Looks great man! A couple things that popped out to me though.
1. There seems to be something wrong with the normals on the inside of her left calf, some sort of black dot.
2. I can also see the UV seam on the front of here pants, around her crotch.
3. The scratches on her arm pieces are a little distracting, I'm assuming that the UVs on them are mirrored, making the scratches identical on each side.
I can't help but feel like some colours in the face could do with a bit more work. She's very red, but it seems to be muting a lot of your normal details. Might just be your SSS. Have you considered trying lipstick out? Might bring a bit of attention to the face.
Also, from my perspective, I dislike the cyrillic-like text you're using. IIRC you can put that font in uppercase to get the same sort of style with out all of the backwards lettering.
Her eyes are absolutely gorgeous though. Really captivating and lifelike. You've done a bang-up job creating that "wet" look without overdoing it.
Not sure if you are able to change colors but I would definitely change her goggles lens colors to a cool color. It just blends right into her face and makes everything seem redder in that area. I'm also thinking either the nose area is too red or the translucency is too high. Also, something about the face looks off. Looking back at your WIPs, I think the eyeball is placed incorrectly or the eye shape around it needs adjusting. There is far too much of the white of her eyeball visible on the outer edge compared to the inner edge. Overall, really dig the character though...nice work so far!
Yeah, the red seems overpowering a lot in several lighting set ups and angles. I'll lookinto what works best, just trying to keep the overall color layout complementary or working together as a palette.
Will look into the nose. Would you say just redden the center "bulb?"
I'll see if I can move the eyeball out some? I remember the last time I touched the eyeball, I was like "YES, the eyelids wrap around the eyeball almost perfectly. Don't need to adjust the mesh anymore." Her iris is HUGE though, and I used the in-game model as the reason to do it.
Thanks Satoshi! Means a lot you're digging it. Hopefully it's just tiny details that are the challenges from here on out.
Did a little PO if you don't mind. I moved the iris out very slightly and reduced the red to inside of the eyeball...this balanced out the position. I moved the eyebrows down slightly as they looked a bit too high. I also shaped the lips to be more feminine. Just suggestions!
I think the way I shaped the eye silhouette makes her default look too sad. And I'd imagine for a character feel, we're looking for something more angry or steely eyed.
Will see what I can do get your PO fixes in, Satoshi.
this is coming along man, that propaganda poster is sweet. I deff agree with what you said about her eye shape making her look a little sad. I did a quick liquify to tweak that as well as some other things.
I think by moving around some stuff in the low poly you could really push the silhouette so she wouldn't look as stiff as she currently.
I pushed up her pelvis a little bit to make her legs appear longer, thinned her ankles and thickened up the calves and hips so there's more variation. I gave the shoes a little more shape too because I think they're a little boxy.
For the face I rotated the eyes, pulled out the ear a little bit, shrank down the nose a bit and made her bottom lip a little thicker.
These paintover cover pretty much everything. The thing that stands out the most for me is the lips. I feel that your lips lack volume and shapes. It's a common problem i see so often, especially on female model.
Beginner lips. Often lack volume, pinching, corner going wayyyyyy outside the face, which makes it look weird, overall too much defined along the edges.
Good, lush, juicy lips. Lots of volume, angle breaks, not pinched.
You can see, the in-game model is way closer to my second picture than the first , in terms of shape. I feel like your model is closer to my first picture :
Even with stylized characters, there is still a few angle breaks you need to consider in lips :
I used extremes here but i guess you will see my point.
So I think I know the issue with the eyes. The outer part of the eyelid is too far back. This is causing more eyeball to show on the outside thus throwing off the balance. Do you have a side shot? I think you have to move the outer portion of the eyesocket forward a little til the whites balance. Does that make sense? Also, why is there a strange white crease between ur upper and lower lips? That definitely looks strange. The other changes you made look good though!
@Panda
Everything is looking great so far, except for her face, as some people have already pointed out.
It was fine actually, but still doesn't look like Tracer to me.
I made a quick paintover.
Basically
- Simplified the texture of her eyebrows, just like the original
- Moved down her eyes a bit, and change it shape.
- Removed the lips crease to see things better.
- Moved up the bottom part of the nose.
- Tweaked the overall headshape.
@Satoshi: Profile shot for you. The partition in the mouth is beacause the mouth is slightly open and there's two teeth meshes inside the mouth. I've yet to get AO and Cavity colored on it, though I'd imagine the mouth would be closed during animation.
Update to the WIP final breakdowns at the moment.
I extended the leather patterning on the pants up into the jacket since that separation felt bad.
I'm looking for a rigger to rig this so I could pose this. If you can get this done before February 26th, that'd be awesome! It'd be just you can use this for your potfolio purposes, no commercial work/trading.
@Jimmy: I can agree on the eyebrows. I regret to say that there's just something about the new head and eye shape I don't like. It might literally be a taste thing.
The reference photo you got I need t find something that's more neutral faced, it feels like her face is smirking a bit. Let me get back to you.
This may just be a side-gripe, but here's what I recommend for what you present the head.
Rough paintover, but I reckon that rounded edge will just make it less distracting.
I think the face you have now is okay. If you have time to resculpt and retopo, do it. If not, play around with your low poly's proportions. The only thing standing out to me right now is the eye shape and the jawline. Tracer's jawline is much more angular, and her eyes are a little smaller and curved. Those two things should help.
Hi Brian! However you have some nice progress there, I'd like to to point out that your version doesn't really reminds to Tracer, or at least I don't see it behind your version. It is coming from that there are many differences between your model's face, and the original.
Eyes:
I think the original has a combination of "libra" and "cancer" from here while you made it look like "aquarius". Maybe not the best examples, but i think you'll get what I mean.
Lips:
Not so sexy in my opinion, and it also doesn't match to the original, so it also destroys the look (if you want to be close to the original). After googling, I found this, which is a lot closer to Tracer I think.
Chin:
You need it to be wider, and a bit more "angular". Also you need less break between the chin and the jawbone.
Ears:
Something else compared to the previous suggestions, give the lowpoly more polygons there because the angularity is really noticeable.
Yesbrows are still ugly in my opinion.
I'm not a character artist, so you neet to take my advices as my personal opinion, but as I mentioned, I don't really see the Tracer in your approach.
Obviously not, but this is why I said its a bad example and the point was the shape. This was the best example that I could find quickly to show the DIFFERENCES.. I don't know anything about their actual names.
Okay dude this made a good view from yourself. Now I will be totally honest. I wanted to help you to make it better, but you took the bad namings in the example as the most noticeable part. Actually the most noticeable part is that you are really far from what you want to make. There are a few things that I didn't mentioned, because I already thought you will get me wrong. As mentioned more than once, your approach is far from Tracer. Face proportions are off so the likeness is also (as it is on your Jinx too). I don't say that you can't model or sculpt, you can, but you still need to learn a lot, and not about the user interface. People doesn't point out your mistakes properly, and when someone do, you do this. Actually I wouldn't be so arrogant with this work!You have no reason for this. After this, I would really think on why I'm still not in the industry. Your thread about the fund is also funny. Going to GDC and making a fund on Indiegogo for buying ZB? Well, ok.
Whoa, whoa, I think I might be miscommunicating some things here.
I was just saying it was somewhat funny that someone seems to have given certain eyeshapes astrological names. Understandably, it's more than likely this isn't really anatomically used that often. I am by no means taking it seriously. I apologize if this has offended in any way.
Totally understand the Tracer look isn't 100% one to one. I am doing my best with the references and skills I have at the moment. I tried exaggerating what I saw with the reference photos as best I could, and I'm trying to cobble together specific paintovers into one response. Admittedly, I don't think, at least by GDC, I'll be able to keep doing the face sculpt over one more time due to a couple other work/life tasks I have this week. I want to give some buffer time to get the final shots I need for the portfolio and take care of logistics. Regardless, your critique is still definitely helping and pushing me, and I'm trying to implement as best I can.
Once again, I might be readng this all wrong. Hopefully I did read it right. I absolutely apologize for any miscommunication and unwarrented offense, Obscura. I would like to ask your forgiveness regarding this miscommunication from me.
Hey Brian, the new head is way better now. I think it's a great improvement, fantastic improvement. You keep getting closer !
I think Obscura really misunderstood you there, anyway he has a good point, there is still a bit more work to do. What really stands out for me is the ears. The overall angle is not pronounced enough, the attachement on the skull is too pronounced.
Couldn't find a good picture so i made this from a scan for you :
(Chin more squared off, not the neck, forgive my bad mouse drawing lol.)
Tell yourself, nitpicking on this kind of stuff just mean it's getting better. And since you are trying to get some freelancing, the more of these problems you keep correcting on your free time, the better your freelance/work experience will be. You'll need less changes from your clients, you will save money and time. This stuff will burn into your brain and your visual library will become stronger.
Hey man. The model ended up pretty cool. But your beauty shot doesn't show off the model at all. The post process, blur and amounts of red distract quite a bit. I would tone it all down a little?
well, I don't mean to be rude or harsh, but here is my 2 rubles.
- that stare on her face... idk. seriously looks like someone shoved stick in her ass at the last moment. there is no feeling of inspiration or whatever that image supposed to provoke in us.
- if you remove that red star, this is gonna be just punk -ish character with some post-apocalyptic/futuristic vibes.
- without seeing that thread, nothing reminds me of Tracer character from Overwatch.
- that communist shit needs to go. its more about China these days than it is about Russia. We don't talk like that, we don't look like that. Tbh we never did. Your stereotypes needs to be re-evaluated.
- that font.. meh its just pain, not to mention you've spelled one word in russian and everything else in english. not sure what you were trying to achieve with that. it would work better (imho) if you just spell everything in russian with some actual cyrillic font.
The model and textures are well made and its a solid character you've got there. Too bad I don't see cute Tracer grill in her. Hands are awful tho. Flat boring sausagefest.
anyway no offence meant, just something to think about good luck Brian.
Yea, you should really give her the tracer expression if anything..that smirk. I also agree your render is not showing off ur model at all...too much post as well. I hope you have nice turnarounds and breakdowns at least. I thought the design of the text and stuff was cool but if even one person is offended by it, I would change it.
I thought the design of the text and stuff was cool but if even one person is offended by it, I would change it.
if you talking about me, then I'm not offended really I'm rather annoyed and even that is not very strong feeling. Do you know that there is an LJ community dedicated to so called 'klukva' which is a russian word for cranberry, but its also used to describe outdated western stereotypes about Russia and russian people? It's pretty hilarious
I guess if Brian wants to explore whole (anti)soviet propaganda stuff, he have right to do so. I'm just thinking that with stuff like Keloid and DayZ, for example, there is much more stuff about Russia to explore for you guys, rather that following old cliches.
@linkov, you're right. This is very just specifically riffing off of Soviet-era Propaganda posters given the color, attempted tone, etc. Definitely Russia is a a much more eclectic group of different regional cultures, ethnicities, and habits depending on which and where we're looking at. I'm personally interested and still in the dark about what daily life is like in Serbia, or about the intricacies of identity with Russia in Ukraine since I hear that mentioned so often around me.
Earlier in the thread, this was literally just me thinking "What if Tracer had an archtypical Soviet Union skin version?" and I decided to run with it once the concepts started to work out on paper.
@slosh: The clean turnarounds are on the portf. Hopefully that answers that question. This is literally just a poster version.
I'll try to get that smirk, or a more exaggerated expression in. The goggles admittedly hide the eyebrows prety well, but I'll see what I can do.
Dangnabit, now I'm conflicted about doing the poster at all if it's even got the potential to make one person miffed. Though, I wonder if the other end of that stck is "Who cares?" but I've seen that devolve into similarly worse results.
The way I see it, a beauty shot should do three things: show off your model, entice the viewer to see more and give it character. Your poster is essentially your beauty shot and it shows off half the model with a lot of post processing on it. And there is no Tracer vibe here, none of her personality shines through. Looking at the poster doesn't really entice me to look at your breakdowns.
I get the idea of a propaganda poster but it just doesn't fit with Tracer's personality. She's not a staunch, stoic warrior, she's a peppy, almost child-like pilot.
And where are her guns? They definitely need to be in the beauty shot. Unless you're still finishing stuff up.
Work on the expression and fix the fingers resting on her hip. Much nicer pose, I recommend sticking with this one. I, for one, approve of the soviet-era look. And if your art offends someone (even though linkov isn't offended here, and actually raises some really great points), don't change it. Sometimes art is gonna offend people.
Nice one!
If you wanna translate "Privyet, comrade!The revolution has arrived. Tracer join overwatch"
it must be like "Привет, товарищ!Грянула революция. Трэйсер присоединяйся к смотрителям"
Replies
Anyone have any critiques?
And a draft template for the beauty shot
1. There seems to be something wrong with the normals on the inside of her left calf, some sort of black dot.
2. I can also see the UV seam on the front of here pants, around her crotch.
3. The scratches on her arm pieces are a little distracting, I'm assuming that the UVs on them are mirrored, making the scratches identical on each side.
Looks a tad smooth to me, but it's that Art Direction objective again
Also, from my perspective, I dislike the cyrillic-like text you're using. IIRC you can put that font in uppercase to get the same sort of style with out all of the backwards lettering.
Her eyes are absolutely gorgeous though. Really captivating and lifelike. You've done a bang-up job creating that "wet" look without overdoing it.
I'll look into Cyrillic fonts that allow for the non-capital letters.
Also, the font you're using now should have it. The complaint about the text is a little nitpicky, but yeah. That's just my opinion, man.
Implemented everyone's critique as best I could.
There's still a normal map seam on the front of the pants. That will be fixed probably at the end. Just focused on textural fixes this round.
Added details like the arm colors on the body. Added noise to the textures for the head, albedo gloss, subdermal, etc.
Will look into the nose. Would you say just redden the center "bulb?"
I'll see if I can move the eyeball out some? I remember the last time I touched the eyeball, I was like "YES, the eyelids wrap around the eyeball almost perfectly. Don't need to adjust the mesh anymore." Her iris is HUGE though, and I used the in-game model as the reason to do it.
Thanks Satoshi! Means a lot you're digging it. Hopefully it's just tiny details that are the challenges from here on out.
Will see what I can do get your PO fixes in, Satoshi.
I think by moving around some stuff in the low poly you could really push the silhouette so she wouldn't look as stiff as she currently.
I pushed up her pelvis a little bit to make her legs appear longer, thinned her ankles and thickened up the calves and hips so there's more variation. I gave the shoes a little more shape too because I think they're a little boxy.
For the face I rotated the eyes, pulled out the ear a little bit, shrank down the nose a bit and made her bottom lip a little thicker.
Hope this helps a bit!
-Her eyes seem a bit high up on her face, bringing them down a bit might help.
-Your model's head shape is different from Tracer's head shape. Yours is thinner and longer where Tracer's is wider, at least around the jaw line.
Beginner lips. Often lack volume, pinching, corner going wayyyyyy outside the face, which makes it look weird, overall too much defined along the edges.
Good, lush, juicy lips. Lots of volume, angle breaks, not pinched.
You can see, the in-game model is way closer to my second picture than the first , in terms of shape. I feel like your model is closer to my first picture :
Even with stylized characters, there is still a few angle breaks you need to consider in lips :
I used extremes here but i guess you will see my point.
Implemented as best I could, here are headshots:
Everything is looking great so far, except for her face, as some people have already pointed out.
It was fine actually, but still doesn't look like Tracer to me.
I made a quick paintover.
Basically
- Simplified the texture of her eyebrows, just like the original
- Moved down her eyes a bit, and change it shape.
- Removed the lips crease to see things better.
- Moved up the bottom part of the nose.
- Tweaked the overall headshape.
Update to the WIP final breakdowns at the moment.
I extended the leather patterning on the pants up into the jacket since that separation felt bad.
I'm looking for a rigger to rig this so I could pose this. If you can get this done before February 26th, that'd be awesome! It'd be just you can use this for your potfolio purposes, no commercial work/trading.
The reference photo you got I need t find something that's more neutral faced, it feels like her face is smirking a bit. Let me get back to you.
It's several things, and just me finding better references off of Renaul Galand's portfolio.
Double eyelid is INCREDIBLY exaggerated, as well as me seeing the facial structure better. the chin juts forward a bit more than I have it right now.
Oh boy. GDC is coming up, and I don't know if I should bite the bullet now with the face I have or overtime it to resculpt and retopo out a face.
Rough paintover, but I reckon that rounded edge will just make it less distracting.
I think the face you have now is okay. If you have time to resculpt and retopo, do it. If not, play around with your low poly's proportions. The only thing standing out to me right now is the eye shape and the jawline. Tracer's jawline is much more angular, and her eyes are a little smaller and curved. Those two things should help.
It's hard juggling this, then a volunteer Kickstarter project, GDC prep, and first=time ever client negotiations for first-time ever freelancing.
Face fixed, I think. Normal seam issue down the middle, I will solve that momentarily.
Eyes:
I think the original has a combination of "libra" and "cancer" from here while you made it look like "aquarius". Maybe not the best examples, but i think you'll get what I mean.
Lips:
Not so sexy in my opinion, and it also doesn't match to the original, so it also destroys the look (if you want to be close to the original). After googling, I found this, which is a lot closer to Tracer I think.
Chin:
You need it to be wider, and a bit more "angular". Also you need less break between the chin and the jawbone.
Ears:
Something else compared to the previous suggestions, give the lowpoly more polygons there because the angularity is really noticeable.
Yesbrows are still ugly in my opinion.
I'm not a character artist, so you neet to take my advices as my personal opinion, but as I mentioned, I don't really see the Tracer in your approach.
I was just saying it was somewhat funny that someone seems to have given certain eyeshapes astrological names. Understandably, it's more than likely this isn't really anatomically used that often. I am by no means taking it seriously. I apologize if this has offended in any way.
Totally understand the Tracer look isn't 100% one to one. I am doing my best with the references and skills I have at the moment. I tried exaggerating what I saw with the reference photos as best I could, and I'm trying to cobble together specific paintovers into one response. Admittedly, I don't think, at least by GDC, I'll be able to keep doing the face sculpt over one more time due to a couple other work/life tasks I have this week. I want to give some buffer time to get the final shots I need for the portfolio and take care of logistics. Regardless, your critique is still definitely helping and pushing me, and I'm trying to implement as best I can.
Once again, I might be readng this all wrong. Hopefully I did read it right. I absolutely apologize for any miscommunication and unwarrented offense, Obscura. I would like to ask your forgiveness regarding this miscommunication from me.
I think Obscura really misunderstood you there, anyway he has a good point, there is still a bit more work to do. What really stands out for me is the ears. The overall angle is not pronounced enough, the attachement on the skull is too pronounced.
JacqueChoi posted this a few weeks ago :
Couldn't find a good picture so i made this from a scan for you :
(Chin more squared off, not the neck, forgive my bad mouse drawing lol.)
Tell yourself, nitpicking on this kind of stuff just mean it's getting better. And since you are trying to get some freelancing, the more of these problems you keep correcting on your free time, the better your freelance/work experience will be. You'll need less changes from your clients, you will save money and time. This stuff will burn into your brain and your visual library will become stronger.
Don't give up, keep pushing forward !
- that stare on her face... idk. seriously looks like someone shoved stick in her ass at the last moment. there is no feeling of inspiration or whatever that image supposed to provoke in us.
- if you remove that red star, this is gonna be just punk -ish character with some post-apocalyptic/futuristic vibes.
- without seeing that thread, nothing reminds me of Tracer character from Overwatch.
- that communist shit needs to go. its more about China these days than it is about Russia. We don't talk like that, we don't look like that. Tbh we never did. Your stereotypes needs to be re-evaluated.
- that font.. meh its just pain, not to mention you've spelled one word in russian and everything else in english. not sure what you were trying to achieve with that. it would work better (imho) if you just spell everything in russian with some actual cyrillic font.
The model and textures are well made and its a solid character you've got there. Too bad I don't see cute Tracer grill in her. Hands are awful tho. Flat boring sausagefest.
anyway no offence meant, just something to think about
if you talking about me, then I'm not offended really
I guess if Brian wants to explore whole (anti)soviet propaganda stuff, he have right to do so. I'm just thinking that with stuff like Keloid and DayZ, for example, there is much more stuff about Russia to explore for you guys, rather that following old cliches.
Earlier in the thread, this was literally just me thinking "What if Tracer had an archtypical Soviet Union skin version?" and I decided to run with it once the concepts started to work out on paper.
@slosh: The clean turnarounds are on the portf. Hopefully that answers that question. This is literally just a poster version.
I'll try to get that smirk, or a more exaggerated expression in. The goggles admittedly hide the eyebrows prety well, but I'll see what I can do.
Dangnabit, now I'm conflicted about doing the poster at all if it's even got the potential to make one person miffed. Though, I wonder if the other end of that stck is "Who cares?" but I've seen that devolve into similarly worse results.
Thanks everyone for the feedback!
I get the idea of a propaganda poster but it just doesn't fit with Tracer's personality. She's not a staunch, stoic warrior, she's a peppy, almost child-like pilot.
And where are her guns? They definitely need to be in the beauty shot. Unless you're still finishing stuff up.
If you wanna translate "Privyet, comrade!The revolution has arrived. Tracer join overwatch"
it must be like "Привет, товарищ!Грянула революция. Трэйсер присоединяйся к смотрителям"
Continuing work on the slug pistol.
Trying to add fat bevels to everything as much as I can. Thanks to Chris Stone for the help for the art direction analysis.
Still trying to figure out the battery ammo undercarriage mesh so that all I need to do is add support edgeloops to it to get it to a highpoly look.