WIP - Ryuko Matoi

Tengu

Hello Polycount! :thumbup:
I've been lurking for a while and I figured it's about time for me to make an account and start posting myself. Nice to meet you all, and I hope I can get some good feedback!

I've started a Ryuko Matoi fanart and I'm at the stage where I'd like some outside opinion on it while it's still early and I don't end up cementing my mistakes. Right now I'm still in early sculpting but my goal is to take it through all the way - low-poly it, texture it, rig it and pose it.

For those who aren't familiar with Kill la Kill, here are some refs:


And here's where I'm at so far:


Pretty much just roughed it out and still haven't blocked out everything, but I don't really want to go into detail yet until I'm comfortable enough with the base. Which I'm not, so here's where I need your help because I'm kinda stuck!

I'm making her in standard outfit (bottom left in ref) for now, but I put in the other concept art just for consistency's sake when it comes to artstyle. The main thing I'm trying to achieve is to get it to look as close to the official artstyle as possible, which is where I'm struggling. I don't want it to end up as "generic anime girl with Ryuko's hair", which is kinda hard to avoid on an anime-style character but the artstyle has something charming about it that I just want to try and crack. The animation is pretty fluid in the anime and it's hard to find consistent refs, so I've been trying to base her off the concept art. The hair and face has been giving me a lot of grief, but I think that's what I'm really going to have to nail to get it to look right.

For now, the posture in particular is troubling me. She has a really thin waist and exaggerated back arch, and trying to get that stylisation in my model has killed her posture since I don't really know what I'm doing. Wearing high heels doesn't help either. Does anyone have any crits for me? I want to get the body nailed now so I don't have to go back later and try and fix everything else around it.

tl;dr help me fix her body before I go any further!

Tw17ch

Nice, I am working on fan art of her too. I like how your skirt came out, how did you go about doing it ?

OH and the hair I am having a lil trouble with that.

here is a link of where i am at on mine: http://eagle3d.carbonmade.com/projects/5029688#2

Tw17ch

Nice, I am working on fan art of her too. I like how your skirt came out, how did you go about doing it ?

OH and the hair I am having a lil trouble with that.

here is a link of where i am at on mine: http://eagle3d.carbonmade.com/projects/5029688#2

Dimfist

Her pose looks a little impossible in the character sheet. She has her hips pushed way forward and her back is centered over her heels. This would not only be uncomfortable but it would shift her center of gravity all over. I think if you push her hips back a little it might help you with the arched back thing looking right as well as evening out her balance. Cheers!

Tengu

@Tw17ch: Oh hey, nice to see more Ryuko fans. I've seen a few other amazing Ryukos here, and I must say they're really inspirational. It'll be nice to see how we both end out!
For my skirt I think I extracted it from the hips, dynameshed it and pulled it around at a low res until it was skirt-shape, then masked out the alternating pleats like this http://puu.sh/5q5Wa and pushed them out. Then I inverted the mask and pushed out the other pleats. I pulled out the pleats with move topological/inflate, peaked them with dam standard with a large brush size + backface masking off (the mask stops it messing around the neighbouring pleats too) and pinched them a bit in the creases. Still gotta polish it but the shape's there. Probably not the most effective way but it worked for me

Hair, oh jeez, I'm not one to give advice on that. I ended up zsphereing to get the bulk of it and smashing it around in dynamesh for way too long. I'm still experimenting with the hair so if I come up with anything I'll let you know.

@Dimfist Yeah, I see what you mean about the center of gravity. In the reference her legs are positioned differently too which I didn't take into account. Really quickly liquified it in PS, is this what you mean about pushing the hips back? Original is on the left.



I don't know if I made that any better at all. I've gone blind to it :rolleyes:

Dimfist

I think that makes the curve in her spine more believable. I think with an arched back the rib cage will pop a bit more too so that might also make it look a little more believable a pose.

Tengu

Reckon I should push out the chest a bit more then?

Dimfist

obviously no two women are the same but with the back arched the ribs do tend to push out a little depending on the amount of arch. Also the top row of stomach muscles will tend to flatten a bit.

Dimfist

Her pose is a bit exaggerated but maybe that's what you want too?

Tengu

I see what you mean! Thanks a lot for the help.
I'm considering just dropped that arched-back thing. I'm trying to incorporate a pose into a neutral stance and it's not working. In the ref she was more or less standing like this with her hips tilted, weight shifted and back arched:



and I've been trying to work that into my model when she's standing with her legs and hips straight forwards. I think I'll leave that til I actually pose her because it really feels like it isn't working.

Didn't get chance to do much this weekend, but I decided to mess around with the face and hair.




I guess a little bit of progress is still better than no progress

Tengu

Decided it was about time to get back into this... woops.

Working on the scissor blade to ease myself back in.

Reference:


Progress:





Any feedback?

dafty

I can't give you much feedback (I've just started modelling), but these are awesome! Can you upload an up-to-date picture?