These are a few I was able to get while they were napping. If you want I can PM you more if it helps haha. Let me know if there's a specific part of them you want a picture of
Thanks man, these will help a ton with the face! If you're able to get any full body pictures of them up and walking around from the front or side, that'd be fantastic. I really appreciate this and please don't feel like you need to go out of your way if it's too much trouble. I'm glad for anything you're able to send over through a PM or through the comments here, whichever option is easier for you. You can also send them over to my email at dave.b.greenberg@gmail.com if it saves you the trouble of needing to upload anything. Thanks again for the references!
Minor jacket update / fix and head retopo. Just about ready to move forward from the high poly, but I still need to create some blendshapes in ZBrush before I'm ready to retopo the rest of this guy.
Dog also needs an update to his head and suit but then I can get to work on the low poly and the hair cards.
Dog head update has arrived! I've hopefully gotten closer to hitting the mark on these guys thanks to some reference from @pmiller001. I redurced the bulge in the eyes (mostly on the lower lid) and brought the muzzle out further. I also tweaked the lower jaw and face muscles a little bit and put him in his fancy suit.
I think I have a better balance of an actual chihuahua and whatever that thing is in the concept, but I can continue tweaking things later on down the line if necessary. Otherwise I think I'm ready to move forward with the blend shape expressions next!
Dude tahts lookin tight! I definitely reads as a chihuahua. Also sorry i didnt see this before, Its a little late now, but i'm sure i can get you some more reference if you need it XD
Oh no worries man! The head shots alone were super helpful and I really appreciate the references. I'm glad it's reading more as a chihuahua now; it'll be interesting trying to nail down those dog expressions but it should be fun to play around with.
Here come some first pass blend shapes! I'm glad I worked out the concept expression earlier on, but the Blue Steel look still needs a little more attention. Will be focusing on the dude until GDC is here, so I gotta push myself in getting him as far along as I can.
Back on the horse after taking some time for myself. Here are some updates with the hair and some basic materials thrown together in Painter to get me going on those textures.
Any thoughts or suggestions along the way are welcome, and I really wanna try and get this guy finished before the end of the year!
I just realized I hadn't updated the newer pass on the dude's textures, or the new doggo updates, so heeere we go!
Skin updates and jacket fabric:
First pass for outfit in Toolbag:
Hair fixes and expressions:
Doggo high poly sculpted blendshape expressions:
Low poly blendshape wireframes:
High poly suit update in ZBrush:
That should bring us up to date on the project! I'll hopefully be able to keep on track with the updates, and I'll be posting over here as well! C&C always welcome!
Finished retopo and baking out the normals and materials for the dog in this newest update. I'll be going back and finishing the textures on the dude, next!
Changed around a lot of the material reads (especially with the jacket) and I feel like I'm a little closer to that final look. Not sure if I like this new direction on the jacket yet, but working on the dog for a little while will help me come back to it with fresher eyes. C&C is always welcome and appreciated!
It's a mini material update today. I just wanted to fix some things with the jacket and pants to try and get them to read better (and be more interesting).
I'm really flattered this dude made it to the first page, so I really gotta try and knock this project out of the park.
Today I took a step back and decided to rework the blendshapes. Went through a bunch of attempts at getting something that felt more expressive than the old lip-bite face. These are my recent ideations / descent into madness:
Original lip-bite = too neutral, so I tried to play up the eyebrows and the lips.
They felt a little gassy so I tried a few more.
I was feeling the alternating eyebrow game, but now I need to settle on Lefty or Righty. Still gotta decide which one works better for a SciFi Renaissance fashion guy.
Since the old Magnum look had alternating brows, I tried to fix that up as well. Magnum became Blue Steel somewhere along the way.
Moral of the story is I could really just sculpt expressions all day. It's pretty great. Nothing is set in stone though, so I'm totally up for hearing any opinions or suggestions that are different from what I'm working with. More to come (and a lot of old materials and stuff to update).
Updates for the dude's face and their materials took me a little while, but I'm finally feeling like this guy is coming together. Unless something glaring comes up, I might be good to just work on the dog's textures before I jump into the rig. The changes are kinda subtle for some of his expressions, but I hope they're looking a little better from before.
Now we're working on the chihuahua's materials! I thought after finishing the dude, this would be really quick and simple (but when is it ever like we plan??). I really need to add some more color variation with the suit, and figure out a better roughness approach to his fur. Lots of stuff in progress, but it's still moving forward.
For the dude, I thought I'd add some more length to his lashes to get more of that character showing (and to get it closer to the concept). More chihuahua updates to come!
Doggo material updates! I'm feeling a lot better about his diffuse and roughness materials with the test lights. I changed up the legs a little bit and tried to get things reading like they're in the same style of the dude. Might make a few changes later on, but for now I'll be starting in on the dude's rig. Lots of stuff to relearn!
Mostly finished with the rig and the main pose for the dude! Learned a ton and was frustrated through a big part of it, but it's always really cool to see your character move around. Big thanks to Kiel Figgins for some great rigging advice, as well as Pluralsight for giving me a refresher course on the rigging pipeline.
Up next I'll pose this guy a few times before rigging the dog and giving him the same attention. The finish line is in site!
Also this guy's face is kinda ridiculous and intense from the dog's P.O.V. C&C always welcome!
The first pose for the dog is done, and I only had to break the rig 40 times to get things to work! I guess that's what I get for assuming a simplified quadruped rig would be easier than the dude's rig. I ended up moving a lot of individual vertexes around, so I might need to try re-rigging him before I get the other poses setup. 2 more poses for each of them left! Here's a gif I put together of the rigging process.
Two sets of poses down, with one to go! Just finished the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure style poses. It felt kind of fitting with the look of the guy and the high fashion look of Jojo, so it just kinda happened from there. Final pose will be more Zoolander inspired, I think? We'll have to see where it goes! I wanted to included the look of the rig as well as the current look in Toolbag.
Final placement of the dog (growling at the dude) isn't final, so that might change later on.
Some Jojo-adjustments (Jojustments?) and the main look of the other big poses are here! The concept pose is the cleanest (so I can include a turnaround when I get to that point), and the others will just include some still shots and close ups. This will be one of the last WIPs for this project, so I'll just be fixing the lighting and getting some beauty shots put together next.
Still on the fence about the position of the dog in the Jojo shot, but I'm otherwise feeling pretty good about moving forward. It'll never be perfect, but it'll be finished!
I think I'm finally able to call this guy finished and move on to the next project! Thank you to everyone who helped me figure things out along the way. I've already got a ton of character concepts that I'm aching to start in on, so I'll be sure to post some new updates once I get there.
You can see a lot more images and the breakdowns over at my ArtStation, here.
Onto a new project! This guy is based off of a concept and design by Afu Chan who everyone should definitely check out.
Just starting with the block-out, I ended up spending some extra time on the face. I still need to play with it a little bit to match it with the concept, but at least the project is off the ground now. Gonna try to learn some new skills and techniques with this dude, and see if I can produce a full character in a little less time than it usually takes me.
I'll maybe make a thread in the WIP / critique section once I get a little further along? I'll play it by ear. C&C always welcome!
Updated a few parts and pieces, and finished adding all of the main shapes into the sculpt! Now I just gotta do a little cleanup and get a mouth bag and some teeth in there.
A little more cleanup is out of the way, and the basic shape of the hair is in place. Still a little more to do before I can get working on some of the tertiary stuff, but I'm getting there!
Truckin' away and getting closer to the end of the high poly process! I figured I'd work with a different Z Material to mix things up a little from before. I might try to rework the folds to show them off a little more.
Hair makes me go crazy. Figuring out cards will be an interesting process later... C&C always welcome!
Working on a blendshape expression based on one of the concept sketches by Afu Chan. Thought it might be fun to make a GIF out of it too.
I think the expression is less baring his teeth and more just biting down on the explosive pins on his arms. Here's the concept I'm pulling from.
The style is a little different from the one from the turnaround concept above, but I wanted to still try and capture the look. It'll be neat to see how it looks all posed, but if anything feels off please let me know!
Polypaint update before starting on the retopology! The head is already out of the way, and now I can get some of those base colors carried over to the textures for later.
Hey man, I'm digging your latest character - one thing I would say is I think it would be great if you exaggerate the hair a bit more and make it a bit less uniform too... in the concept reference the hair is quite wavy and dramatic with more variation between each hair clump.
I also think you could adjust the scale of the hands so they are much bigger to create more of a stylised look like the concept.
Thanks for the suggestions, @tmartyn807! I'm right with you there on the hair; right now those spikes are more placeholder until I can figure out hair cards with the low poly version.
Outside of the biting hand-pins pose, I'll be going a little more off of the character sheet turnaround concept where N8t has slightly more realistic teenage proportions, but I can try to play around with the hand scale some more. I don't want to make them too big for the sake of balance, but also because I'd like to have some backup hand-grenades on his back (referencing another concept) at the end.
I'll keep at it though! I really appreciate the input
Getting through the retopo, I might be adding a new project into the mix after this update. With the ArtStation Challenge I found a concept I really liked, so I'll be juggling two projects for a little while! Hopefully I can really push both of these to the best of my ability, and I'll keep this Sketchbook updated with the new project when I have a little more to show. For now, you can see my submission thread over here if you're interested.
With Grenademan, I still need to add his pockets, pants straps, hands, and feet before I worry about the hair cards, but we're getting there bit by bit!
Changing things up a little with my entry to the Legend of King Arthur ArtStation Challenge! I figured I'll mostly post my stuff here outside of the submission page itself. Please feel free to let me know what you think!
I'm working off of Pierre Armal Le's Queen Arthur concept, and so far it's been really fun to jump into something new. I'd recommend checking out all of his character designs for the challenge here.
From here, I did a little breakdown to help me figure things out moving forward.
Pierre ended up sketching out a front view of her face a little later on, so I'll be referencing that as well.
Building the base mesh and testing out the proportions; it's good to finally be making some progress.
Today I posted my recent update as I built out the face. It might be reading a little more masculine than I'd like, so I'll see if softening a few of the features can help me find a better balance.
To further help me break things down, I tried doing a quick paint-over to see how the other parts of the hair and lashes might help things look later on down the line.
It almost feels like she's looking too reckless / headstrong right now instead of more powerful / calculating? I'm not sure if that's where I want to take it. We'll have to see how it goes!
Fixed the face up some more and finished blocking in most of Queen Arthur's gear. Still need to take care of the crown and her sword, but I think I'll do that once the armor has been refined a bit. Placeholder hair clump is going to change a lot with the next few updates as well.
Cleaning up the armor! Hard surface stuff really takes me a while.
I still gotta deal with a few straps here and there, the gauntlets, sabatons, sword and crown. Then I get the hair taken care of and I'm good to do one more detail pass before I can retopo. Ugh, I hope I can finish this in time
I keep changing my mat cap around to get a different view of things, but I think I might go back to the previous one. Just a lot more visibly 'punchy' for the renders. Still chipping away at the armor this week, and it's feeling pretty slow. Hopefully I can pick up speed a little with there being 22 days left of the challenge. It's this part of the project where I really feel like I'm losing steam.
I'll keep at it though and see how far I can take it until the end of the ArtStation Challenge!
I think I'm good with the armor now, but I still have a bit to do with the hair (mainly the braid) and the sword before I can move forward from the highpoly sculpt! I'm feeling like I might be good on time if I can get the hair and sword finished in the next two days, but we'll have to see how it goes.
Yikes that braid took a while! I still have just under 2 weeks to get things finished, so I'm gonna try to push things as quickly as I can. I'll leave the Cape and Standard details for later and start in on the retopo next!
Might be the last update I get to before the Challenge ends! This Monday I started on some freelance work and the majority of my time has gone towards that. I still plan on finishing Queen Arthur up on my own time, but I'd rather not go overboard while working on 3D during the day. I'll keep posting her updates here and over on my Twitter whenever I have something new to show. I might start go back and forth between this project and N8t once again too, just so I can to mix things up a little.
Not giving up on Queen Arthur, but after some bad files sent me back a little ways, I'm taking a break on her and getting back to Afu Chan's Grenademan, N8t.
Some updated face topology:
With the rest of the low poly out of the way, only the hands and hair are left!
With my Freelance contract having been renewed recently, I'll still try to keep updates coming during the weekend when I make some decent progress. It feels great to be working on some personal stuff again!
I think this update is more of a swing-and-a-miss, but I think showing my thought process will help me bring everything together in the end. I finally bit the bullet and tried creating hair cards for the first time, and I still think it might be able to work. For testing things out I went a little too realistic, but I think by replacing the hair cards and approaching the style differently, I might be able to get better results.
Quick UVed and baked low poly update! Excited to start in on the hand painted textures next. After I've made a little progress with that I'll go back and attempt the hair again.
Starting up on the hand-painted textures! Nooo idea what I'm doing yet, but grateful for So Much Monster's hand painted plugins to get the ball rolling.
Hair update! I decided to move away from hair cards and go back to the sculpted look for this guy. I wasn't able to get the cards to show enough shape or volume so I'll definitely need to practice with them some more outside of this project.
Replies
These are a few I was able to get while they were napping. If you want I can PM you more if it helps haha. Let me know if there's a specific part of them you want a picture of
Dog also needs an update to his head and suit but then I can get to work on the low poly and the hair cards.
I think I have a better balance of an actual chihuahua and whatever that thing is in the concept, but I can continue tweaking things later on down the line if necessary. Otherwise I think I'm ready to move forward with the blend shape expressions next!
The guy is currently around 25k tris, and will hopefully stay under 30k by the time the hair cards are in place.
Any thoughts or suggestions along the way are welcome, and I really wanna try and get this guy finished before the end of the year!
Skin updates and jacket fabric:
First pass for outfit in Toolbag:
Hair fixes and expressions:
Doggo high poly sculpted blendshape expressions:
Low poly blendshape wireframes:
High poly suit update in ZBrush:
That should bring us up to date on the project! I'll hopefully be able to keep on track with the updates, and I'll be posting over here as well! C&C always welcome!
Changed around a lot of the material reads (especially with the jacket) and I feel like I'm a little closer to that final look. Not sure if I like this new direction on the jacket yet, but working on the dog for a little while will help me come back to it with fresher eyes. C&C is always welcome and appreciated!
I'm really flattered this dude made it to the first page, so I really gotta try and knock this project out of the park.
Today I took a step back and decided to rework the blendshapes. Went through a bunch of attempts at getting something that felt more expressive than the old lip-bite face. These are my recent ideations / descent into madness:
Original lip-bite = too neutral, so I tried to play up the eyebrows and the lips.
They felt a little gassy so I tried a few more.
I was feeling the alternating eyebrow game, but now I need to settle on Lefty or Righty. Still gotta decide which one works better for a SciFi Renaissance fashion guy.
Since the old Magnum look had alternating brows, I tried to fix that up as well. Magnum became Blue Steel somewhere along the way.
Moral of the story is I could really just sculpt expressions all day. It's pretty great. Nothing is set in stone though, so I'm totally up for hearing any opinions or suggestions that are different from what I'm working with. More to come (and a lot of old materials and stuff to update).
Chihuahua materials are up next. Stay tuned!
For the dude, I thought I'd add some more length to his lashes to get more of that character showing (and to get it closer to the concept). More chihuahua updates to come!
Up next I'll pose this guy a few times before rigging the dog and giving him the same attention. The finish line is in site!
Also this guy's face is kinda ridiculous and intense from the dog's P.O.V. C&C always welcome!
Final placement of the dog (growling at the dude) isn't final, so that might change later on.
Still on the fence about the position of the dog in the Jojo shot, but I'm otherwise feeling pretty good about moving forward. It'll never be perfect, but it'll be finished!
You can see a lot more images and the breakdowns over at my ArtStation, here.
Just starting with the block-out, I ended up spending some extra time on the face. I still need to play with it a little bit to match it with the concept, but at least the project is off the ground now. Gonna try to learn some new skills and techniques with this dude, and see if I can produce a full character in a little less time than it usually takes me.
I'll maybe make a thread in the WIP / critique section once I get a little further along? I'll play it by ear. C&C always welcome!
Hair makes me go crazy. Figuring out cards will be an interesting process later... C&C always welcome!
I think the expression is less baring his teeth and more just biting down on the explosive pins on his arms. Here's the concept I'm pulling from.
The style is a little different from the one from the turnaround concept above, but I wanted to still try and capture the look. It'll be neat to see how it looks all posed, but if anything feels off please let me know!
I also think you could adjust the scale of the hands so they are much bigger to create more of a stylised look like the concept.
Keep it up man!
Outside of the biting hand-pins pose, I'll be going a little more off of the character sheet turnaround concept where N8t has slightly more realistic teenage proportions, but I can try to play around with the hand scale some more. I don't want to make them too big for the sake of balance, but also because I'd like to have some backup hand-grenades on his back (referencing another concept) at the end.
I'll keep at it though! I really appreciate the input
With Grenademan, I still need to add his pockets, pants straps, hands, and feet before I worry about the hair cards, but we're getting there bit by bit!
I'm working off of Pierre Armal Le's Queen Arthur concept, and so far it's been really fun to jump into something new. I'd recommend checking out all of his character designs for the challenge here.
From here, I did a little breakdown to help me figure things out moving forward.
Pierre ended up sketching out a front view of her face a little later on, so I'll be referencing that as well.
Building the base mesh and testing out the proportions; it's good to finally be making some progress.
Today I posted my recent update as I built out the face. It might be reading a little more masculine than I'd like, so I'll see if softening a few of the features can help me find a better balance.
To further help me break things down, I tried doing a quick paint-over to see how the other parts of the hair and lashes might help things look later on down the line.
It almost feels like she's looking too reckless / headstrong right now instead of more powerful / calculating? I'm not sure if that's where I want to take it. We'll have to see how it goes!
I still gotta deal with a few straps here and there, the gauntlets, sabatons, sword and crown. Then I get the hair taken care of and I'm good to do one more detail pass before I can retopo. Ugh, I hope I can finish this in time
I'll keep at it though and see how far I can take it until the end of the ArtStation Challenge!
Some updated face topology:
With the rest of the low poly out of the way, only the hands and hair are left!
With my Freelance contract having been renewed recently, I'll still try to keep updates coming during the weekend when I make some decent progress. It feels great to be working on some personal stuff again!