Batman Family/ Likeness Study

chrisjngs

Hi Polycount!

I started work on my summer project a couple weeks ago, and it's starting to get to a point that I feel comfortable sharing. It's a pretty big project so any advice that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. I'm making Batman and his whole "family", ie. Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Catwoman. My goal is to make them all fit well together, and have a "realistic"/ practical feel, so far as there suits are concerned. I've gathered reference from each characters respective comic, as well as chosen actors that I am basing their faces off of.

Right now I have all of the characters entirely blocked in, but am focusing on one, Robin, right now. My goal is to get him ready to texture, at least his face, by next week*. His face reference is that of Asa Butterfield, and I'm trying to go for a one-to-one resemblance.

Here is my current progress on his face, any critique would be appreciated.


Here is a quick reference sheet that I made using the key images that I am referencing. (I have more, these are just the key ones)



* A professional shading/texture artist is coming to my school for a week to help teach a class that I'm in and would like to get his help/advice on texturing realistic skin.

chrisjngs

I've made more progress on Robins head and am hoping for some critique.



and here's a quick grab of his whole body (with polypainted face).



any critique would be helpful.

oh, and here's a link to my current progress on the skin texture.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/robin-skin-test

Der Hollander

I might shrink his nose and lips in a bit, currently they feel too wide in a neutral position compared to the actor. His jaw also feels too round on the forward view, he's got more of a pronounced angle on the corner.
Your hairline around the forehead is currently off, give it another go, as well as widening the top of his skull. His head in the reference feels like it's got more of a turnip shape, very wide at the top and tapering downward towards the chin. I would definitely push that shape more, even pushing it past the 1-1, as exaggerated detail tends to read better and appear more believable than a perfect recreation in 3D.

I think you picked some great reference for a young Robin, and the costume design is pretty neat too. Keep at it!

chrisjngs

With the summer semester almost done I'm finally getting some time to continue working on this. I've made some pretty big changes since the last time I posted here, I'm no longer going to use Toolbag 2 to render. Instead I'm going with Arnold for Maya with X-Gen for the hair, and the models are going to be production quality, not game. My hope is to get the models and textures to around the quality of Blur Studios.

I've gotten the skin to a point that I am pretty happy with, though it is still a WIP, and I'm working on the hair right now.


And here's a render of Robins full body, though I haven't really begun texturing it yet.

chrisjngs

I've made some progress on Robins skin shader.
Here are some raw renders in three different lighting conditions.



I'm working on the eyes and ears right now, then after that I will do the hair.

chrisjngs

Taking a break from Robin and I'm working on Nightwing now. The head is based off of Matt Bomer.





There is something wrong with the 3/4 angle shot of the head, but I cant figure out what. The forehead maybe?

Any critiques would be super helpful.

moonlazer

Hey man got some feedback for ya. Nice work thus far. This is what I've noticed so far with the likeness of the sculpt. I don't know your workflow but I know whenever im eager to work on a project I sometimes toss proxy hair/eyebrows in and it can affect how I see the true geo of the skull. So I sculpt the head without any hair as long as I can and when it feels closest to human before I start adding hair.

chrisjngs

Thanks man, that's just the type of critique I was hoping for. I normally throw on the proxy hair pretty early, because I find that the face looks really weird without any. I'll try and work without it for a while however, see how it goes.

moonlazer

Yeah man no problem! subbed! \o/ looking forward to more!

chrisjngs

While I'm working on Nightwing, here is my current progress on Catwoman.

The head is based off of Jaimie Alexander. I tried sculpting the head without the hair on this one, and I think it really paid off, thanks for the advice moonlazer.

Here's a reference sheet of the head
http://i.imgur.com/rgMXiqz.jpg

Right now the body is really just anatomy, I'm still working on the design of the suit. Since most of suits that I have seen from the comics are really just black latex suits, I decided to try and design my own.


If anyone has any critique on the current progress of this character, I would love to hear it. Also, any thoughts on the current design of the suit.

http://i.imgur.com/uV6gOCA.jpg

Here's a quick breakdown of what everything is gonna be. All of the black lines will be seems, but not stitching, think more like there is a tube being woven throughout the suit. The purple parts are gonna be a spandex type material with a hexagonal pattern on them. The mask is going to be a kevlar material, or something similarly hard, with the neck piece being a balaclava, similar to what firemen wear.

Again, any critiques are appreciated.

chrisjngs

couldn't stop working on Catwoman yesterday, here's what I have so far.



I think that it's almost there, but there is still something holding it from looking exactly like the reference. I think it's something with the lips.

any critiques would be appreciated.

chrisjngs

I've made some more progress on Catwoman. I'm about to retopo and UV her, then I can go onto the detailing phase.



anybody see anything that needs fixed before I move ahead?