My Little Project (Sci-fi)

Larkbeef

Hallo!

I’m doing my own little IP thing, after seeing Dan Luvisi’s talk at IFCC Croatia and other people around the internet, I got inspired. Nowhere close to the scale of Last Man Standing yet though!

So far mostly loose ideas and taking my sweet time with it.

I’ll stick to these 2 points so far.

• Sci-fi - Can’t decide on how hard it’s going to be. Probably pretty soft since I’m not smart enough to think up a compelling hard scif-fi setting. Likely something akin to A Fire Upon The Deep or Culture series.

• Simpler style - Pixar, Blizzard (Or the more recent Shardbound I saw on here!). Simple is not easy though, I really need to practice this.

But while I mull and ponder I have to get some portfolio material going. So I’ve done the first character, might be my main character. She’s a mid twenties undergraduate/assistant researcher out in the field. History/anthropology/alienology at the moment. It changes from year to year usually, whatever strikes her fancy or doesn’t require too much commitment.

I made her design pretty simple and civilian, so later I can contrast it with something cooler.

Everything's pretty vague and I’m rambling. Pics!

Face sculpt.

Body sculpt.


Low poly.


Polypaint, just for values.


Some refs I've mostly ignored because I'm bad.


Some clothes doodles.

Any comments or critique are most welcome!

Larkbeef

Into Marmoset.



I made the textures in Substance Painter, which I haven't tried before. Sweet stuff!
Also tried HumanIK in Maya for a quick rig, worked so so. I'm pretty ass at weighing vertices.

Next is:
Some mesh fixing after the posing.
Give her an expression.
Go over all the textures and hand paint some color variations and emissive maps.
Create a little scene around the character.

So still lots left to do!

Larkbeef

Done with the model for this stage.










Also a Marmoset-scene on Artstation:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PNO34

I think I messed up her hair the most. I should have retopologized it better. And for the life of me I can't get my head around anisotropic direction maps. Even though I checked the thread on here. And Ben Mathis site.

Now I'm going to make her sci-fi mecha/space suit! With a sci-fi helmet. And sci-fi 45 degree angle panel cuts. 

Ouran

She's very appealing and believable as a character. However, I would have gone with a more stylized approach for the folds on the jacket. Something more in line with some of the refs you are. Basically, less folds and bigger, more silhouette defining folds. It would also have created great contrast with the tight jeans.

tazuma

Pretty amazing, love the stylized texturing. Can't wait to learn how to use bake maps myself. 

Larkbeef

@Ouran That was the idea. I'm not sure where I misstepped or why I didn't see it while working. Maybe I didn't work through the concept enough before or maybe I should have left Marvelous Designer alone for this character. Well I intend to create more characters in the same style (but cleaner and bolder silhouettes). Next one. Thanks a lot for your input.

@tazuma Thanks! Keep at it 

Ouran

A good trick is to make sure you look at your model from pretty far once in a while. If the folds still affect the silhouette, you're good. If not, try sculpting slightly less zoomed in on your model.

Right now, If I look at your character's wireframe shot (first post), there's barely any silhouette change in the arms. You could even try to pull a few vertices to see if it improves the result

Suba

Really like your character. Charismatic enough to feel real. You did good !
I liked her grey hair though, but it's just matter of taste.

Ouran said:

A good trick is to make sure you look at your model from pretty far once in a while. If the folds still affect the silhouette, you're good. If not, try sculpting slightly less zoomed in on your model. 

Right now, If I look at your character's wireframe shot (first post), there's barely any silhouette change in the arms. You could even try to pull a few vertices to see if it improves the result

That's a super good advice, Iittle tricks like that really make all the difference. Thank you for writing that.

Larkbeef

@Ouran A very good tip.
I would probably have changed the folds on the arm to look more like this.
And made the shoulder a bit sharper, in general a lot of angles should have been sharper for a bit more stylized look.



@Suba Thanks man! I liked the grey hair too, but it didn't really fit the personality I had in mind.






I've doodled some concepts over the week, for her armor/suit-thing. These are the ones I didn't erase immediately. After a lot of thinking of which direction I want to go with the project, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with 15. I've been going back and forth between 15 and 16.


16 because it looks a bit more plausible for armor. 

15 is a more fantastic, super hero approach I guess. Not sure about that... But on the other hand it looks way more fun to do in 3D, with glowing bits. I'll make up my mind during this weekend and just go with it.

Also been thinking about environment or where the story would take place. Which ties into how the suit would look. Since it would be from that place.

I keep seeing Gothic arches and neon lights. Some ancient place (relatively), made of metal and lights. Maybe flipped arches? How would that even hold up structurally?
It's at the tip of my tongue but I can't solidify the idea yet. 


Hm.