Bamboo Boutique: Fashion focused work
high dynamic range
One of my best friends, David Hollin, introduced me to Chet Faker's music video for Gold.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4pzKvuEQM
This has been probably the most sensual thing I have seen in a VERY long time. I was, am still somewhat, mesmerized.
I'm inspired to do a character based on the dancers' outfits, and with the given base sculptures, begin to start a longer line of outfits.
\\ Goals
I think this is going to end up being one of those long progress threads, instead of a singular project thread.
\\Current Progress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4pzKvuEQM
This has been probably the most sensual thing I have seen in a VERY long time. I was, am still somewhat, mesmerized.
I'm inspired to do a character based on the dancers' outfits, and with the given base sculptures, begin to start a longer line of outfits.
\\ Goals
- Practice and Iterate on my anatomy skills
- Practice and iterate with fashion in game art: Marvelous Designer, learning clothing patterns, seam placements, fabric materials, etc.
I think this is going to end up being one of those long progress threads, instead of a singular project thread.
\\Current Progress
Replies
I'll say from my self-reflection, I know I still feel uncomfortable about how the upper and lower arm muscles wrap around the forms, so I know I'd love help with that. Back muscles have always been something I know I need help on as well.
I'm choosing Jocelyn DeBoer for the facial reference to nail. The physical features of her portrait has this . . . I want to describe it as a face that has a lot of interesting facets from the jowls to the muscles aorund the mouth. It's fun to explore! And that makes her beautiful imo.
The actualy body, as exploration and study into muscle structure, I am keep it lean, but I'm going to be in this tug of war about how much fat mass I want to add in areas like the waist, thighs, etc. I want to define the muscles, but I know places like the arms tend to have not super defined forms in the exterior across average human bodies.
Right now it also feels like her rib cage is quite small especially when compared with her hips. I understand women's proportions can lead towards that being the case but right now the proportions you have seem a bit extreme in that sense.
And the arms to back muscle area seems fine right now to me, you have it mostly covered in fat anyways. And on top of that it's going to covered by clothing anyways right?
Problem: Can't easily wrap a singe belt pattern, or similar cylindrical pattern, around body.
Faulty Solution: Since I'm working with my own avatar (no skeleton, bones, etc. only mesh), I can't utilize the Arrangement Points feature to wrap patterns automatically around my avatar.
What do I do to resolve this issue so I can wrap items like sleeves and belts around my avatar easily without resorting to partitioning these patterns into two separate patterns?
http://www.marvelousdesigner.com/learn/lessons
Additionally, I feel like her head's a bit too big, particularly noticeable from the front. her shoulders are also appearing to slant a bit too much (not quite broad enough) so that's probably accentuating it.
She's also got a bit of an underbite. IDK if this is intentional or not.
You also need to pay much more attention to the profile of the face.
I would revise the anatomy before going to the clothing, getting the anatomy correct first is very important. Might help to pick an anatomy model and try to replicate them, posespace has a good variety or models in good lighting from all angles, they can be very useful for study or work.
Edited the face a lot once I found more references. I'm hoping it's closer, and I think it is, but items still feel off. Can't tell if it's because of a lack of eyeliner, etc. or something more foundational.
Spent a LOT of time learning Marvelous Designer and it's UI issues, but I think I have a pretty decent handle on it now.
When I look at the video I get a sense of athletic elegance about the characters. I think if you want to push the anatomy here you should try some more radical stuff. Zbrush is great for going to the lowest level then dragging stuff around and you can copy your figure so if you dont like the test you can just chuck em.
These are just personal observations and my own preferences. The torso looks pretty good on its own which tells me your legs and arms are too short and the head is too large for an elegant figure. The side view of the torso is off because the gluteus maximus is sagging a bit still. The chest appears sunken and a woman like the one you look like you are aiming for would confidently straighten her back which would give the mammaries more prominance and make them more attractive I think. The wrist from the front and bsck is too narrow and wouldnt contain the bone atm. The knee upper bone is too large, in the side view it looks good but perhaps that means it is too wide. The muscle at the thigh back above the knee back doesnt look like that I think. The fingers are square and the thumb knuckle is too far forward towards the pad but you are probably still working on that.
I think the only thing tougher than baby faces are attractive woman's faces. The one you have is improving but the features are a little hard which makes things look more masculine. The jaw is kind of hard and sharp and on the smaller pic it looks a bit like a 5 oclock shaddow. Check out ysalex's avatar, that kind of softness will help the face a lot. There is a lot to do on the eye and ear structures and forms and the planes are still looking a bit wobbly.
Sorry its kind of a lot of crit but they are just ideas.
Keep on truckin!
Cheers
One thing i would point out. I think a lot of the struggles you are having are to do with edge control. Most of the anatomy has this kind of taught plastic feeling to it, which is a result of making edges too sharp in areas and too soft in areas.
Think fleshy. There are no forms on the human body that have a crease that stays the same hardness for the entire form. Every single form accelerates and decelerates from sharp to soft.
Look at the forms on the belly, and hips, and especially the breasts, notice how they are too uniform. Try sharpening and softening till you get the impression that things are actually fleshy
Use references where the woman's expression is neutral. Notice when she is smiling, the muscles and creases change like cheeks, eye section and it will not give an accurate representation of her features.
That song and music video is awesome
Clothes look awesome. I do agree with the critiques you've been given, especially Kangas as he's said a lot of what I was going to say lol. The face still needs a lot of work in my opinion..
But yeah, as Kanga mentioned the hamstrings don't look like that. If you haven't already, you should pick up Grassettis tutorial on gumroad.. it's seriously money well spent, otherwise just keep looking at lots of references
Hopefully this will help :
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/55/9f/df/559fdf5021e2763effb28d5114dc0d93.jpg
Keep it up, dude!
It looks like her most recent work is Dead Snow 2, so I would recommend "acquiring" it (Or if you have netflix use that) and going through the film and screen capping every shot she is in.
As said above you'd be specifically looking for a neutral face, no smiles or frowns, with preference given to well lit mostly static shots for the front side and 3/4, eye closeups are great too if you can get them.
After that you're going to want to throw the images in PS duplicate them and desaturate the duplicates, the desaturated images are gonna help make the hand and soft planar transitions easier to read,you may have to play with the contrast or levels though to get them to stand out. Then, I like to draw the planar transitions where I see them, its not necessary but it helps a lot I think. All this then gets compiled into a "face sheet", here's an example of a couple I put together for Lucy Lui:
http://i.imgur.com/C9ZEU4M.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eeCZfjr.jpg
Spotlight that into zbrush, drop down to subd level 2 or 3 and start matching features and planes so you can block out her features. A word of warning though, your various images will not always give you consistent results, things like camera settings, angle of shot, will sometimes give you conflicting features. At some point you will have to turn off spotlight and eyeball things based on your reference. You're going to want to stay at level 2-3 until you start to see her likeness come through and then you can start going up and rounding out your forms.
Sorry for the wall of text and I hope that helps some.
Good thing is that I wanted to get all the clothes onto its own UV set, and the body and head on their own separate ones, so I think I might be able to independently take a step back as well as make forward progress.
@Yuri: I have thought about doing the Asaro head stright up on several occasions. I'll admit I don't feel IMMEDIATELY compelled to do it, but I wouldn't be surprised if I finally answer the need to just sculpt one out to see where I'm at. When that is, I am not too sure.
I do want to tackle likenesses now with this. I want to see how far I can push, and over the struggle, hopefully notice additional subtle muscles of the face, or imperfections I can add or use in from scratch sculpts.
@Charles: The breakdown of the potential issues with the film stills were very helpful. Going to go see if I can grab more neutral screenshots from the film on Netflix.
Regarding pores, do you have a method to accentuate and extract the pore information from an existing photo?
Found more references for the head and more interesting skin texturing from the Dead Snow 2 film. Thank God they had some decent close up shots. Thanks Charles!
Going to sit down now and do the analysis of the references to slow myself down
I have the "Classical Human Anatomy" book from Winslow on me instead of the Anatom4Sculptors one.
The jaw is softer and the ears look better. The untextured ones have a bit of a frowny face but the ref model also has one I think. Maybe make the sculpt more neutral in the mouth shape.
Nice work!
I would raise the corners of the mouth slightly and pull them forward. Youre loosing a lot of her face in 3/4ths view. Also pulling them forward will get rid of that old man face thing you have in the side view. Double check your ears, the placement more than the forms. I think you may need to push them in slightly and angle them out a bit.
I think you're missing some important planar transitions in the forehead. I did a brief planar draw over your reference to highlight some of the areas you might want to reexamine. Best way to tackle it is to drop down to a lower subd level, shave in the plane transitions, and then soften the transitions at a higher level.
Sourcing the pores from a screencap is going to be a crap shoot at best unless you have something very high res. I use a couple noise maker passes combined with masking to get my pore and skin surfacing, you could also invest in a couple ten24 head scans, for reference and for the textures they include. It may be what you are looking for. Also totally seconding Anatomy for Sculptors, great tool.
Keep up the progress.
It looks like there is a seam around the waist, which for dresses is called an "empire waist" which is what allows it to be tailored and/or form fitting to a feminine figure. I'm also pretty sure there is a seam running either down the back or down the sides, because the pattern if facing different ways on the left and right side; this will also influence how the dress is built. A dress with a flared bottom is called an "A-line" dress, looking up patterns for those can give you a good idea how it's put together.
The fabric is also rather stiff or thick looking so some of the wrinkles you have around the waist seem like they would be for something that is lighter and flows more. I would look up heavier, stiffer fabrics to see how they work, like tweed or leather. The material it reminds me the most of is duct tape, duct tape dresses are a thing oddly enough, and I would look up folds on those as well.
Best of luck! I hope this helps!
Doing some more work on this.
The face likeness still looks off, but I'm HOPING it's closer? If anyone has time for a paintover, I'd love to see what I need to adjust.
- the back of the skull is the widest part, turn off the hair and fix that.
-ear too far forward
-fold above lips too big
-stop sculpting eyebrows, you are fucking up the forms around them
-pay SUPER close attention to the shape of the eyes, don't exaggerate the forms under the eyes on women.
-eyes are also too far apart.
-nasolabial folds, too prominent and are too low.
-your mesh is super lumpy, especially around the mouth.
-your cheek forms are blobby, you need to pay attention to where bones are visible under the surface.
-as a general rule forms are too tight and pinched, and there aren't enough places where form decelerates or accellerates to and from pinched areas.
-my paintover is pretty shit but maybe it might help.
@Muzz, thank you for that concise list and paintover. That was awesome! I'm not sure what the fix to the "the jaw is fucked" is, but hopefully this new shot is what you were thinking? Could you extrapolate if I haven't figure it out yet?
@Alemja: Thank you for the technical explanation with the seams and clothing construction. It's fun learning more about fashion design and seamstressing these days.
Alright, I implemented your feedback, Muzz, as best I could. It looks really weird to me without the eyebrows, and doesn't look like Jocelyn de Boer at all for whatever reason. I can't tell if that's my failing, or if that's just how she looks without eyebrows and as a sculpt.
How's it look now?
But now that they are removed it's much easier to see how the eyebrow forms doesn't match the actors forms.
The jaw issue is because the point of the jaw under the ears isn't low enough. Try and imagine how a skull fits inside the head and things should become more clear.
Ref source: http://www.skullsunlimited.com/record_variant.php?id=9407
If you are looking at skulls make sure they are the right race and gender, and even then take them with a grain of salt as all skulls are vastly different.
Your nasolabial folds are also still too low, they start where the top of the wings of the nose start, not the middle.
The back of the skull is SIGNIFICANTLY wider than the front
Camera lenses make this deceiving from photos. as perspective makes the face bigger with wider angled lenses.
Is the likeness getting there at all?
I'm tempted to just start pore and detail work, but hopefully henpecking at this slowly doesn't burn me out.
Thanks, slosh!
- Added stitcing detail to the jeans and shoes
- Further handsculpting folds into jean shorts from reference. Most likely going to do the frayed edges of the shorts in post-alpha cards
-Detailed and fixed the hands. Focused on the inter finger webbing by observing my own hand.
- Planning to be manually meticulous about the way the pores stretch and place on the head, and then pull back if they're TOO bumpy.
Spent more focused time studying the pore line "waves" across the face across a couple of high res face references. Made a couple new alphas to use to grab the stretched pores.
Also spent more time on the hands.
These videos helped me a lot during the pore process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnVROI8SF9Y
I need help with my hair technique. I keep trying to soften the hair in the alpha, or make a more varied hair length in Fibermesh Zbrush, but a lot of my experiments are coming up unsatisfactory.
What I have in Toolbag atm. Hair coverage is low, but I don't think that's the main issue:
The hair bake I am generating (This is the AO)
What do I need to do to get better, featherier hair?
So, I think I've figured out my hair solution going forward.
Fibermesh just doesn't seem like a viable solution for long hair in game models.
I was trying my best to replace the Curve Tube method in this tutorial with Fibermesh hair, but when I finally relented and just made the hair from scratch with Curve Tube. I should have listened exactly as it asked, it ends up looking a lot better I think.
I need to fix the eyebrows, for sure. They're reading way too thick.
i actually had the same problem when i started learning to draw faces. the solution for me was to go to the other extreme, i tried making a face with as much empty areas as possible, making eyes mouth nose super small. what suprised me was that i actaully got closer to realistic proportions when i made it that way. and then it changed my reference for what the "correct" size should be. i think you have the same problem. try doing a face with comically small features and see how it looks.
Looking forward, you should see little to no white under her iris. Your iris still appear to be too small as well. The only time you would see white under her eyes in a neutral expression is if you look up or shift your head down while still looking straight forward. I think the eye shape itself and maybe the eyeball is too large. She also appears to be slightly cross eyed. Keep at it! This is definitely your strongest piece to date.