Dancer-Character (WIP thread)

pmiller001

time to jump into another model. I'm going to be tackling the area of art that I am not so good in, characters! I'm going to follow those character workshop threads to the best of my ability. All of those people there are super skilled, and it would behoove me to follow up with people like that. 
I originally wanted to do a bust of Van gogh, but I realized that would be defeating the purpose. (ALthough I'm still gonna do it, probably after this.)
SO i went ahead and chose this piece of work by Ryan Barr (@rbarrillustration) a comic book artist. Check out more of his work. https://www.facebook.com/rbarrillustration/

He's got an interesting style, and his pictures have a lot of personality. SO i'm going to have fun trying to interpreting that in 3D. 


I'm tackling this particular one because its got 4 things I feel as though I'm weak in. 
-Female anatomy
-Hair
-Clothes and therefore wrinkles
-material definition on skin. 





Went ahead and broke it down, like they've (the people in the character workshop) have been doing, so that I can understand what i'm up against. There have been a few educated guesses that I' had to make. That I think i'll just have to iterate upon arrival (specifically the length of her legs, shoes, and pants.) As far as material dfinition, I want to hand paint this, because i'm not very good at it, and I feel it would really sell this bit, a lot more than if i were to try to make it look like cg skin. Its early though, So I may just do that yet. 

PS Same deal as the last one. 

30K tris
50 hours. 
max, 2 2048 maps. 

pmiller001

blocking in. Still doesnt look right...I think its her torso. Somethings not clicking here. 



Heres my reference. 

Nettle

I'm not the best at anatomy but I did a crude paint-over for you, it's not the best but it might help you out. 
Your heads are getting better by the way, keep it up!

pmiller001

my friend, thank you so much  @Nettle
Characters are certainly a part I lack confidence in so this helped me out quite a bit. When you say mark landmarks, you mean marking big muscle groups right? I tried doing that using the damian standard. How would you suggest going about that?

also thank you for the kind complement. 

Nettle

@pmiller001 Here's a video I found that explains landmarks really well. Basically bones that are very close to the surface, Not muscles. I marked the clavicle, the arch of the ribs and the belly button in red, they are all landmarks which you can use to measure distances between things on the body, I forgot to mark the hip bones though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwt_wggUFHg

If you're lacking confidence; I would highly recommend doing some figure drawing, and pick up "Figure drawing for all it's worth" by Andrew Loomis if you haven't already, it's very helpful. Drawing things really helps you understand what you are looking at. And later when you're sculpting the same body part for example, you'll say to yourself "Oh yeah, I know what that looks like... I drew a hundred of them." and it'll come naturally to you. 

I'm a Zbrush noob so I can't help with brushes, hopefully someone more experienced can answer that for you. But I will say, don't try and cut into the mesh on high sub levels, you probably knew that though. By marking the landmarks I just meant use clay tubes brush and build up the bone a little bit, e.g. build up the clavicle, or the hip bones. 

pmiller001

I've actually @Nettle  I've been using that, and George Brigman's constructive anatomy. Check out that seocnd one if you havent, its fan freakin tastic. I had to study the second one when I was studying animation in college. 
You're right about the high sub d bit, I'm trying to make sure I keep it as low as possible and only dynamesh or subdivide it if I need it. 
As for the eyes, on this update, I could not figure out how to sculpt it in zbrush. SO I just did it as If I were sculpting IRL, made a new subtool and sculpted it as if I were putting clay on top of it etc etc. 

pmiller001

I think I messed up the back muscles, so I'm gonna have to go back an do that tomorrow. 

pmiller001

So I didnt notice this, but the concept that I"m using is some Steven Universe fan art. Makes sense though. I've never seen the show.
So I think the model is coming together. The blocking roughing out phase for the body is about done, and now i'm moving on to the blocking out phase for the clothes. Once that's done. Down to refine ment. I've still got to do some research on a few things.

-Eyes. I see people do the indent on the eyes, but I'm not sure why that is.
-Retopologizing characters with clothes. I was thinking of retopologiziing both pieces (the clothes and the flesh), then deleting whatever wasn't going to be seen. Not sure if thats the correct way to go about it though.
-Hair. I've done a few tests with hair before. This will be the first time I've gone all the way on a finished model.

Sebeuroc

Generally, if someone indents the eyes on a sculpt it is to indicate where the iris/pupil would go on the final.

For a game model there is no need to retopo or include any geometry that won't be visible.

pmiller001

Thanks @Sebeuroc ! 





Those pockets are going to be fun when i get around to it. 

pmiller001