First Character Model, Early Stages

PerpetualMDS

Hello everyone, I am currently helping out a friend for his capstone project as well as trying to make a nice portfolio piece seeing as I just graduated myself. This is my first character model where I actually tried to give it good sound topology. I would really love to get some critiques on the topology of the body and head so I can really make this guy great for the motion capturing we will be doing with him.

I have blocked him out to a satisfying level, so I will be continuing into ZBrush to do some final adjustments just pushing and pulling things around to get the basic structure of a human males anatomy.

Eventually he will be used as a character in UDK

:poly142:

Modeled in Blender 2.63
Poly Count:4092

[IMG][/img]

PerpetualMDS

Hello again, here with an update to the model. The parts that were altered are located where the arrows are pointing, I also turned on polyframe in ZBrush so you guys could see the topology a little better.

I am really looking forward to making the jumpsuit he will be wearing but I would really like to know if basic structure is good enough to stop making alteration and progress with the project.

[IMG][/img]
[IMG][/img]

Looking forward to hearing feedback!

praetus

I will honestly say that as a first character model, I feel like you are building too dense and you are lacking a proper reference for anatomy. Check out the low-poly WAYWO thread and see how much form people can get from low poly creations. Start with something small and basic. once you can knock out some simple meshes and get basic forms down, start adding loops and pulling out your detail. Right now it's going to be really hard for you to edit this mesh because you've already gone heavy with the polycount and making small adjustments is going to take more time than it is worth.

Fango

Welcome to the world of character modelling!

So like Praetus said, you need to work on the anatomy. Its the key to character modelling, and something that you definitely need a very strong knowledge of if you want to model characters.

The proportions on this guy are definately not right yet, but its early days, so its a good time to get the proportions spot on, befor you start detailing.

its good to work to the 8 head model. pic below.



I find this image is a pretty good one for the ref file, it has lots of info on the general positioning of the male form, and works well as a good base to do a generic male model. Now, obviously not every character will have these proportions, but its a definite must to understand them. Id say try to get a mesh that fits those preportions before you start with any detailing.

I would also take a look at the topology for the head, as what you have there is likely to give you troubles when you try to sculpt it.

PerpetualMDS

Thank you guys so much for your feedback, I thought he looked kind of weird but no one including myself could really point anything specific out. (maybe because there is so much wrong :P)

Praetus - I see exactly what you are talking about when I browsed through that thread, that is great inspiration for me and I am looking forward to making my workflow a little more structured by having an extremely low-poly base mesh. (Its still kinda hard for me to see the models how I want with say <500 polys when it comes to characters.) I have really been trying to work on it though. I think for this model though Im too far into it and the dead line is arriving quickly. Im going to do my best to pull this guy out looking good.

Fango - I appreciate the reference image a lot and I think I will be using that reference to try and push and pull the model into a proportionate human male. I used real human reference photos for both the face and the body, but then I positioned it to fit the proportions of the skeletal rig that matches my friend for motion capture.(probably the reason for proportions not being right.) lesson learned. :P

I will be posting another update hopefully tomorrow if not the next day for sure.
Thanks again guys! very helpful

PerpetualMDS

Hey guys sorry for the late post! I know I said I would have something up days ago but things came up and I was not able to work on the project. I was able to come back to it today though and I think I was able to rough out the model to something I am happy with. The face I am still not to sure about but tweaks wont be a problem.

Anyways, here are some images of the updated model and I will be taking it back into Blender shortly to make the clothes and get it ready for sculpting the high poly model.