Iron Man Bleeding Edge - Seeking advice

Overlord

I'm working on a personal project and I'm not sure how to proceed here. I'm not even sure if I'm doing this right. It just looks wrong to me.



Is my edge flow correct or should I start over and take a different approach? I'm uncertain if this is going to work.

Aardschok

Your edge flow looks alright. From what I can see you are on the right track. What you could do, it is a bit more time consuming but more accurate, is modeling the part separate. Iron Man is an assembles suit where pieces lay over one another. The hard part about it is separating the right parts. Of course Marvel comics and the movies give a nice reference. Make screen shots of the movie for certain views of pars, boots, helmet etc.
Creating a base mesh, continueing this rough model, can provide a huge help you with the right placement of the parts.
The next step would be placing the rough models of the parts and detailing them 1 by 1. Don't forget that the suit is symmetrical so you only have to do 1 side, as you do now.

Keep us posed on the progress and good luck!

Rockley Bonner

ittle work, are you planning on doing all the hard edge in zbrush? I would think it would help if you modeled out some specific parts in your 3d app.

Overlord

http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2012/196/2/a/iron_man_armor_model_37___bleeding_edge_armor_by_tigr3ss-d57dil6.jpg

This is the reference I'm working with. The proportions are off, but I can work with that. What I was planning on was building a typical male torso with standard topology and then overlay the armor pieces on that so I can adjust the topology to fit.

The reason I ask about the topology is because I often see artists use that cape/poncho topology over the shoulders and chest that deforms so nicely and I never understand how they achieve that.

What can I do to improve on what I've done so far? I'm just afraid of putting my time into this and not getting the results I'm looking for.

Aardschok

What you are looking for is a topology based on surface muscle anatomy. The edge loops should give you nice clean sections.



Here is a draw over of how to create the sections. This edge loop technique is tricky at first but with the muscle anatomy next to, it is a lot easier.

Hope this helps

Overlord

Here's what I have so far:



How do I get the neck loop? Do I just extrude and scale?

Kon Artist

Overlord wrote: »

Here's what I have so far:

How do I get the neck loop? Do I just extrude and scale?

yep.

Overlord

Alright. Thanks to everyone answering my questions. They are definitely helping.

Overlord

I wasn't happy with the results I was getting. So I tried again and this is what I got:



Now I'm wondering how I can deal with these long edges.

mryogesh123

When it comes to building characters in full armour, I wouldn't build a full continuous mesh unless i was dealing with low poly art.
The best approach i would use for this kind of project is to treat the armour as sections (As mentioned above, I would get some more reference of the suit you are modelling to help). e.g for the helmet I would make the face piece as a separate part from helmet. The helmet would then be split in two, skull piece and jaw piece. Follow the lines provided in the concept. You can get thickness to the pieces using 3dsmax shell modifier(check alternative for blender). This will help you later when you come to detailing.
If you are using zbrush, you can then re-topo the whole model to get a game res version or alternatively use other re-topo software (topogun, 3D coat etc)

I found Vitaly Bulgarov's Gnomon Workshop tutorial on character modelling very helpful for hard surface character modelling.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/200/

Also check out http://eat3d.com/zbrush_hardsurface
(This is for work primarily in zbrush)

teggs

In addition to the links mryogesh123 posted you can also take a look at the following links. They will help you better understand topology and edge loop placement.I hope they help...I know I have found them very useful.

http://www.3dtotal.com/index_tutorial_detailed.php?id=495#.UHYkLBUxprM
http://www.pig-brain.com/tutorials/tut02-01/
http://d2g1zjdg4phkb4.cloudfront.net/MrmuUZiJIkuGuWxhC7Bu-0JmtP4=
http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/learning-mesh-topology-collection/#header
http://www.hippydrome.com/
http://facaelectrica.wiki.zoho.com/Topology.html
http://www.asepulveda.com/2008/07/topologies-in-production/

Overlord

Great resources guy. Thanks! The workshop sounds nice, but I currently have a $0 budget.