Six Armed Character
polygon
Hello all! I've been working on this model for a while now, partly for my own interests in animation and partly to help me build a proper portfolio.
I've been banging on this model for a while, but I feel like I've hit a brick wall when it comes to the hair. I wanted a sort of cartoony style to the hair; I didn't want to use hair strips or anything like that. But I'm having trouble getting it to look like hair when I sculpt it. I took a lot of care in the anatomy of the arms and how they connect, but if anyone thinks it could be improved, I'd love the critique.
The body is retopologized from a sculpt already.
Thanks for your time!
I've been banging on this model for a while, but I feel like I've hit a brick wall when it comes to the hair. I wanted a sort of cartoony style to the hair; I didn't want to use hair strips or anything like that. But I'm having trouble getting it to look like hair when I sculpt it. I took a lot of care in the anatomy of the arms and how they connect, but if anyone thinks it could be improved, I'd love the critique.
The body is retopologized from a sculpt already.
Thanks for your time!
Replies
And about the hair, I dont know a lot about animating hair, but I think you could retopo it aswell and rig it same as you rig the body so you can animate it.
Maybe you could add an edge loop on elbows and knees, from the back view it seems like youre missing and edge loop below the knee and from the front view it seems like youre missing one right below biceps, it seems like it would bend weird.
My issue with the hair is that it feels too blobby and dull. I suppose that's a fault of my own skill at sculpting, and maybe it will look better when I retopologize it. It's at least worth a shot.
Also, body's looking cool, but the face could use some more work. If you're up to it, or have another project which you could apply the feedback on, then I'd be happy to write up some pointers for you? Just on phone right now.
The hair that I was going for was something similar to Guilty Gear XRD's style, though I realize that has a lot of shader shenanigans to help it look like that. I'd love more pointers! All of this is certainly WIP and I'm happy to continue tweaking it, so whatever critiques you have would be great.
The software I have available is Blender and Maya 2015 (educational license from college). I've tried Z brush before but I never really liked the interface and how it works, and Blender's dynamic topology sculpting is easier to work with for me anyways.
And well, Zbrush is industry standard for a reason. It's powerful and you can do a lot with it, I would suggest at some point trying to drop the initial qualms with the UI and testing it again with a more open mind about it-- yeah, it's really unintuitive about some things (especially if you're trying to approach it from the perspective of coming from other 3D apps) but it's well worth it for the extra power and smart tools.
Now, back to the task at hand. For a style like that, I don't know if Blender's Sculpting set has "subtools" or "extraction" as it were, but something like this could do the trick in a nice clean way.
(by: Daniel Orive)
Alternatively, maybe there's something like this you could do which could easily achieve a similar effect?
[ame]
Else, I actually kinda want to suggest just modeling it. Sculpting stuff like this gets muddy fast without using things like TrimDyn and Curves/Extracts, and I'm not familiar with how far Blender's Sculpting toolset goes. Modeling it would give you much more control over the shapes you're making.
Speaking of, try to separate this hair into sections (on your concept, or as a mock up on a screenshot): try to understand the logic behind how those sections interact with one another. An example using XRD.
You can really see how they modeled the hair segments pretty clearly in the "before the shader/after the shader" shots:
So break that down, plan ahead for your own model and see what you can come up with. Sometimes just noodling around to see what works is more effort than it's worth, going in with a solid plan can be incredibly helpful. :thumbup:
I'm going to go ahead and stress here that I really like your topology/flow, though I'm unsure about how it'll function. As long as you've tested these patterns before and you know they don't cause deformation issues, then power to ya. I like the smart definition with it.
Some suggestions for form, though, because despite having nice flow and some really appealing forms, there's a couple that read just a little bit off on first glance.
Also, something I just noticed as I'm writing this. I'm unsure of what direction you're taking this or the backstory/details of the character, but this might be an odd detail: the hips are constructed like a females'. Is this a girl, a boy or neither? Because that might be just fine/exactly what you wanted, or it might be a problem. Probably in a "fine, but keep an eye out for this in the future" category.
Finally, face stuff. Don't know what you're going for without a concept, so I'm a little unsure if this is a fully blown creature or not. But two things. The eyes should be about one eye-width apart: yours are a bit close together here. Also, lips. Yours seem like they were sculpted on top of the face, without properly following the curvature of the face nor thinking about the proper forms of the lips:
(In fact just go here: https://www.anatomy4sculptors.com/anatomy.php)
IDK if that helps much, but I'm fairly bad with words sometimes. I hope it can help clarify, at least. Don't mean to nag you about zBrush, either, but I felt a similar way when I started using it, too, and I don't think it's worth handicapping yourself in this area if you want to do characters commercially at any point.
Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to seeing your progress. :poly121:
Thanks a ton!
Worked on the lips, changed the spacing on the eyes/adjusted the ratio for the whole eye/eyebrow area, added a mouthsock with some simplified teeth and tongue (I want them to look really simple so they're nothing special for now)
Also added more muscle mass around the neck for the upper pair of shoulders, and smoothed out the transition of the thumb to the wrist.
Gonna start planning out the hair now! Thanks for the help so far, guys.
I'd keep an eye on the line you have for the transition between the cheeks and the mouth area-- usually those landmark changes would go around the nostrils-- but this character doesn't have any of those shapes. Still, having them point to where the nostril slits/nose ends seems a bit uncomfortable, and perhaps they should be originating from just above where the nostrils start, at the top of them. This should stop the cheeks from feeling a little bloated on some angles, as well. In the end, it's your choice as to whether or not this change is worth it, but having it modeled that way at least will help with animating expressions if you have any intent on doing that. Just woke up from a nap so if any of this needs clarification, just ask, lol.
Looking forward to seeing how you approach the hair!
I'm thinking about how I want to do the mouth area now. I think the best way will be to pull the nostrils down so that the nose still has a more human look, while keeping the 'squished' effect that I wanted. That way I can have the mouth area look pretty normal while retaining the concept I wanted, and still have a good range for expressions. Of course the density of the mesh around there is a bit much, so it'll be a bit tedious to rework, but hopefully will be worth it.
Here's an update on the face and hair at the current stage. I reworked the lips and nose to fit the new laugh line/mouth area. I think this hair shape is pretty close to what I want ultimately, the problem now is figuring out how I want to achieve the final look... I'll try mudbox/sculptris and see if sculpting in those will help me finalize it.
in my experience mudbox isnt as great to sculpt(its nice for texturing tho) . sculptris i have no idea