Sparks (Tv Head)

Bubblez

Hello and welcome!

Sooo, this started out as a quick thing to get me back into the groove of thing after being away from modeling for so long. I was going off of an old concept that I did back in college. I was just going to make it really simple and not deviate from my old concept.




But I got really excited, and I've decided to take it further. I have some really interesting ideas. Here is a quick ref sheet:

Two of the biggest inspirations were David D Jimenez Killer Robot and Lord Conti from FLCL


Most of the stuff is referenced from things that I actually have. For example, the back/inside of the Tv head, are the parts inside my home computer. The bitch'en Converse with the flames on them, I wear those almost every day....They also make me go faster. 












Any feed back is greatly appreciated. I have this bad habit of not finishing things, mostly because of work. But I hope to kick that habit and actually finish this.

Ged

Good start, fun reference! you could have some fun with the proportions if you want to make it more like flcl or killer robot. What is the plan for this? a cool render or a game model?

Snowy665

Love love love this! Really looking forward to seeing it finished!

Bubblez

Ged said:

Good start, fun reference! you could have some fun with the proportions if you want to make it more like flcl or killer robot. What is the plan for this? a cool render or a game model?

Thank you Ged and Snowy665! I might mess with the proportions a bit more. I just noticed that an image is missing from my post. I had posted my original concept that I did back in college 5 years ago:


 I'm not sure how much is to much or to little. I'm not really sure what the plan is either but I'm leaning towards just a cool render. My first idea was to take it all the way through the game modeling and texturing pipeline so that I could learn how to use Quixel 2.0. And my texturing skills are lacking so I wanted to get better. But everything, so far,  has a high and a low model. 

Bubblez

I finally got the chance to sit down and work on this some more. I worked all weekend to try and get the wrinkles to look right. But sad to say that they still need some work done on them. There is just soooooo much!! Good God, I don't want to do any more wrinkles!!

I decided that I'm not going to mess with the proportions anymore. I edited them slightly from last time, but not very much. After I flush out the wrinkles a bit more, I can get on to making all of the accessories.

Bubblez

 Just another small update. But it took me a while to make the backpack because I've never done it before. Im doing a lot of things that I haven't before with this project. I hopefully, I don't flop at the rendering part later on. Or the texturing.

If you have any input, goooo for it. Anything helps.




Eventually, its going to have all the nerdy junk that I have dangling off of my backpack. Im getting pretty close to being “done” with all of the models! 

Bubblez

Ok, the backpack accessories are done. Not gonna add any more or it might start to look as cluttered as my actual backpack lol 

And these are the dangly bits that are on the pack.

Bubblez

Ok, so here is a W.I.P of the lowres...42,000. There is a lot going on and I there are still ovious areas where I could do some more edge loop reduction. I was looking up Tri-count for characters, and the highest one I saw was about 40,000 from one of the gears of war games. If anyone has any other information about  polycount for main characters, the input would help.

Snowy665

this looking so good, really love the style and design! What was the intent for this model? Animation or something like that?

Bubblez

Snowy665 said:

this looking so good, really love the style and design! What was the intent for this model? Animation or something like that?

Thank you, I'm still working on a bunch and I actual edited his body a little. I've also changed the low res cage. But it's all small and mostly uv work, so no updating for a while. Yeah, at first it was just gonna be a fancy render. But I'm trying to beef up my portfolio for game art. So I decided to make a main character and take it through the whole process. I'd like to animate it later on but I suck at rigging. 
Holy crap. I replied to this a while ago but for some reason it just kept it in as a draft and didn't actually send it!

Bubblez

Long time no update for this guy. But Im still working on it. I actually managed to get his polycount down a bit more but have things looking better….I dont know how, fucking magic. As it currently stands, everything is 44267, but I still have to add the wires for the Rockband Guitar and the Nintendo Zapper. 

Look at all those damn UV’s. I was thinking a total of 4096 texture res. So each squar using 1024. It might be a bit excessive, but it will look good! 

Bubblez

Good lord, how tired was I when I uploaded my uv's before. Before I said that I was going to do a max of 4096 texture res, each being 1024....with 5 uv sets. I FORGOT HOW TO MATH.

Well, I've updated the uv's and they make more sense for there mesh groups and are more optimized.

Bubblez

Ok, I finally got everything to look good after its all baked down to the low res. My texture plan did kinda fall to shambles though... I didnt actally get to work on him this weekend, besides a few tweeks. But the next update will be either, his little companion speaker bud, or textured….or both lol. Almost done. 




The baking process is such a pain in the ass and is so tedious. Definitely my least favorite step. I had to re-organize my UV's too because things didnt bake down properly. I don't know what I was thinking. I should have done some test bakes to start off with, and it would have gone a ton smoother for me.


Thank you to everyone that is still following this. I know I don't update much, but its getting there. Im on a mission to finish all the models that I've started, so if you're interested in this, maybe you'd be interested in some of the other models I have going. They should be getting updates soon too.

Mossbros

The character is looking great, but no reference from Dead leaves? He's like the cool crazy killer TV head guy lol

Bubblez

Mossbros said:

The character is looking great, but no reference from Dead leaves? He's like the cool crazy killer TV head guy lol

Thanks! Aww, I did forget about Retro. Maybe I'll make his hood have the fur on it. I'll see how it looks. 

Bubblez

Finally getting around to texturing. Here is a work in progress. I’ve actually been working on the textures for the last 3 days. Quixel is kinda buggy and some of the processes for creating the IDs are strange. When I first made the ID’s and brought it into DDO, it created this separation of wight, and then I had to edit everything by hand a few times. One time, it switched around all of the ID's and they were assigned to the wrong meshes, and even had incorrect alphas. Then my computer blue screened for the second time because of Quixel and I have a pretty beefy set up. Its been sort of a nightmare.....



The head so far without the alphas on. Because I dont know how to work with transparancy in Quixel yet. Final renders will be in Toolbag 2 anyway. I think Im gonna call the head done, or close too it lol. Gonna add a little more scratches





Still gonna end up modeling a little speaker companion for him later on. Just thought I'd focus on getting him done first, and then do more modeling.

Hope you guys like it. Feedback is always welcome.

Blade113

Nice work.

Bubblez

@ Blade113 thank you!

 Im on the homestretch now! He is now completely textured. Still have to tweak some stuff. BUT IM ALMOST THERE!





Closer look at all the nerd stuff

Bubblez

Soooooo close to being done. I just need to pose it. But I've got a bunch of new images to put up. I was soooo excited to see that one of the WIP images made into one of the Recaps. Thats the first time thats happened and has been something I've been shooting for, for a while.








this is the little Speaker companion Fortississimo. There was another version, and there were originally 2, but they didnt come out right. And having 2 just put too much on the screen, with already sooooo much going on.


Last shot before the posing. So sooo close. THE END IS NEAR! Hope you guys like it!

Kid.in.the.Dark

Gotta say I'm really loving this. Just a little critique on the backdrop... I feel like it's a little bit too noisy and can be a little distracting.
Maybe drop the opacity a bit or and add a slight brightened radial falloff from behind your character to separate the two.

I feel the jacket could do with a little more variety in design... since it's all just one colour it seems a little dull, maybe the hood could have a baby blue inner lining instead of yellow? because I don't feel like the yellow makes much sense on the jacket unless maybe you make the sleeve/hoodie ends the same colour as well? just seems like his head is pretty flashy and his essence altogether is quite brash and the jacket just seems like it's any casual hoodie he picked up from a on the corner merchant shop... seems like he would be wearing something a little more hipster if you get what I mean haha... but this is merely personal preference though so discard at will.

Fortississimmo's arms have very low segments on the shoulder section, I'd definitely add some segments back to it since it's really obvious when you compare them to any other cylindrical features on all your models.

Other than that I'm really feeling this man, good job (Y)

Bubblez

Kid.in.the.Dark said:

Gotta say I'm really loving this. Just a little critique on the backdrop... I feel like it's a little bit too noisy and can be a little distracting.
Maybe drop the opacity a bit or and add a slight brightened radial falloff from behind your character to separate the two.

I feel the jacket could do with a little more variety in design... since it's all just one colour it seems a little dull, maybe the hood could have a baby blue inner lining instead of yellow? because I don't feel like the yellow makes much sense on the jacket unless maybe you make the sleeve/hoodie ends the same colour as well? just seems like his head is pretty flashy and his essence altogether is quite brash and the jacket just seems like it's any casual hoodie he picked up from a on the corner merchant shop... seems like he would be wearing something a little more hipster if you get what I mean haha... but this is merely personal preference though so discard at will.

Fortississimmo's arms have very low segments on the shoulder section, I'd definitely add some segments back to it since it's really obvious when you compare them to any other cylindrical features on all your models.

Other than that I'm really feeling this man, good job (Y)

Hey, thanks for taking the time comment. Honestly, I had the same thought about my first backdrop. So I thought this one was a good middle ground. A lot lest busy as compared to the last one but I can see what you mean. I'll keep that in mind for the next few images. 


With the jacket, it's kinda dull on purpose because I didn't want it too look cluttered and it's sort of the breakup between elements. I was going to put feathers around the rim of the hood like in Dead leaves. But it didn't quite  right. With the head being so flashy and the headphones, it was beginning to be too much.  As for the colors, it's actually my own hoodie that I wear haha.  Take a look. 


A lot of the stuff is actually based on my own stuff...the character is basically me at this point XD. But I was thinking of adding some elbow patches. I'm sort of more tacky and less hipsteresk.

You're definitely right about the segments in Fortississimo's shoulder. I noticed that right away and I should have changed it right after the first bake, but I was it a rush and just left it. I keep thinking to myself, "ehh, is it really thaaat noticeable. Maybe I'm just looking at it to much." But now I know that's not the case. 

Mossbros

coming along very nicely, I really hope you get this guy into a breakdance pose, maybe spinning on a cardboard floor.
Just to really cement it into it's environment and style.  

Bubblez

Thanks! When I made this, there was a lot of reference to Air Gear, Jet Set Radio, FLCL and other stuff so that's where the spray paint graffiti thing came from. Also there was a huge back story involving an artist community that I'll upload later. So I was thinking of an outlandish jumping pose. 

Mossbros

Bubblez said:

Thanks! When I made this, there was a lot of reference to Air Gear, Jet Set Radio, FLCL and other stuff so that's where the spray paint graffiti thing came from. Also there was a huge back story involving an artist community that I'll upload later. So I was thinking of an outlandish jumping pose. 

Sounds cool to me, just think it will really make it pop as a final result. 
Always a shame to see amazing characters only t pose lol

Bubblez

Well, here it is. The final turn around image. It was A LOT harder to pose then I thought it would be. I didn't to take the time to do all of the actual rigging, so I found my old autorig script and just post it the best I could with joints, and then took the rest into Zbrush and moved some stuff around. This has been a really great learning experience for me. What started out as just a project to get me back into the groove of modeling again, turned into coming home from work, staying up until 2am everyday, and a lot of pain in the butt. But it was worth it.

Bubblez

Im not quite sure how to upload the marmoset viewer to Polycount. It looks like Sketchfab is the only one. But if you'd like to see it in the viewport, its HERE

I'll be starting up another thread for the continuation of this model here. There was a whole slew of issue with this before. Mostly because I was straying too far from the concept. So Ill be going back and and changing it and actually finishing it. So keep a look out if you're interested.