The Forest Dwarf

Svyat

This is a basemesh for my new WIP dwarf character. CCs are welcome because this is the part where i can still change everything. I'm going to be updating this as I go
First post

Svyat

Hey guys, This is daily sculpt 4, and I'm now working on my dwarf character, and I hope to get some critique before I move to the next step (breaking the symmetry). So any CCs would be cool.
Second post

Svyat

Hello there, this is me again with daily sculpt 5, and this time i decided to add more fat to me character to make him more believable. Again i'm really looking forward to critique, because my next step is retopologizing my character and after that no major changes can be made. So if anything jumps up at you pls let me know.
Third post

Svyat

Hey, this is daily 6. It took me almost the whole day to retopo this guy, I'm really hoping that the result is at least decent. As always CCs are welcome.
Fourth Post

Vozz

Red- Not sure about this topology and it's deformation. Will work how it is but could be improved, is there any way you can remove the tri and have it quads all the way around?

Blue- Very minor, just because of my OCD I would have relaxed this a bit to give a more even curve to the loop.

Green- The quads here are very dense, a lot can't really be helped, but they are needlessly dense in their current state.

Overall I would relax a bunch of points around the place to give all the edges a more more even line. They seem a bit jagged and jumpy currently; take the line at the bottom of the image i painted over that goes over his belly. The verts could be a lot more relaxed and even.

Really good retop overall though. Lots of well place loops and in it's current state should deform very well anyways, my critique is mostly if you want to make it even better.

Tectonic

I like your sculpt! looking good.

Svyat

Thank you very much, I will try to apply that critique the next chance I get to work on this

Svyat

Hello again, I've tried updating my topology as Vozz suggested and this is what I got. So basically I exported my mesh from Blender to 3ds max and went over it with a smooth brush ( couldn't find it in Blender ) and fixed some triangles as seen here:

Now at this point I've noticed some strange geometry that resulted from the removal of some of the triangles, specifically the ones on the back of his thighs, palms and buttocks. The weird thing is idk if it makes any difference or not, knowing that I'm not the best at animation I can't tell just by looking at it. So if anyone could help I would really appreciate that.

KingKellogg

Looks like it is in a pretty neutral zone, so it should be ok.

Vozz

The topology looks overall much nicer and cleaner! Topology is a pain! Pretty much all of the odd topology is in an area that won't deform as KingKellogg stated, and won't cause any issues. Did you make sure the overall form wasn't altered when you smoothed all the points around? His shoulder loops look really good now and will likely deform well.

Svyat

Thank you for your help, I think everything is good so far. I'm now starting to work on his face, adding more small details like wrinkles and stuff and giving him a beard. Will post once i'm done

Svyat

Hey there. I'm doing daily sculpt 7 and today I've been working on adding a mouth bag for my character, projecting the high poly details onto my low poly model and subdividing it. After which I refined the face adding more secondary details and fixing the ears more or less. Finally I finished with a beard, cause in a fantasy world a dwarf must have a beard.  The beard is still a WIP so CCs are welcome specifically on how to make it look believable.
Fifth post 

Tectonic

Ryan Kingslien has a video on how he goes about sculpting hair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXpCkWuO6mQ

Svyat

Hey there, it's been a while and I'm back to working on my dwarf, this time I wanted to refine his face and fingers to give him more life. I really need help with the hands because I think this is my weak part in terms of sculpting, and drawing too. This is daily sculpt 8, any CCs are welcome Thank you)
Sixth post

Svyat

Yo what's up, I'm here with the daily sculpt 9 and today I was doing the teeth for my character. CCs are welcome as always, hope you like it)

Svyat

More daily work from me, hope you guys are not tired. (I sure am) This is daily sculpt 10 and today I spend a few hours working on detailing and adjusting my head. Not ready to break the symmetry just yet. CCs are as always welcome and even encouraged. Thank you!

Vozz

Hey can you get some much more zoomed In renders of the skin? I'll send you a message about rendering in Zbrush too. Much easier to critique if I can see it in a slightly better light Looking good so far! Looks like it could use some more realistic pore detail but I can't quite tell or you may not want that style. Depending on that I can give you some pretty good reference to look at.

Svyat

I'm now starting to block out the armor, i doesn't look that nice right now (not that much to see from other angles)  

Svyat

Hey there, I'm back on the mission and ready to rock! Doing this daily sculpt 12 and I finally got a chance to invest a good amount of time into this character, and so far I really like the results. Today I focused as much as possible on his beard and his hair, and I learned alot hope you like it. As always feel free to comment and critique anything that stands out to you. Thanks)

Svyat

So once I had the body finished, I decided to look for an armor and a beard concept. This is the one I found by this person here https://www.artstation.com/artist/art86
 

lotet

really cool, how close are you planning to stick with the concept?

Svyat

Probably just as close as the armor and the beard goes, I also try to give him the axe, and most likely adjust his overall body proportions to fit his clothing.

Vozz

His torso and legs are looks a bit rigid with clothing on, almost like a rectangle on top of 2 other rectangles. Explore more curves, like bringing the area below his belt out a bit and inflating his upper torso. The beard and hair look great! A little more polish on the hair when you have time could perfect it, some of the strands look a bit wonky. He's looking really good now.

Svyat

I tired updating the proportions, and change clothing a little. Having problems with sculpting the fur on his shoulders and boots

lotet

well depending on how you are gonna handle the fur in the texturing stage you might not even need to, if you are gonna use alpha cards I would suggest using a proxy mesh that simply shows the silhouette.

if you are going for a more stylized look I would suggest look at some reference on the exact style your going for and see how they handle fur.

my personal favorite is to use insert meshes.
here is quick breakdown made by Leslie van den Broeck a while back.

Svyat

Hello this is just an update to my work. Tried different techniques on the fur but still going for a sculpted look. Also adjusted the proportions 

Svyat

Hey there! I haven't posted any updates on my character in a while, so I decided to continue doing it. This is where he is right now. CCs are welcome!

lotet

Details are looking realy nice!  only crit would be the fur on the arms and the fur on the legs have different detail density.

Svyat

Hey man @lotet, I followed your advice about fur density and also started to work on the belt details. I was really struggling to make it like it is in the concept but anyway this is what I got. The other thing is that I don't really know how to make his back more interesting because the concept is mostly front view. CCs are encouraged. )

Svyat

Tectonic

maybe add a buckle across the middle of the back?

Svyat

Hey there! I'm almost done the sculpting part for this guy, next step is to retopo him and also unwrap.

Elithenia

This is looking really nice!!

Svyat

Starting to Retopologize

lotet

Loks really nice and clean.

Svyat

Thank you! @lotet

Svyat

Today's progress. What I've noticed is that retopo becomes easier the more you do it. I'm trying to keep it as clean as possible also watching for polygon density, hoping for it to be equal all throughout. Here is today's work. CCs are welcome and encouraged as always

lotet

Just make sure he can bend the ams up at the shoulder joint. also the hair is looking a bit dense in the back view.

keep it up!

Svyat

Hey there! I haven't updated this in a while so here is what I have so far. I've finished retopologizing my guy ,and after that I started to bake maps in xnormal. (most of this work is tedious so I guess that's why I didn't update this threat for so long) After that I went into Substance painter to clean the maps as well as to paint the diffuse map for him. I'm always open to critique, so if you got anything I'd be glad to here you out!
 

Elithenia

It is coming along nicely, keep it up

amirabd2130

this is coming along very nicely

Svyat

Hey guys! I'm happy to admit that I'm finally done with the character I've been working on for what seems like ages. You can find him here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OZXJ6 

lotet

No eyes?

Svyat

Well since it's really hard to see if he has working eyes on the concept itself, I decided for time's sake to make him blind

Svyat

Actually never mind what I said earlier. I decided to fiddle around with his eyes and make the blindness effect more apparent and this is what I got. I also noticed that my roughness map was inside out so I changed that too . Thanks for all the critique and help along the way I feel like i'm finally done with this guy now!

SpaceRogue

Loving the end result, thanks for sharing your journey ! 

lotet

Much better. was honestly feeling your last shots where a bit lacking. Will you pose him?

Svyat

Yes my friend told me he can rig this guy, and I can pose him afterwards.

Mark Dygert

I think he can use one more pass on the materials.

Right now everything has the same reflective level.  His beard and clothing are almost just as shinny as the polished metal. It makes him look more like a painted garden gnome than an actual organic creature with different materials. 

https://www.marmoset.co/posts/basic-theory-of-physically-based-rendering/

Svyat

Ty for your advice Mark, I adjusted the my roughness to make it more believable. This is the result 

Svyat

Recently decided to update this guy