Caroline
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I've been working on a new character, and I'm finally at a point where I think I'm ready for some crits. These are realtime viewport renders. Diffuse is all hand painted, and the skin shader is kind of a hack, but I think it looks all right. I still haven't settled on a hair style, so the current hair is kind of a placeholder.
After taking the screenshots, I think its a bit more stylized than I would like. Any advice on steering it back towards a realism? As this has become sort of an exercise in hand painting textures, I would like to avoid shortcuts like projection painting.
If I get some good reactions I'd like to take this a step further, flesh out some more of her character, and create a full model.
Latest Update:
__________
I've been working on a new character, and I'm finally at a point where I think I'm ready for some crits. These are realtime viewport renders. Diffuse is all hand painted, and the skin shader is kind of a hack, but I think it looks all right. I still haven't settled on a hair style, so the current hair is kind of a placeholder.
After taking the screenshots, I think its a bit more stylized than I would like. Any advice on steering it back towards a realism? As this has become sort of an exercise in hand painting textures, I would like to avoid shortcuts like projection painting.
If I get some good reactions I'd like to take this a step further, flesh out some more of her character, and create a full model.
Replies
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I was planning on keeping the eyebrows a bit more... robust? I think this leaves room for a lot more character than the thin, painted-on look that seems to be the standard of beauty these days. But after looking at the side view again, they do look like they can be brought back considerably. Is it common to use alpha planes here, or do most artists just paint into the diffuse?
Also, her forms such as lips, nose, etc. seem like they are puffy, like her face is retaining fluids and slightly swollen. Again, not sure if that's intended, but if you were to reduce this it would drive back the stylization and make it more realistic.
I just got ZBrush a couple of weeks ago, and decided to follow through with this one and complete the entire figure. I'm thinking it will be a great way to get comfortable with some new software.
I've got a grip on the interface and hotkeys, but there are just so many brushes that I'm having trouble finding the ones that work. To all of the ZBrush character artists out there, what are your favorite brushes for sculpting clothes?
Laughing_Bun: Great suggestions. I have a tendency to hit things with the smooth brush much more than I probably should. I will try breaking things up into more subtools. The shoes I did most recently, and every part was a separate mesh, which made it much easier to hold onto those hard edges. I think I'll take the clothes into Blender to rebuild the topology and give me something solid to sculpt details on.
Meteora: The forearms and wrist have always given me some trouble. I need to go in and study the anatomy there quite a bit more. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
polozad: Hah, great guess. Although I wasn't going for a complete likeness, she was one of my primary references for the face, I'm glad that some of her features are still recognizable.
I also rebuilt the shirt so that I could have some more control over the edges, I'll put the folds and wrinkles in tomorrow, and then repeat the process with the pants and backpack.
Now the colors look okay to me on my main monitor, but on my secondary they are quite a bit too red and over-saturated. I have no way to calibrate them, and I have no idea which is a more accurate, so if the colors are looking too saturated, please let me know.
Here's a quick update. I just discovored the DamStandard brush, and I think I'm in love. I feel like I've been doing it wrong the whole time.
Brought to you in New Mega-Plus-Turntable-Vision:
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Since my last post, I've spent a lot of time bringing the rest of the clothing and accessories up to the same level of detail as the shirt. This required going back into Blender to rebuild almost every part from scratch. The backpack could still use a detail pass for wrinkles and folds, and I'm not sure I like the chest straps. Even if I decide to ditch the straps, the buckles that I made for them will no doubt come in handy for future projects. I think the hi-poly is about 90% there.
As always crits are greatly appreciated. Thanks for looking!
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for example, the lower eye lids are too strong right now. also the nose is pointed up too high like one of those anime girls. the shape of the tip of the nose is also overly simplified. research how the nose cartilages look under the skin. ears seem a bit too high and also a bit too washed out in details.
finally, the pose of the character seems unbalanced right now. upper body or the torso seems pushed too forward.
btw, if you want to get a better idea on the flaws of the model then work with a simple grey opaque material instead of colored waxy/sss material that zbrush has by default. right now it is hard to judge the surface quality because of the materials.
It was a real chore trying to find decent reference for the eye lids. It seems like in the vast majority of photos of this area are completely obscured by makeup. Can you recommend specific reference?
The pronounced maxilla - and consequently the upturned nose - were intentional choices. Are these qualities completely outside the normal range of human variation? I'm rather fond of this area of the sculpt, but if you insist, I will go back and tone it down. Either way, I will definitely spend some more time studying the cartilages.
Oh, and I do frequently change materials while sculpting. If it makes it easier to critique, I can post renders with a standard grey material next time.
for reference, google should be sufficient.
you can also try posespace.com but they are mainly for full figure 360 degree shots.
googled eyes, notice the soft transition around the edges and the general shape.
http://img.xcitefun.net/users/2009/08/107147,xcitefun-wonderful-woman-eyes-1.jpg
for the nose, sure it would be possible but the apex of the nose seems just a tad bit shifted upwards from the nose itself.
http://antranik.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/external-nose-cartilage-philtrum-naris-apex-ala-of-nose-bridge.jpg
also the upper lips look as if she has an overbite making her upper lips pushed out far from lower lips.
http://eastbocaortho.com/uploads/bite_types.jpg
lot of these feature could be adjusted without changing your overall direction mainly by working on the anatomy more and get the skin/fat sculpting to work properly.
Shrike: You know, this was bugging me as well. Since then I've made some subtle adjustments to the sculpt. In one of the earlier critiques, Garnet suggested that the features seemed a bit "puffy", so I deflated the cheeks and lips to compensate. I think this may have given the face a more angular silhouette. Additionally, the old texture had some makeup painted in around the eyes - eyeliner and eye shadow. Because I wanted to focus on the sculpt, I have not yet added this back into the current polypaint. The earliest shots also had eyelashes and the eyes themselves had an environment map applied. Again, features that I have not yet incorporated back into the model. Though, I'm not sure these account for all of the masculinity.
As MM had suggested, I should have been using the same basic grey material throughout the progress shots. It would have made comparisons much easier. I need to fix my workflow to spare me these headaches in the future.