[WIP] Modeling a stylized boy (feedback needed!)

CplSquee

Hello! This is a university project of mine and I'd like it to be as good as possible of course, so I thought I'd post here, this is a development thread where I will post my progress as it happens and I would really appreciate any feedback! I am making two hand painted characters (a boy and a reindeer monster thing) and a small environment (probably only have time for small plinths). No polygon count restrictions but I'd like to keep it as low as possible though! Textures will have at least diffuse, specular and normal maps.

I am having problems with some parts as I'm not sure what would be the best way of doing them. I'm going to pose the character but don't think I'll make any facial expressions, only the eyes so I can make them look somewhere else than forward.

These are some of the things I'm having trouble with:

- Topology (especially arms, hands and trouser)
- Eyes
- Hood's fur
- Shoelaces (modeled or normal mapped?)
- Preparing for sculpting on Zbrush

Things still to be added and changed:
- Zipper
- Hair
- Bag straps

I am still quite new to modeling, although I have modeled 5 characters but without thinking about the best topology etc, so any tips and hints would surely be helpful!

I apologize for my unfinished concept art, I will finish it soon, just I wasn't exactly sure about everything on the character yet so I just wanted to get onto modeling asap



Current model (I circled things I know I have to fix)

CplSquee

I've been trying to find reference for the eyes but I can't figure out the best way to make them. They're not perfect spheres because otherwise they would bulge out too much, but I don't know how I should make them so I could move them

I have this pic but I figured I could probably just make more faces continuing backwards from the edge of the eyesocket so there wouldn't be that gap anymore.




With this I started making edges on the eyeball that I could attach and weld to the edge of the eye socket (after deleting old edges and faces), but that's probably not a good idea, or is it? I am a bit lost here.





The hair goes backwards on the sides so I thought about attaching and welding it to the head. In this pic it is still separate as I need to model it a bit more.

Shadownami92

If you plan to go with the non-sphereical eyes. You can always have the pupil be floating geometry that is either just very round or use transparency to make it that way. Animating it still might prove to be more difficult than a normal eye rotation, but you could probably get that working either with blend shapes or some other animation drivers.

Though setting the pupils this way could make things more interesting for animation layer, as you could deform the shape for a toon like eye blur during movement, or change the shape of the pupils for various emoticon like expressions.

Lord McMutton

I like the look of this guy; nice work thus far.

As far as the eyes go, I have just the thing:
http://www.benjones.us/twilight-princess-eyes-breakdown/

It's a breakdown of Nintendo's method for eyes in Zelda.

Dimfist

I wouldn't weld the hair to the head. You can just blend it i with your paint job.

CplSquee

Thanks a lot guys! Sorry for my late reply, had to get some other work done.
I will definitely remember these suggestions, probably in my next characters. I'm not going to use animation for this one, for now I just decided to make a texture and for the "beauty shots" I'll just move the iris layer to point the right way. I'd love to make it more "complicated", but I am running out of time... But yeah, thanks a lot anyway.

CplSquee

For the hair line, it's going to look a bit bad, at least at this point....

But here's some progress






And the sculpt, I was going to make a normal map, but decided not to do it after all


A lot is going to change, but this is just a WIP of course!

CplSquee

The character so far!

Shiv

The dark background is killing the silhouette around the bottom because your feet just disappear into it.
I would also add a line or something to show the zipper pockets as the zipper on its own looks a bit strange.
You also seem to have a bake error in the legs above the boots?

Loving the colour and design tho

CplSquee

Shiv wrote: »

The dark background is killing the silhouette around the bottom because your feet just disappear into it.
I would also add a line or something to show the zipper pockets as the zipper on its own looks a bit strange.
You also seem to have a bake error in the legs above the boots?

Loving the colour and design tho

Thanks Shiv
Will put a better picture soon, been texturing the boots today!
I probably should've explained what I'm going to do, but about the pockets, I haven't just gotten to that part yet (I keep switching from object to object when texturing) Also not sure if I want pockets yet... I probably should as it'd make it maybe look more interesting?

And yeah there are errors near the seams but I haven't just finished texturing those parts yet x)

Thank you anyway!

CplSquee

Here're the boots, still needs some fixing (like the bottom edge and the shoe laces are too dark, and some detail bits on the texture):

JimmyRustler

Love the face, man. Looks so adorable!

Justin Meisse

You've got my vote for top bar when you finish

Torch

This is looking lovely...but please don't show it on a black background, kinda kills it

CplSquee

Thanks! Yeahhh tbh when I took those pics I used Marmoset 2 and I hadn't figured out how to take off the background picture so I just turned its lights off which made it black, now I've figured out how to do it though thank god haha

Torch wrote: »

This is looking lovely...but please don't show it on a black background, kinda kills it

CplSquee

Thank you all!!

CplSquee

Okay I got it done, still loads to fix, this is the final product (for now):







Behance page: https://www.behance.net/gallery/Character-model-Pyry/15597635

lotet

love it!
I would work on the textures a bit though.
I think a gradient from from bot to top would look good, also the hair and the jacket is basically the same colors, at least change the hue/saturation a tad.

anyways, great work!

CplSquee

lotet wrote: »

love it!
I would work on the textures a bit though.
I think a gradient from from bot to top would look good, also the hair and the jacket is basically the same colors, at least change the hue/saturation a tad.

anyways, great work!

Thank you!

You are right, I will do so asap!