The Bi-Monthly CHARACTER ART Challenge | April - May

Alemja

Welcome to the Bi-Monthly Character Art Challenge!

Challenge will run until the end of May
Previous Challenge Thread

How it works

• Every new challenge, 3 Character Concepts will be provided
  

• You're free to approach any of the concepts however you like, as long as you stay true to the essence of the original concept.

• You have until the end of the deadline to complete any of the given concepts.

Guidelines

• Leave at least one critique per post. Being able to effectively receive, and give constructive criticism is an invaluable skill as any type of artist.
• There are no software restrictions; you're welcome to use as little, or as many different software packages as you like. However do try to make the final result game-ready
  
• Post your work in progress in the thread. You're welcome to cross post on different sites (Artstation, Facebook, etc.)
• Before starting your character, break down the concept and plan your work accordingly. Being able to effectively estimate how long it will take to complete a project is an important skill, especially for freelance artists.
• Your final presentation should be posed and rendered in any real time engine. (Marmoset, UE4, Cryengine, Unity, etc.)
• Don't be afraid to ask questions, but don't hesitate to find the answer on your own - chances are, the answer to your problem has already been answered within these forums
• We're all here to grow as artists. Learn as much as you can, and share what you've learned.
• If you feel anything should be modified or added to these guidelines, please let me know!

Resources

• Polycount Character Wiki 
• Polycount Tutorial List
• Monthly Character Art Challenge Pinterest Boards
• Polycount Character Art Challenge Facebook Group

Concepts

Please credit and link to the artists when posting on other sites!

Richard by Shinoo Lee


Little Witch by Tatiana Kholopenko


The Fourteen Golden Weapons by Nesskain hks

How concepts are chosen

• Trying to keep it consistently one male character, one female and one other non-human (robot, creature, humanoid, etc)
• Trying to keep the 3 concepts look like they are part of a theme or could fit in similar universe.
  
• Concepts must be full body and clearly drawn. There shouldn't be a lot of guesswork on what the details or proportions are. Turnarounds are a good thing to have, but not required
• Concepts shouldn't be too complex or too simple to allow people to get them done in the time-frame while also finding something interesting and giving a challenge.
• Must be able to link back to the original source artist to they can be properly credited, places like Pinterest can lead to link rot and that's not any good for the concept artist.
• If you have any suggestions of themes you would like to see in the future, send me a message!
  

Daniel_Swing

Sweet! I'll see if I can find time to partake in this challenge!

polygonmonster

Nice concepts.

ruebenDodds

Great looking concepts.

aquila

Perfect! A good chance to practice stylized character modeling .

polygonmonster

Yesterday basemesh.

Edgar T

Man, the concepts this time are.... osom

DonEngland

Fun concepts.  Hope to join in later this month, probably making Richard.

RuiShi

Im gonna go outside my comfort zone and take on Richard, looking forward to seeing everyone's work!

shayleen_hulbert

OH these are some spicy concepts, its hard to choose between them. I can't join in but i'm really excited to see what everyone creates. 
Good luck! 

Melazee

Well, I've already made a bipedal canine character, so I will go for the girl witch I think! Good luck everyone!

Bolovorix

I've been wanting to do a humanoid wolf-man thing for a while now. Guess this is the perfect reason to actually do it! Spent some time yesterday getting a rough base sculpted. 

cryhouse

good beginning! i think i'll take the king, everyone is choosing the wolf^^

Tri_Harder

Long time lurker, first time poster. These sculpts are looking good guys, I'll be very interested in how you both tackle the fur. I started with King Richard model last night, I managed to finish the sword model, There's still some rough parts that need to be cleaned up, I'll hopefully be able to tackle that tonight.

CocoaCup

Hey there guys Really love these concepts! I decided to go for the wolf-guy, really enjoying the concept art and I always wanted to try more stylized piece. I started working on basic blocking nothing fancy I'm struggling with the hands a bit but I hope I will fix it soon. 

Melazee

Great work so far everyone! Seems like the wolf one is very popular!

I've started doing the base on the girl... although her face kinda looks like an alien dude right now but it's alright. I'm going to do a retopo for her final base (hopefully tomorrow evening) and make her more lady-like.

Hard to figure out her body shape from the concept, so I've sort of made one up here. You won't see it in the final one of course, but it'll be handy for figuring out the clothing.

The sketches are literally just me figuring stuff out before I modelled her. That heap of mess on the right is split into layers so I can better understand the layering going on with the clothing, but I will go back into it before I start modelling the clothing and make sure I have nailed it in 2D first.

CocoaCup

Hey guys

Here's my update with the woof-man. I refined the base a little bit and started adding the layers, pants, armor parts, belts, etc. I also redone the hands and feet, since I really wasn't happy with it. I'm also considering on starting with the Little Witch concept too, if it's OK to work on two concepts at the same time  

Alemja

@CocoaCup You are always welcome to do more than one What ever you think you can get done in about a 2 month span.

Kieron23

Hey everyone

I'm having some trouble figuring out the right proportions and anatomy of the King. Any critiques are welcome.

ruebenDodds

Great work everyone so far. I have decide to do the little witch. Hope to get it done by the deadline. But I will continue working on it after the time period as well. ^_^ Trying to figure things for the character so far for myself. So I start by doing a quick 2D work out from the concept art for myself.



But thinking that I might be off with the proportions for myself. But any advice or feedback would be appreciated, because I here to learning and start making character. ^_^ Currently working on a rough basemesh using primitives for myself before diving into the primary forms.



Still working on it and have lot to go with it. But hope learning and improve on it every day.

Tri_Harder

Kieron23 said:

Hey everyone

I'm having some trouble figuring out the right proportions and anatomy of the King. Any critiques are welcome.

Yeah, King's proportions are very stylized, I think your model should be a bit wider all around, I think your off to a good start btw.

razzman

Hey! 
Nice start everyone!

Picked Little Witch to practice some cartoony style.
So far the wip:

Bolovorix

Been slowly picking away at this on my lunch breaks. Trying to get the shapes of the fur to feel right around the head. It's been super fun and challenging.

djackson362

Hi this is my first post and first attempt at a challenge.  Its very humbling  and motivating to see all the great posts.   Just looking for any kind of feedback thanks and good luck.  

Sense42

Hi everyone, I've decided to enter this competition. I'll try to reproduce "Richard".
@Bolovorix your start looks great to me. I really like the anatomy and proportions.
@CocoaCup Nice sart. I have some critiques to make. One is that the torso looks too short to me. Next I'll try to inflate triceps on the arm. In the end the face seems to have an evil smile on it (have you done it on purpose?) try lowering and taking forward the tips of the mounth maybe.

@Kieron23 I'm struggling with proportion too. I think your basemesh is too high based on the concept.

Started from a sphere, dynameshed and a lot of push and pull has brung me to this. C&C are much appreciated.

Kieron23

Thanks for the feedback guys. I have a lot of refining to do for the hair and armour but this is where i'm at so far.

djackson362

Hi.  Here is an update on Wolfie.  This is a screenshot from Unity.  I have no idea what Im doing but Im gonna keep going lol.  If anyone knows how to render out images from Unity besides screenshots please let me know.  I'm assuming I will have to do some scripting eventually.  Thanks to everyone for sharing.  Keep up the good work!

Sunray

djackson362 said:

Hi.  Here is an update on Wolfie.  This is a screenshot from Unity.  I have no idea what Im doing but Im gonna keep going lol.  If anyone knows how to render out images from Unity besides screenshots please let me know.  I'm assuming I will have to do some scripting eventually.  Thanks to everyone for sharing.  Keep up the good work!

Hey man not sure why you want to render something out in unityjust use marmoset or sketchfab but if you want to render in unity you don't need scripting. Just set up a room and create some lights and you can use some post procesing components to tweak colors a  bit and contrast and so on. Also in the lightning tap you can set a custom sky.

djackson362

Sunray said:

djackson362 said:

Hi.  Here is an update on Wolfie.  This is a screenshot from Unity.  I have no idea what Im doing but Im gonna keep going lol.  If anyone knows how to render out images from Unity besides screenshots please let me know.  I'm assuming I will have to do some scripting eventually.  Thanks to everyone for sharing.  Keep up the good work!

Hey man not sure why you want to render something out in unityjust use marmoset or sketchfab but if you want to render in unity you don't need scripting. Just set up a room and create some lights and you can use some post procesing components to tweak colors a  bit and contrast and so on. Also in the lightning tap you can set a custom sky.

Thanks for the reply.  I was just asking because I wanted to do some animation work in Unity later.  

djackson362

@Sunray  thx for your advice!  I had trouble with sketchfab in the past so I tried again to see if I could get it up.  
Thanks \again!   
model            

Alemja

@djackson362 It looks like your normals are inverted, it's causing strange shading and seams. I also need to point out that this challenge is not about who can finish the fastest, you still have 1 month to finish take the time to clean up your work a bit. Right now you have straps and floaters improperly intersecting into the body, polygon distribution that could be improved and material definition needs work. I would also highly recommend showing more views earlier on (3/4 and side) so we can more clearly see problem areas earlier on. For example I was unable to see how flat his torso was until the sketchfab viewer post because it was only shown from the front and side.

djackson362

@Alemja Hi thank you so much for your comments.  Id like to tell you I hope to be as talented as you one day your work is really amazing.  I know the normals need to be flipped I get a little confused with that sometimes.  I understand about the deadline Im just trying to stay engaged so it doesn't end up in the project graveyard.  I agree about the views and I will work on all the things you pointed out.  I would like to ask you a question about material definition and texture work what would your workflow be for this model to get it looking AAA.  Thanks again!

Tri_Harder

Hi Guys, sorry for the lack of updates, been really busy with work at the moment, but I have managed to squeeze in some time here and there. I'm currently working on the head and hair at the moment, but I might abandon this style of hair since it will probably be a pain to unwrap in the time left and just go for something that's a bit more uniform in it's overall shape. The head is still a dynamesh hence some of the messiness around the mouth, I plan on doing a cleaned up version later this week. 

Naeevhna

Hello everyone! I'm totally new to Polycount AND character modeling! So I chose the Little Witch concept to start off. I didn't detail out the body too much, since she has all these layers of clothes on.
So here are screenshots of how far I am.
Like I said, I'm a total beginner at character modelling, so useful C&C, tips on the upcoming retopo, etc, are all more than welcome!

gacek95

Hello everyone
I'm bit late... started few hours ago , but there is still one month for me, so not so bad.

I decided to make the little witch to train making some girls.
started with fast body and accessories blockout.

@Naeevhna  Can You show the character in clothes from the side? 

razzman

It is going slow for me..was adding more assets ( carpet, feathers, collar, clothing, jewels braids and lantern) as low po and polished the character just a tiny bit. Also started the Hair blocking...currently as placeholder.

Naeevhna

@razzman  It's coming along real great! I think I used the same Zbrush brush as you : the curvestrapsnap? If not, ok, but I found it was super useful for the hair and clothes (yes I did the braids using that brush, annoying as hell, but still good to master). I was wondering how you did the carpet though? I was thinking of just doing the base in Blender and then the detailing in Zbrush, but is there a way in Zbrush to do this?

razzman

@Naeevhna Thanks, i wish i could do this little faster though. As for braids i used an free IMM brush (basic braids) and inflated and tuned  a little...also did some versions with Zspheres but did not use them. Definitely Curvestrap is another option for this but a hassle to manage and keep it clean for me.
The carpet was done in Blender like this -> drew a spiral in Ai (was quicker than in Blender: make curve spiral) export as svg -> import to Blender -> convert to mesh and extrude..solidify and finally export as obj for Zbrush. Other assets were also made in Blender (Lantern and jewellery)..because iam quite use to it and this goes faster than doing this with Zmodeler.

I hope this helps you, if not do not hesitate to ask more.
PS. Your work is going real nice too ..I like the colors you painted in!

Elithenia

for the braids, make sure that the end of the braids are thicker if you're having that big of a hair clump at the end. Right now it looks like it is glued on as the braid itself would not have that much hair to end in a clump. Check some references on braids for this  

Sense42

@Naeevhna to be new to character modeling you're doing great. I think that the torso is too short for you character. Try to make it longer and shortening the legs. Face is really cute imo.
@razzman Nice start. Only thing I would say about the pose. It seems like she is bended forward to me. Maybe you have done it on purpose, but if it'll be rigged haveing a more natural statnding pose would be better.
@gacek95 Really nice proportion but the head is too big imo.
@Tri_Harder Really nice head and hair. For the hair maybe you can make 4 or 5 strands, make UVs for them and than place your pre-UVed strands on the model.

Here's my progression so far. Now I'll work on face, hairs, furcoat and hands.

razzman

@Elithenia yes i agree, those braids still need some tunings at the ends.

@Sense42 thanks, the pose is bent coz it feels more relaxy.. i cant stand the stiff poses (stiff feels too robotic ) - when the model is ready i will correct the posing for sure. You are doing mostly great...but some crits for your model too: i would suggest to exaggerate the forms more ..like making the hands bigger, bolder..handguards more skewy around the arms and the face more stylized- simple clean sharp forms like the reference image. The sword is nice and clean..only feels a tad bold- i would make it flatter.

Cheers,

Naeevhna

@Sense42 thanks for the tips! I made her torso short to keep close to the original concept as best I could. But I'll give it a try, I'm not too far in so these kind of changes aren't so fatal

@razzman Thanks for sharing your technique! I had a similar idea for the carpet, but for thickness, learning to use the Panel Loops option in the geometry panel is a big plus! If I find a nice tutorial I'll post for everyone here, but I mainly learned it at school. Maybe I'll do a simple tutorial about it if I don't find one, but it's pretty easy to use.

@gacek95 Sorry I couldn't post earlier (University ->End of semester->concept of time destroyed lol),  so here are some views of the side with clothes : 

gacek95

@Naeevhna Just like i thought... character from the front view looks good but is much worse from the side(you missed the S curve of the body), next time try to put more time in simple, but accurate body blockout and then proceed to adding clothes, character will look a lot nicer .
Also small suggestion from me, try to bend forearm a little bit towards front, pose will look less stiff.

Sense42

@razzman Thank for your critiques! Yes, stylised character aren't really my thing, I find difficult to push proportions and forms to the right point. I'll try to apply your suggestions

Naeevhna

@gacek95 I thought I was making her just fine, thinking about my animator friend that wants to rig and animate her after I'm done. But he had the same critics you had about her. I look at her now and just moving the entire body around really makes a difference! So thank you so much for making me open my eyes about this, I really appreciate it! I also changed the hands and pants, to make her less of a hassle for my friend. Here's some before and after images

gacek95

@Naeevhna  A lot better now


Small update.
 I started adding more accessories, fixed some proportions and did some sculpt on some parts.
Today I have all day to work on her, so I hope to do most of highpoly, or even finish hp.

djackson362

Hi.  Just sharing an update on the wolf.  Not really sure where Im going but still hacking away.  I haven't got around to modeling the sword yet this is just a stand in.  Please let me know what you think.  I really like all the posts for the Lil Witch she is very popular lol.  Thanks keep going guys and gals.  model

SamStark

Hi people, I would like to give this challenge a try, is there any poly count limit for the model?

Alemja

@SamStark No limits, you can do a super low res 5K triangle model with hand painted textures, or you can do a current gen 100K triangle model with all of the fancy maps to go with or anything in-between. It is really up to you, whatever you think you can get done in roughly the time given, the only criteria is that it has to be a game model. Hope that clears it up!

gacek95

Finally ! The High poly model is done

tell me guys what You think about her. It will be cool to hear some critique
@djackson362 Is nice, but You should spend more time on studying making sculpts, because this will be base for texturing,animation etc. 

djackson362

@gacek95  Thanks for your feedback.  I like your high res!  I agree with you my sculpting skills need some work.  I just didn't really know how to approach the fur look.  I had started over but decided to keep this I guess lol.  Any pointers would be appreciated.  I guess I can point out is where the shirt meets the pants at the bottom looks a lil odd.  I would maybe flare it out a bit and add some more wrinkle detail like you have in the mid section.  Also the eyes maybe you could rotate them out a bit a looks like she is a lil cross eyed at the moment.  Thanks again!