finished is a bad habit to learn yourself.
I do agree that you learn from each project you do but if you sculpt the same bad anatomy over and over again without taking a step back and trying to figure out whats wrong then you`re basically not learning anything.
Tbh i`ve learned more from small tests and unfinished stuff then i did from doing full characters
Then again on topic i do believe ZerothEnder here tried to apply the crits given, but you`re trying to go to fast, imo i`d go back to the zbrush stage and reevaluate the anatomy with some proper reference images next to it and look at some anatomy books like the ones from andrew loomis or bridgman.
also have a look at what bogdan does with his barbarian female theres a lot to learn from it, http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99126&highlight=bogdan
WTF?!?!?!??!?!?
That was a completely useless post that adds nothing to the discussion.
Anyway, I agree with Ravenslayer. I don't think katana's wrong about the usefulness of finishing projects, but you really need to take a step back and really examine what you're doing, ZerothEnder. Try taking a look at some of the Hazardous Course threads to get some good reference on how to do stylized female models.
Here are links to the threads:
Hazardous
YBourykina
Funky Bunnies
almighty_gir
Wether it is finishing projects you started or only trying stuff and testing some things out. I don't think one will help you more or less. One thing I can say is, from my experience, make sure to do as many as you can. It's like the "pen mileage" in drawing, the more you do the better you'll get, it just can't go the other way.
Oh, and learn to ignore comments that will only slow your learning curve (like FruitBomb's comment for exemple).
Good luck
If I came off as "You should just quit.", that wasn't my intention. (I'm pretty sure I said finish it and chalk it up as a learning experience anyway.) Critique is about learning and growing. Like RavenSlayer and Swizzle have said, finishing is great but if you are doing it for the sake of just finishing, you're not learning much except how to become a human factory of mediocrity. A person who has two mind-blowing pieces of work in their portfolio is going to get more attention than a person with 200 "meh" pieces of work.
ZerothEnder: If what I said is too harsh, I apologize. I don't want you to fall into a state where you feel like you can't post on Polycount. I encourage posting all works on this site because everyone(aside from whoever posted the wtf image) here wants you to get better and learning how to implement critique is the backbone to becoming a better artist.
Agreed 100% with Swizzle. Look at those Hazardous course threads and especially pay attention to the references they've gathered. Look at the shape of the female face and practice drawing it, and then practice sculpting it. Look up anatomy reference, look at the way muscles flow into each other. Look at female silhouettes and practice drawing them.
In one of the other arenanet threads someone mentioned that the guidelines somewhere mentioned that you should allow yourself up to three weeks to complete the art test. My suggestion would be to gather a lot of female reference, take it back to the sculpt and try to match the references. Does it look like one of the Hazardous course models? If not, keep working at it until it does. Don't rush through a test like this just to submit it so that it can get passed over.
Good luck!
In the former case, I feel it's about finishing. In the latter, about perfecting.
When I first came on Polycount, I thought that the people here were harsh, immature and rude, so I went away and learned the basics somewhere else.
The WayWo thread however was the one reason I kept coming back. Eventually I saw the wisdom that so many here have posted.
Now I wouldnt go anywhere else.
I would chalk that up to the learning curve and developing a thicker skin.
In the end though, I feel the Polycount is about making 3d artists better so that they can make a living in a very difficult world to navigate.
I am hoping that comments (like Fruitbomb's for example) don't dissuade a future 3d artist from turning out some great and unique ideas.
TipsyMonk: This has been a HUGE learning experience for me, and I did sink a lot of hours into it. Even I'm kind of disappointed by my final product. But in actuality, it's still my best work, which means I'm moving forward as an artist. I know I need to work on my anatomy as well. For everyone's information, I'm still a newbie on the forums, and in the industry as well. I literally graduated from college 2 months ago, but I know that's not an excuse. By the way, you didn't come off that way, you were just a bit harsh lol. I'm not offended.
Katana: Thanks for defending me lol. I think I covered a lot of what you said too above.
Ravenslayer: I'll admit that I got impatient...but I spent 3 weeks on this. Yes, I'm probably a little slow, but I am still learning. Zbrush is an extremely complex program and I'm sure everyone here knows that.
Fruitbomb: I agree. Like I said, I'm kinda disappointed in my own work.
Swizzle: I'll take a look at those and probably bookmark them. Thanks!
theslingshot: I agree...I need to just do more art in general!
ablain: I took three weeks to finish this. And I gave the best shot I could give. So...yeah lol.
Overall, I tried to implement what critiques I could, while still trying to move forward and complete the character. I am new in the industry, so I'm trying to get an entry level job. Also, if anyone didn't know, the tri limit for this test is 6500 tris. It's really hard for someone of my skill level to make something that complex look good with that few tris. I probably should not have included mouth and eye cavities, as well as teeth lol.
Thank you all for the critiques you gave, harsh or not. I'm not intimidated by them at all, and I'm not trying to be a resistant artist...I think I should blame inexperience on that lol.
And one more thing...I'm going to pose her and do some nice mental ray renders tomorrow, as well as some more UDK renders. I have a good feeling that this thing is going to look better than the crappy T-Pose test renders I posted yesterday. But I'm going to get some sleep now. Goodnight everyone, and thanks again!
Check out my online portfolio for larger images! www.glenn3d.com