Noob Learning Challenge, making another girl (NSFW)
ngon master
Hey guys, i promised ininja i'd try and devote some time to helping with his challenge, so that's what this thread is about.
i've decided to make another girl. and while i do have a few ideas about who/what i want it to be, i'll be covering that part at another time (possibly over the weekend, depending how busy i am). i'll be documenting as much of this as possible, in a similar fashion to how i did with Rogue.
for the moment though i'm going to be constructing base meshes, or rather, correcting one i'd made before. i'll be going into a lot deeper detail of the proportions i used while making it, and i'll be redoing a lot of the topology of the mesh before i even think of sculpting.
any time i work on this, i'll post a hangout link here for anyone who wants to come and chat, ask questions or whatever. so please feel free if you think there's anything you can learn from me, OR teach me!
so here goes, basemesh time!
https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/03040fe0a713f203406acc23a964fe58ffd645f1#
Fair warning –
There will be NSFW content in this thread, lots of naked reference I’ll be using
time and again. If you’re at work, are squeamish, are under-age, or your parents don’t like you seeing this kinda stuff, you shouldn’t be in the thread.
Choosing the girl –
For this step, I pretty much went through my inspiration folder + google searches to find something that caught my eye. I wanted something that would allow for some cool shapes in the silouhette, but not overly covered up… I still feel pretty bad at my female anatomy and proportions, so I wanted something that would push me to get those on track.
I finally settled on this piece by Michele Chang
I’ve emailed Michele and asked permission to use the file, hopefully it’ll all be okay, if not I’ll have to revise the concept and do something else.
Last night I spent a lot of time gathering body reference, I went through my rather huge catalogue of reference on my deviantART page. Over the time I’ve been a member there, almost daily I’ve gone through new modelling submissions and added to my favourites. So last night I went through the favourites and found ones which represented the feel I was going for… generally speaking it was:
After finding those refs, I stuck them all on a page together, trying to put body refs all on one side, and facial refs on another. After that I isolated specific features of the face and sketched them out, and did the same for the body refs.
I can’t stress enough how important this is to get you into the feeling of your character. Getting to grips with the broad shapes and gestures before you start sculpting will absolutely get you on the right foot going forward, and NOT doing it is detrimental to your end result, and to your growth as an artist.
I’m not the best 2d artist, in fact I’m pretty shitty. But I feel like every time I do this I get a little better.
i've decided to make another girl. and while i do have a few ideas about who/what i want it to be, i'll be covering that part at another time (possibly over the weekend, depending how busy i am). i'll be documenting as much of this as possible, in a similar fashion to how i did with Rogue.
for the moment though i'm going to be constructing base meshes, or rather, correcting one i'd made before. i'll be going into a lot deeper detail of the proportions i used while making it, and i'll be redoing a lot of the topology of the mesh before i even think of sculpting.
any time i work on this, i'll post a hangout link here for anyone who wants to come and chat, ask questions or whatever. so please feel free if you think there's anything you can learn from me, OR teach me!
so here goes, basemesh time!
https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/03040fe0a713f203406acc23a964fe58ffd645f1#
Fair warning –
There will be NSFW content in this thread, lots of naked reference I’ll be using
time and again. If you’re at work, are squeamish, are under-age, or your parents don’t like you seeing this kinda stuff, you shouldn’t be in the thread.
Choosing the girl –
For this step, I pretty much went through my inspiration folder + google searches to find something that caught my eye. I wanted something that would allow for some cool shapes in the silouhette, but not overly covered up… I still feel pretty bad at my female anatomy and proportions, so I wanted something that would push me to get those on track.
I finally settled on this piece by Michele Chang
I’ve emailed Michele and asked permission to use the file, hopefully it’ll all be okay, if not I’ll have to revise the concept and do something else.
Last night I spent a lot of time gathering body reference, I went through my rather huge catalogue of reference on my deviantART page. Over the time I’ve been a member there, almost daily I’ve gone through new modelling submissions and added to my favourites. So last night I went through the favourites and found ones which represented the feel I was going for… generally speaking it was:
- Wide hips
- Broad shoulders
- Slim waist
- Dusky eyes
- Pouty lips (but not duckface!)
After finding those refs, I stuck them all on a page together, trying to put body refs all on one side, and facial refs on another. After that I isolated specific features of the face and sketched them out, and did the same for the body refs.
I can’t stress enough how important this is to get you into the feeling of your character. Getting to grips with the broad shapes and gestures before you start sculpting will absolutely get you on the right foot going forward, and NOT doing it is detrimental to your end result, and to your growth as an artist.
I’m not the best 2d artist, in fact I’m pretty shitty. But I feel like every time I do this I get a little better.
Replies
There will be NSFW content in this thread, lots of naked reference Ill be using
time and again. If youre at work, are squeamish, are under-age, or your parents dont like you seeing this kinda stuff, you shouldnt be in the thread.
Choosing the girl
For this step, I pretty much went through my inspiration folder + google searches to find something that caught my eye. I wanted something that would allow for some cool shapes in the silouhette, but not overly covered up I still feel pretty bad at my female anatomy and proportions, so I wanted something that would push me to get those on track.
I finally settled on this piece by Michele Chang
Ive emailed Michele and asked permission to use the file, hopefully itll all be okay, if not Ill have to revise the concept and do something else.
Last night I spent a lot of time gathering body reference, I went through my rather huge catalogue of reference on my deviantART page. Over the time Ive been a member there, almost daily Ive gone through new modelling submissions and added to my favourites. So last night I went through the favourites and found ones which represented the feel I was going for generally speaking it was:
- Wide hips
- Broad shoulders
- Slim waist
- Dusky eyes
- Pouty lips (but not duckface!)
After finding those refs, I stuck them all on a page together, trying to put body refs all on one side, and facial refs on another. After that I isolated specific features of the face and sketched them out, and did the same for the body refs.I cant stress enough how important this is to get you into the feeling of your character. Getting to grips with the broad shapes and gestures before you start sculpting will absolutely get you on the right foot going forward, and NOT doing it is detrimental to your end result, and to your growth as an artist.
Im not the best 2d artist, in fact Im pretty shitty. But I feel like every time I do this I get a little better.
Regardless, I'll look forward to seeing where you go with this. I'm surprised you haven't got any of the original Annah-of-the-Shadows designs on your inspiration board.
https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/b43d1044e589c2449c4bf8f09f43d1a99a14c9dd#
man, i didn't even know this was the original character! hahaha, i'll have to google it now for sure!
cheers.
i like to use the base meshes for the final topology where possible, and one of the things i noticed was happening before, was that due to the direction of the edgeloops from the chest and around the shoulder, there was some harsh pinching if the arms were raised above shoulder hight. to rectify this i've made it so that the edgeloops flow from the chest and down the arm, instead of around the shoulder.
again, i've split the model up into polygroups before i started any sculpting or reproportioning. i wanted to make sure that potential problem areas had their own groups, as well as segmenting the body in general, making it easier to work on individual sections as needed. the polygroups i chose are:
another thing i've done, is created a set of basemeshes, starting with the global average hight for a woman of 1.75cm, at 7.5 heads tall. then made an idealistic base at 180cm, and 8 heads tall (which i'll be using for this model). and another "heroic" base at 185cm, and 8.5 heads tall.
now i just have to tweak it until it's hot!
will do a proper write up tomorrow when i'm more awake. cheers guys!
Blast my house repairs. Is saw your hangout but didn't have time to join. I was really hoping to see you work on this in real time.
Annah is supposed to be attractive, but she's also a thief and pickpocket who lives in a garbage dump and tends to pick fights with people in the street. Her gear is all mismatched, having been either stolen or cobbled together from junk. With that in mind I'd probably make her a bit scruffier, a few scars maybe even a slightly crooked nose from a break. I'd also make the components of her armour more distinct from eachother.
There's also the fact that the appearance of the original design is loosely based on the voice actress, Sheena Easton, for whatever that's worth.
Like I said though, the concept will make for a nice model, even if its a divergence from who the character is.
Took me days and days and weeks sometimes
SUBSCRIBED !!!
will bear that in mind while i do my paintovers.
speaking of which.... hangout link! https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/c421c95807b61b20200e3f89412c14faab5a3071?authuser=0&hl=en-GB#
Wish I could join the hangout, but I'm leaving the house.
i can't really say much as i didn't really DO much. i used the move tool almost exclusively, masking off areas to make things easier, pushing and pulling to get the right shapes. really, that's it.
just pay attention to your references and the character sheet you made earlier and you'll do fine! the biggest problem area was the stomach. the character description says that she is an atheletic acrobatic kinda character. but the concept painting i'm going off, shows her with wide hips, and almost fatty looking legs and arms. i think she should probably be a lot shorter than i've made her, but that's not something i'm going to change. i like the build i've given her.
that said, i've tried to steer away from atheletic build ladies, Annah has a nicely toned stomach in the sculpt i've made, but you can't see individual ribs (like you can with most atheletes). i want to give her just that thin layer of "puppy fat" that keeps her healthy looking and not overly lean.
and now for the sketch over!
i find this is a really important step in visualising your end goal. take some renders of your 3d model and paint over the top. visualise where you want to go with things, where you want to take certain aspects.
after reading up on the character, it sounds like she grew up in some kind of scrap yard, all her armour is mis-matched and it sounds like, scavenged. so i want to reflect that in my sculpt.
so the look i'm going for, is like... her arm sleeves were torn off of a jacket, and have beaten metal plates riveted on, and also held in place by cord straps. i want this reflected in the pant leg as well. she's only got one glove in my vision, which has a larger plate strapped to it. not cleanly strapped either.
i loved the idea of having some wild-west style holsters for her knuckleblades, so i'm definitely keeping those in. and for her shoulder pad, i want to have some kind of daemon skull that's going to be strapped onto her arm, with the strap running through the eye sockets and horns etc. i just feel this could be a cool design.
i'm not a great 2d artist, but i feel this is such an important step that i just have to do it, regardless of my feelings about my abilities.
I remember one of the higher damage punch daggers in the game is a fancy corkscrew which could make for a fun addition here.
POSE: she's currently too upright, move her head forward, shoulders back, hips forward
SHOULDERS: shoulders have far too little volume in the front view, and are also too low. the clavicles are also too flat for the position of her arms. Take a look at some good shoulder and clavicle reference.
HEAD: The neck is a little long, and slopes up too much. The head is very round, it needs to be a little more retangular, see the paintover. It also has a little too much mass in the back of the skull. The face has some issues, namely the chin and neck. The chin is too far back , and slopes down to the neck too much, which gives a fairly unnattractive look; see this picture for how it should look:
Some other smaller issues: The things are too cylindrical, they need to be a bit more angled and the breasts need to slope down in the side view more, they currently have a weird indent in the middle.
special thanks to Silvia for helping me out in the hangouts, making sure i got the boobs better than they were (remember she will have clothing on, so i've sculpted them as if the clothing is already there).
also, tightening up a bit more on the anatomy, hands got a first pass, the face got another pass too. will update soon!
working on second refinement stage today!
refined her a bit more today, got some of the clothing in... just block in with no detail for the most part. gave her a hungry bum, and seem to have lost some of the arch in her back... so i'll work that back in tomorrow!
Even a person with a very slightly thicker physique, much like your character should always have that visible landmark in their hip area!
Also the legs a bit thick? They were perfect before!
It looks really off to me (legs) in the base mesh -- her stomach area / hips aren't proportionate to them, but it sorta looks like you may have fixed it in the most recent iteration.
Good work though... looking forward to updates buddy
so i did a couple of clothing passes and i'm starting to get to the point where i'm happy with how it's turning out. still needs a lot of refinement, and cloth definition. but it's getting there.
i want to mix up the metal plates on the leg a bit more by maybe having some chainmail strips hanging off of it or something, will see how i can work that in for sure.
but here's where she is at the moment.
things are starting to come together now, need to do the straps going on/through the skull on her shoulder... the idea i was going for is that the skull has been looted (or even a legitimate kill), and has been stuck onto metal spikes that are fixed onto a leather shoulder pad, and has straps to further tie it down to the arm.
still need to make the glove and weapons.
And if you don't mind a question from a knowledge seeker like me... is there any particular way in which you approach the folds in the boots? They're way sharper than when I try stuff like that.
This just keeps getting better and better.
@PyrZern, i'll try to get some kind of tutorial up, just thinking how to format such a thing the best way... there's plenty of tutorials out there already, so i don't think i could really share any unique insight, but i'll try!
@Achillesian, see the scale reference i made.