Father Christmas' Portrait

Freedom4u2

Good morning everyone,

Once the vacations began and I finally had been able to breath out of 3D classes, I couldn't help but want to do a personnal project with everything I've learned this session in school; while at first it was just a joke with a couple of friends, I decided to go and do a project I wouldn't have believed in a few weeks ago: Father Christmas' portrait. The final goal was to get something a bit dwarfish, semi-realistic and happy.

For this project, I used 3DS MAX, Zbrush & Photoshop.

To begin my search on the matter, I started to get some information about who Father Christmas was, his history & others (Did you know that in some folklore cultures, santa had been wearing grey clothes?). I then built a contact sheet with the following pictures:



By then I pretty much had all the information I was needing to begin my work in zbrush. For the mod, I used mainly polyspheres, and for the more complicated parts (like the glasses & the rough shape of the bell) I used 3DS MAX. For the brushes, I went with clay, standard, move topological & hard polish. Once the mod was finished, I used a mix of matcap, polypaint & lightcap along with Wax to finalize the project. Here's a breakdown of a couple of steps during the project:



And yeah, I know the text is in french; it might also explain why my english ain't top notch, so sorry about that.

I also made a couple of alphas for zbrush for some complicated parts, like the accessories he wear on his braids. After a lot of work and some photoshopping, this is the final render (the eyes were hand-painted in photoshop):



Obviously I didn't post this project to show off. The project doesn't feel finished, and I just can't tell why. So being a long time lurker on polycount, I hope to get some incredible feedback I see usually on here. And if you're still here after that wall of text, I sure do hope you'll be able to help me XD! Until then, happy holidays.

- Sam

EDIT:

Update #01:

http://imageshack.us/a/img819/2798/rouge0501.png

Need some feedback to progress; I feel the project is much more complete, yet I feel I could push it farther. Maybe it's the background?

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Update #02:

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/8310/hdrender06.jpg

This part is definitly better than my last one (at least on the goal I was looking for) but I still feel again it is not finished. There are some parts on the modelling that I definitely need to rework on, but for now I can only change the final render. Any feedback is welcome (beside asking for cookies. Turns out santa prefer to keep them for himself), and I am grateful for every inches of help you guys are able to provide.

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Update #03:



Lot of work done on his face, on the shaders and on the post-processing. Still need some feedback, but I'm pretty close to call him done

Snader

I don't think I'll ever really like this personally, as the sculpting style doesn't really jive with me. That said, I think you should look towards different rendering methods to push the stylization. Possibly add cartoony lines on the textures

Felixb

You got "Sinterklaas" in your refs instead of santa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

It's kinda diffrent

Freedom4u2

Snader wrote: »

I don't think I'll ever really like this personally, as the sculpting style doesn't really jive with me. That said, I think you should look towards different rendering methods to push the stylization. Possibly add cartoony lines on the textures

Freedom4u2

So I did a bit of work on it and here's the current result:



I believe it looks a bit less cartoony than the other one, while still keeping its stylised look. I adjusted the lens blur to a couple of places where I thought it was maybe too big or too small. The skin pores were done by hand directly in photoshop, and for the other parts I used a couple of grunge pictures I had in my library. It add a bit of the "borderland" effect, but without the lines shading (I didn't like it enough to put it on my project). Yet I'm stuck again; Any feedback is welcome!

EDIT: Just saw the text on the picture was french. It basically mean Merry Christmas and a happy New year x)

Two Listen

I actually like it quite a bit, but what bugs me most is the face (anything with skin). It almost looks...creepy, crumpled. I sort of like the "carved" look it has as a whole, but with the sharp crumply looking sculpted wrinkles all over his face it looks pretty weird and unusually dark.

I also think the skin - with the exception of the nose and cheeks, could do with more a little more yellow in its tone. Would help the rosy cheeks and nose stand out a bit more, and also brighten him up and perhaps detract from the creepyness.

Freedom4u2

Two Listen wrote: »

I actually like it quite a bit, but what bugs me most is the face (anything with skin). It almost looks...creepy, crumpled. I sort of like the "carved" look it has as a whole, but with the sharp crumply looking sculpted wrinkles all over his face it looks pretty weird and unusually dark.

I also think the skin - with the exception of the nose and cheeks, could do with more a little more yellow in its tone. Would help the rosy cheeks and nose stand out a bit more, and also brighten him up and perhaps detract from the creepyness.

I agree on every points you said. Since the render is already done and that I haven't saved the rendering point of view (shame on me :O), reworking on the geometry would basically mean redoing everything from there including post-processing, which is not viable at the moment. However, I'm planning on reworking this project more in depth next year, as I plan to use this illustration in my portfolio (hence why the feedback is very important). I will rework the shaders and rework the general geometry of his face to fix what you said.

As for the skin tone and the global creepiness of the scene, it was indeed not what I was heading for. I also followed your recommendations on adding a bit of yellow on the face, while lighting everything up a bit. I also played with liquify a bit to try to give him a more happy face, and I also reduced the pupil size (he almost seemed high in the other renders o.O).



And yet again I realize I forgot to change the text for its English counterpart (sorry D=). Any feedback is welcome, and even if the changes are not instant, they're all written in my notes here; my goal is to make a great piece of illustration and to improve my skills in the best possible way. You guys are truly of a great help!

Steve Schulze

I think a big part of the creepyness is coming from the fact that the mouth is so close to the nose which makes him look kind of deformed. If you pull it down further, adjust the moustache accordingly and maybe make the lip a little fuller I think you'll be closer to what you're aiming for.

Tweaking your AO to be a warmer colour on the skin and reducing the opacity of it overall might help too.

Freedom4u2

Jackablade wrote: »

I think a big part of the creepyness is coming from the fact that the mouth is so close to the nose which makes him look kind of deformed. If you pull it down further, adjust the moustache accordingly and maybe make the lip a little fuller I think you'll be closer to what you're aiming for.

Tweaking your AO to be a warmer colour on the skin and reducing the opacity of it overall might help too.

Completely agree again, and seeing that there was a lot of problems directly with the model that couldn't be corrected directly in photoshop, I decided to go back in zbrush and redo the whole post-process part. Here's the result:



I changed quite a lot his facial anatomy and changed a bit the beard position too. I reworked on the face shader too, to get something more bright. At this point I also decided to change his eyes from green to blue, which I believe makes a greater impact and, for some reasons, makes him seems more friendly. I worked on the eyes in zbrush too, adjusted the nose, reworked the lips and his face in general. On the post-processing part, I removed the dirt completely from his hair, which gave him an over-occluded effect. I kept it very low in his beard though. I also reworked a tiny bit his glasses.

I believe the work is quite advanced now, contrarily to when I posted him here. However, once again, I'd like to hear you guys feedback on my project; see how it helped from a few days ago to now!

Steve Schulze

That's definitely a big improvement over the previous version. The warmer skin tone helps a lot and the change in eye shape makes him look much more cheerful.