The Monthly 'Noob' Character Challenge (01/14)
polycount sponsor
So here it is! After much discussion and planning, it is time to get the show on the road. Welcome to the Monthly Noob Character Challenge!
Alexei Dimitriev (Kapoff) deserves most of the credit for getting the ball rolling on this one, and thanks to everyone that participated in the discussion. All of your input has helped to lay down the rules for the challenge and concept selection process. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for the overwhelmingly positive response from you guys.
These challenges are for everyone. Anybody that is interested is encouraged to participate.
As the title implies, this will be a monthly challenge. With the exception of this first month, all subsequent challenges will begin and end on the first and last day of each month. We will start a thread one week prior to the beginning of a new challenge where participants can decide on the next concept to work from.
For this first challenge, we will begin a little early (right now!!) and end on 31 January, 2014. This extra time will give us the opportunity to work out any kinks in the system, and allow people to get used to the format of the challenge.
The goal of these challenges is to learn as much as possible, and to help others to do the same. The rules were designed with this goal in mind, so here they are:
And without further adieu, here is the concept that was chosen for this month:
The artist's name is Konstantin Maystrenko, be sure to check out more of his work here!
All right, I think that about covers it. I can't wait to get started, and am eager to see what everyone else comes up with!
Alexei Dimitriev (Kapoff) deserves most of the credit for getting the ball rolling on this one, and thanks to everyone that participated in the discussion. All of your input has helped to lay down the rules for the challenge and concept selection process. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for the overwhelmingly positive response from you guys.
These challenges are for everyone. Anybody that is interested is encouraged to participate.
As the title implies, this will be a monthly challenge. With the exception of this first month, all subsequent challenges will begin and end on the first and last day of each month. We will start a thread one week prior to the beginning of a new challenge where participants can decide on the next concept to work from.
For this first challenge, we will begin a little early (right now!!) and end on 31 January, 2014. This extra time will give us the opportunity to work out any kinks in the system, and allow people to get used to the format of the challenge.
The goal of these challenges is to learn as much as possible, and to help others to do the same. The rules were designed with this goal in mind, so here they are:
1. Leave at least one critique per post.
2. Challenge yourself.
3. Your final presentation should be posed and rendered in real-time.
4. Try your best to finish on time.
5. Post your work-in-progress in the designated Monthly Character Challenge thread.
6. Specify your own triangle count and texture size. Be reasonable and stick to your budget. Some suggestions:Mobile: 2k Triangles, 512 Maps7. Learn as much as you can. Share what you've learned.
Mid Res: 16k Triangles, 1024 Maps
High Res: 32k Triangles, 2048 Maps
And without further adieu, here is the concept that was chosen for this month:
The artist's name is Konstantin Maystrenko, be sure to check out more of his work here!
All right, I think that about covers it. I can't wait to get started, and am eager to see what everyone else comes up with!
Replies
pretty sure I will chip in on this, though it might have to wait until january
hope everyone get the chance to learn and push their skills!
We could add each other on skype to discuss along the way. What do you think?
I would encourage the use of Google+ Hangouts for something like this. I think its screen-sharing features are more robust than Skype's. There is a dedicated Polycount Hangout here.
If there is enough demand, we could consider starting one specifically for these challenges.
I think you meant 'without further ado'. ;P
'adieu' means goodbye.
*runs away*
Anyway, yay, 1 extra week to work on this.
I'm up for G.Hangout if ppl are into it.
Made a breakdown of stuff. Also what I think the overlapped stuff look like.
Anyways, here is my basemsh, havnt done any real sculpting yet, just pushing things around trying to break down the major forms.
even though I'm not a noob in character modelling, I don't have a good hand painting skill, which is something I want to use here.
MrOneTwo - I really like your proportions to start but I wonder if the breasts are necessary the way you've modeled them. The girl is fairly flat chested and most the form of where the breasts are are covered with that cloth (which is fairly smooth) The topology you've created wouldn't really be seen.
Maybe we could make a Skype group specifically for characters and/or character challenges?
Hey! This is a good start. Other than what's already been discussed be careful with the proportions. Particularly the thing I see is the length of the upper arms in position to the waist. I dig the silhouette at the moment!
Also- I'm sooper excited to get started on the painting of this piece ^_^
Took some time today to get a first anatomy and general forms. I'm kinda in a hurry now so i'll be back for some crits later on
Anyway, I blocked in the form as well. Decided not to use any of my basemesh. Made the body and head with a shadowbox. Then used InsertSphere to create most of the rest. Gonna make her clothing separated subtools obviously.
Unless you have nothing else going on, I think 1 month for a next gen style character is a serious challenge!
Anyway, I might start working on a handheld version on my lunch breaks here at work. Should be able to crank one out in a few hours.
ZRemesh, then build better form in. I believe this is the first time my character has hip bones in there
PyrZern - I measured about 6 heads tall when I checked it in photoshop. Right now even though you're blocking it out, your geometry is getting dense. I would drop it down a few levels and start hitting the major forms. Also, I wouldn't worry about clothing at all until you get that base down, but that's just me. It's just more subtools to have to tweak right now. Edit - I made this in regards to your earlier post. It seems you've posted again while I was typing this up. Great changes!
BradMyers82 - I think the extra time is good to have this month as it is the first month out. Hopefully this will give people the time to see it and know it's here so they get their full month at the very least. Once this challenge is established it's easy to know that it starts at the top of the month. Also, the more active the thread is the more it will filter to the top of P&P anyways.:poly124:
praetus: I agree with you. yea, if it just starts beginning of every month that would be pretty obvious.
I made some quick orthos. The head is pretty fuzzy here and I know I def. don't have it quite right. Hopefully this helps some people tho.
My guess is that; her eyeball is pretty big, and the gap between 2 eyeballs is smaller than 1 eyeball.
Or; she has small eyeballs, and the gap is wider than 1 eyeball..... wtf, I can't tell which one it is.
I just remembered I actually created this ahsoka character from star wars like 5 years ago lol. I have some references I took and I think it can def. give people some ideas for how to handle this characters face.
Pointier nose, smaller lips, pointier chin, reshape the eyes and make them smaller I could see it being pretty close. Idk, these will help me at least...
@PyrZern: the head was one of my main concern during the blocking... without the hairs it looked quite large in comparison to the body and i feared it might have been to much...but now that most of it is covered it doesn't look that big.
I modified it and mate it around 10% bigger.
Your progress is coming along but i'd make the body into a single subtool, maybe leaving only the head split for a bit more definition. Also check up on some of your proportion. Right now the arms are looking a bit too beefy. The head size was looking better in the previous image too.
@Praetus: Thanks, the arms were kind of rushed and I still don't have a clear idea of how they're made, so there's a lot of improving to be done.
The first sculpt was just a quick and low res dynamesh to get some forms in. I've currently retopologized it and reprojected and i'll be making the adjustments to the arm on the new and better topolgy.
Didn't bother to post an image since there's not really much of a difference at the moment. Just smaller bewbs and the head enlargement. I'll start on the clothes tomorrow after sorting the anatomy a bit better!
@MrOneTwo: she has 4 fingers
EDIT: for the eyes issue. I made mine a bit bigger than what they should be and left less space between them. Then sculpted the eyelids around the balls so they'd be aligned approximatly where they should be.
Also, just so you know, guys. I'm a forum addicted
Brad, thanks for the reference
Thanks Fnitrox. I realized the proportion almost right away after looking it over again with fresh eyes, and full stomach :P I will merge her arms and hands and fingers to the body when I get the body shape nailed down
I adjust the legs to be a tad longer and scale her head up (after smooth-destroyed her face and jump back down a 2 subdiv.) (her head is almost as wide as her shoulders !). However, I instead move the eyes a bit further apart instead of closer.
This also help me
You guys are crazy fast! Have a great holiday!
I Would change base pose. Especially hands. You can keep A pose, but hands should be straight, not rotated 180 degree.
It's going to be nightmare for rigging. I don't know if you are going to do rig it, but when you do, you will loose all hair with current pose (;.
You shouldn't base your work on wrong drawings... you'll never learn anything with this. First, this drawing is saying that females don't have any muscle on the interior side of the leg ( the gastrocnemius ), and then it says that the exterior part of the gastrocnemius is really low, but generally it appears "higher" than the exterior one ( I think they are called medial and lateral gastrocnemius sometimes ).
Here is a GIF of a 360° turnaround of a sexy girl, so you can see the legs ( I said the legs, stop staring at the boobs and ass ! ^^ ) :
It's better to use anatomy drawings ( but they can be wrong too ) and photos...
tristanCarter - Thank you, thats really useful!
PyrZern - Looking good, be careful with those arms, its really stylized in the illustration, but dont let that fool you, I think you went a tad overboard with the forms there.
Texelion - Nothing wrong with using images as reference, you do have a good point though, I think its more important that your aware that its a simplified illustration and not a correct anatomical study then to completely ignore images and only use photos. that turn around is really usefull btw, totaly forgot about that page.
jksl - thats really nice! I like the face a lot, but your ears are way of, they should be a lot bigger, and wider.
UPDATE.
Ok, small update for me, just cleaning up some stuff.
changed some stuff from praetus comments, hope its better, added the straps on the boots and some other minor details. Like everyone else im having trouble with the head. so for now Ive left it blank and im gonna come back to it after some studies and breakdowns. but that will ahve to be tomorow.
I will work on the arms tomorrow
Nite nite, world.
Ok this is my first from scratch sculpt (well not exactly I used mannequin ;p).
I'm aware that back need some work still.
I'm aiming at more realistic end result, so probably huge ears are no-go.
iniside - thanks will fix those hands. Not much rigging experince so don't have proper habits ;p
You should work on proportions first. Don't detail this sculpt until you are happy with proportions. You probably heard it hundreds of times but think in simple primitives way.
Using Marmoset 2 coz it's hip with the kids nowadays... understandable though ;p
I think proprostions are now ok.
Suprisignly get it look nice from front was far more challenging than on back.
Brests need some work.
There is some odd thing on calf that I noticed on screenshot, but that is easly fixable.
Aside from that I think I'm going to add more clothing. I know madness!, But I have fall in love with cloth simulation.. And now trying to add it everywhere.
@MrOneTwo
Haha I did. I probably said it the same amount of times as well.
Nice progress. Another tip, is that you should add more geometry in areas that bend (knees, arms, shoulders etc), so it will improve skeletal deformations. I know, we are not going to animate it but hey, it's about learning new things
@lotet
Nice sculpt!
Real quickly she should have: higher hips, longer arms, larger head, shorter legs, knees higher, wider back, higher boobs, wider shoulders, thicker fingers, to name a few. The hip area specifically is a tricky area for most, and requires a lot of attention to get it right. Keep at it man!
Here is some ref, I find seeing others sculpts and textures sometimes help visualize. (not mine)
MrOneTwo: I think yours is the closest proportion wise I have seen yet. To make it closer I would narrow the hips some, and widen the head (from the back of the head) and shoulders wider a little too.
lotet: looking really solid so far, the main thing that sticks out to me is she appears much stubbier in yours than the concept. I would work on making her longer looking in general.
texelion: nice ref there, saved to my anatomy folder! Only thing I would argue is since this is a stylized character that leg image does have some merit. Although you are correct that if you don't understand accurate anatomy first, you can't go about stylizing like that.
Didn't notice how poorly defined the sword's shape actually is in the picture until I started putting it together. The black part on the blade is particularly bad. It seems like it digs in deeper towards the hilt and extrudes out of the blade towards the tip. I'll probably keep messing with it until I find something that feels right.
MrOneTwo, I think you got her forms down right there.
Inside, it will be difficult to make a realistic humanoid out of this piece, but I wanna see how you will do it
Update. Sorry for utter spamming, but I want to get this sculpt at least to average, before friday.
The hips area is really difficult. Far more than it would for male character.
Whatever I end up on friday I will use it to make clothes
@PyrZern
Well. It won't be hard to make it more realistic. Just more realistic proportions, with the same clothes. And I think I keep ears. They are defining element of the character. Maybe bit changed.
Started the base mesh today. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more time in the next few days.
Did manage to get some progress done today, even if it's been a dead crazy day...
Retopoed the face from it's dynamesh and went up a subd level for some nicer definition. I think i won't need to go up anymore since I like how simple the forms are holding right now. Also made the shoulder pads and recored a zbrush video for the fur, so if anyone is intrested in my crappy technique i'll upload it.
Changed the breats size again making them a little bit smaller. Changed the forearm shape a bit and added the elbow (but i already don't like it looking back now). Will probably shorten them as they're looking really too long, or the crappy anatomy I sculpted is fooling me.
I could post some orthos of the head only if anyone wants some proportion reference. I used the tons of anime figures I've got all over my room : D...I knew they'll be coming handy one day.
Praetus: Good start! most of the proportion looks allright but the head might be a bit too long.
iniside: nice seeing someone going for a more realistic approach. You might want to revisit some of the forms as currently it looks like you didn't really put much into bone structure.
She's sort of lacking a ribcage, and in the back some scapulae could be beneficial to the shape, the crotch area is also not shaped correctly, it should bend in much steeper and should form a pinchier line with the legs.
Most women tend to not have many muscle lines showing up to the skin so bones are what will to sell it! Look up some ribcages and pelvis reference and it'll help!
Also I've found that having boobs in early doesn't help in defining the shape of the chest, but it might just be me.
lotet: Spot on! loving your progress!
Made her skirt/loincloth from Maya. And adjust her face a bit. Also merged her arms into her body already. Will refine em later. I think her shoulders are wrong.
@PyrZern: Seems like her nose could use a little more widening to me.
Here's where I'm at. I know Blender added some new sculpting/topology tools in some recent-ish updates so I thought I'd try 'em out. I started with a sphere and through a combination of Remesh, Multiresolution, and Dynamic Topology I ended up at the top image. It's definitely not as nice as ZBrush (not that I've used Z much), but I think it is usable and I can make a much nicer basemesh from what I've messed around with so far.
Hopefully your video can give some insight to how you work and what is used to get a similar result.
Great work everyone, I am sure a lot more people are watching this thread, can't wait to see more updates from everyone.
Keep kicking ass people!
Sure you can use drawings, paintings and concepts as reference, this thread is even based on that : reproducing a concept.
But it's not good at all to LEARN anatomy from this. Once you learned something wrong it's harder to correct it. I say that because I did the same mistake so many times ^^.
I refined her ears, and also spent more time on her face a bit. I also pull her shoulders down and that seemed to make her look way better now. I think her arms look better as well. Gonna work on her hands next.
Ps. I hate her hair already, ROFL !!
Update.
Also sorry for not much comments, but all of you are doing better than me, and I'm total noob in regard to almost-naked characters
@Fnitrox
Thanks for tips.