Kharon's Summer Project - 2014

Kharon Alpua

Hi everybody. I'm here to share my summer project, which is to create two characters and an environment for a short animation which I will be assembling late this summer and during the autumn. Of the four monthly projects composing the grand project, I am now nearly two weeks into this, and I wish I had brought it here a bit sooner.

May 2014: Cheri

Cheri is a red panda girl. The setting for this project contains a lot of anthropomorphic animal characters, and Cheri's companion for the project may or may not be another such character.

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Right now I think I have the core body shape down for her, but some of the proportions feel odd to me. However, I find it much easier to adjust those in poly-modeling packages than sculpting, so I've been retopologizing the current sculpt (a product of Sculptris) in Blender so I can play with ther proportions a bit more cleanly. I'm maybe 50% on the retopo, with her lower legs, hands, tail, and feet left to build (and the tail ought to be particularly easy, since it's more or less a tube...)

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Right now the main thing I'm looking for feedback on is the proportions in the first picture (and I am sorry it's a single static pose, will put up a sketchfab version of both of these later) and the topology for the second. She is ultimately going to be animated, and I'd like the topology in this pass to be as friendly for both animation and sculpting as possible.

But I have to run now, paying work calls. Will get this updated properly as soon as I can

Kharon Alpua

So the weekend was busier than expected -- I had totally forgotten it was a holiday weekend, but I did manage to "complete" the retopo. It's messy, though, and I'm more proud that I have a complete, quad-only mesh than I am with the actual edgeflow.

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I adjusted her to be 6.5 heads tall instead of the stouter-looking 5.5 that she was in the previous post, and have played with her arm length to get it to about the right spot. I am, however, still looking for any sort of serious critique or comments about the model's structure and topology. Unlike my earlier post, I am no longer planning to re-sculpt her, all of the remaining work over the coming 10 days will be poly modeling, rigging, texturing, and lighting (Blender Cycles for final render).

Kharon Alpua

Too long since my last update, feels like forever. For this update, though, the modeling is "finished" as I've reached my self-imposed deadline for this character. Cheri is now finished, despite being incomplete, and further work on her will need to happen in the midst of my other projects.

Attached is a composite including her textures and the model rendered from Blender's Cycles engine. My hopeful goal for the textures is something similar to Blizzard or Torchlight's painterly textures, but all I finished within my deadline was flat, cartoonish textures (and somehow I missed her eyes completely).

The goal of this project is to do four projects over the summer, in order to increase my ability to focus on work and to work within deadlines. The second project is a vehicle, which is in concepts right now, but which I will start building tomorrow. Sketches and preliminary renders will follow for it soon.

Kharon Alpua

Trying to be more regular about these updates.

So here's a day in, and a blockout in, for the Sky Rose. I hate my 2D art skills, so I'll pass on sharing my concepts today (maybe I'll have a satisfying concept sketch by the end of the week, though having it after the model is done is a bit too late for now.)

The Sky Rose is a hybrid van and personal space shuttle, rated for lunar, but not interplanetary, travel. It hardly looks it right now, but it has a magitech engine (one side project I've had is fleshing out how magic and magitech work in this world) capable of flight.

The goal today is just to get the shapes in -- tomorrow I'll focus on edgeflow and the asymmetric details like the passenger's door to the back (which is on the opposite side of the vehicle from this render... so I'll need to set up a camera that can see it). Wednesday will be focused on interior blocking, with interior details on Thursday, and detailing the model overall through the weekend.

OctoKube

well good luck with your project, I think that honouring a deadline is a very important thing to learn so keep it up!

Kharon Alpua

Yeah. I feel that honouring a deadline is one of the most important work skills for a someone who wants to be a professional, whether I aim to be in a studio or a freelancer. If I can make beautiful models but it takes twice me as long as another person who makes equally good work, I'm not an appealing employee or contractor. As much as school assignments can help with that, they aren't everything for it.

Right now, I'm just out of bed. I am still planning to honour my goals for the project, but putting anything extra into something past deadline has to mean being ahead of schedule on my current assignment.

Kharon Alpua

Another day, fairly fresh out of bed. Yesterday's work incoming. Hopefully this google drive website thing works so I can actually embed my images instead of attaching all of them? If so, I'll make sure my previous images are available there and update the earlier posts to embed them.

Warmup:



Sky Rose:



The warmup was a last minute "I'll make anything" warmup attempt -- I had to leave for work in 40 minutes, so I spent 30 doodling this head in Sculptris. I like some of the sharper angles I threw in, but the shape of his face still leaves me wanting something more, I just can't tell exactly what.

The Sky Rose was rebuilt from a box, to build a minimal shape-focused version -- and it still isn't complete. Today will be another pass, though hopefully work is a bit slower, so I can get a bit more work done while I'm there. In a change from the earlier schedule, today should have all of the necessary mechanical pieces in place to make it look like a complete and solid van. Hopefully I can put in an interior blockout as well, but the focus is to have the model where my initial plan expected it to be last night.

Included in the next update, whatever warmup I do today (30 minutes while laundry runs), and wireframes and closeups (mutliple images!) for whatever I do with the Sky Rose.

Kharon Alpua

Morning Results: 10 AM - Noon

First, a nice render of the underbody -- it's a technical block, not currently meant to be a detailed machine. I think it serves the purpose of locating the engine, transmission, and approximate size of the underbody, and providing a shape to lay the interior, and the shell of the vehicle, on top of.



I wanted to make sure I know how to include a wireframe on a cycles render, but I feel like my edgeflow could use more work. Still, does it matter if I'm not planning to animate and deform this part of the model?

And, for reference, here's the existing shell (from last night) sitting on top of this underbody -- no modifications except some sharp edges so far, but tonight I hope to have a lot more to show.