[WIP] Eder from Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

OtterBlotter

Good day! 

This is my first WIP post and I would love to receive some critique and, if possible, advice on improving both the current project and my overall technique.

This is the picture I'm using as a base concept for the model.

I've decided to start with making armour and apparel. Nothing is textured, I've applied some base materials from ZBrush to my subtools for some sort of preliminary picture. I plan to add in all the micro-detail in Substance Painter as soon as I am done with modeling and retopologizing.

I am not quite convinced with how the folds look and what is the amount of detail I should put in at this stage. I suppose that breaking up the uniformity of the scales on the scalemail can safely be postponed till after the posing.


I feel like sabre and shield came along rather nicely, although I do have my doubts on how the blade's sharp edges will behave on later stages and whether the handle looks crisp enough to be believable in any way. 



This is my first work in progress post and the first time I properly put my work out there, so by all means do tell if my presentation is insufficient in any way!

Thanks for sticking to the end and have a nice day

OtterBlotter

I've moved on to sculpting the face and the visible parts of his arms. Can't say that I'm entirely happy with how it is looking but considering how that is pretty much the first face for me I can't quite tell what in particular is off about it. The neck is not done yet, I'm just throwing stuff around at this point.

Here is the picture of all the parts assembled:



And here are the parts:



Hair is there just as a placeholder to help judge the proportions etc.



Tried making hands too.



And again, I would highly appreciate any sort of feedback and I express gratitude towards anyone who've shown enough interest in this post to reach this point

jose.fuentes

@OtterBlotter

great start! I really like your armor, the character it self seems really emaciated, that stood out to me right away.  I would add more volume to his neck area, right now its really thin, almost as if he couldn't hold up his head.  Same thing with his forearms, super thin and weak looking.  

From the concept this character looks to be hero like, and should probably be a bit beefier 

Hope this helps!

OtterBlotter

Didn't know how to mention a person with a dot in the name so I've ended up doubleposting. Sorry!

OtterBlotter

jose.fuentes said:

@OtterBlotter

great start! I really like your armor, the character it self seems really emaciated, that stood out to me right away.  I would add more volume to his neck area, right now its really thin, almost as if he couldn't hold up his head.  Same thing with his forearms, super thin and weak looking.  

From the concept this character looks to be hero like, and should probably be a bit beefier 

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the input! I didn't really make the neck before and I do agree that it made him look rather unhealthy. Arms, though, were probably a result of me glancing on my own twigs and thinking "yeah, that looks about right!" :P So I've just added a bit of meat to both parts: 

I've also lowered the head a little bit, I felt like the guy had too long a neck.

Tried making a mouth bag for the first time too:


So yeah, as always - thanks for your time and I am looking forward to all potential comments!

OtterBlotter

So, I've tried retopologizing the head, using ZRemesher to get the base topology intact and then remaking eyes and mouth in Maya by hand.


I'm not really good at this and I am not sure how well will it work. I have my concerns regarding how should I go about the mouth. I want to have an ability to open it but I am not entirely sure how to go about this with the high poly I have. I thought I'd make lips go inside a little bit on low poly, enough for the character to have an inner side of the lip and just plop the teeth and gums I've modelled in behind them. The idea is to erase the artefacts that could stem from the differences in topology between high and low poly by hand. 

The inside view:


I can't quite decide on how to actually open the mouth with the model I have, though, and what to use for it - Maya, ZBrush, anything else? 

I'd really appreciate advice on this matter - I feel like just stumbling around till I find a working solution might not be the wisest course of action here

Elithenia

when you expanded the lower arms in the above model, also make sure that you expand the upper arms to match, as right now it looks like he's having large lower arms, but the upper arms are still slimmer. 

As for opening your mouth, you would want to look into how to do a mouthbag. Which is basically just an extruded bag shape into the mouth. However, this is only necessary if you are going to have your model opening his mouth? 
You can use booleans in Zbrush to make a mouthbag shape into the mouth area on the HP, and hence make it a bit easier on yourself. 

and just to be nitpicky. if the shield has a buckler in the middle, you would grip it behind it so you would be able to use it as a punch as well.  


as I am assuming you have moved on from sculpting onto retop, I would suggest that for your next facial sculpt, that you find some reference of a person and try to follow those proportions. Find a model or a friend and get photos of all the angles you can find, and try to model as close to that as possible. 

I would also say that you might have your retop a little bit high at the moment, so try to lower the edge loops where you have more than necessary. 

Keep up the good work

OtterBlotter

Elithenia said:

when you expanded the lower arms in the above model, also make sure that you expand the upper arms to match, as right now it looks like he's having large lower arms, but the upper arms are still slimmer. 

As for opening your mouth, you would want to look into how to do a mouthbag. Which is basically just an extruded bag shape into the mouth. However, this is only necessary if you are going to have your model opening his mouth? 
You can use booleans in Zbrush to make a mouthbag shape into the mouth area on the HP, and hence make it a bit easier on yourself. 

and just to be nitpicky. if the shield has a buckler in the middle, you would grip it behind it so you would be able to use it as a punch as well.  


as I am assuming you have moved on from sculpting onto retop, I would suggest that for your next facial sculpt, that you find some reference of a person and try to follow those proportions. Find a model or a friend and get photos of all the angles you can find, and try to model as close to that as possible. 

I would also say that you might have your retop a little bit high at the moment, so try to lower the edge loops where you have more than necessary. 

Keep up the good work

You are right, I've completely neglected his arms and didn't pay attention to the proportions. I'll try fixing this - I feel like I need to have another go at them at any rate, to fix nails and all that. Thank you for pointing out the discrepancies!

Concerning mouthbag - I'd like to have the guy in the same position he is in the art I have started the post with and that'd mean the gritted teeth facial expression. The question I have was regarding how can I incorporate it into the model at the current stage so that it'd make sense for both HP and LP.

As for the shield: I see what you mean there but I think there might have been some misunderstanding since it's not that easy to judge scale from my screenshots. The shield here is considerably larger than a buckler or a targe and so, unlike these two types, it's boss is meant mostly to deflect direct blows and not for punching as such, hence the position of the handles. Although now that I'm looking at them, I feel like they are too flimsy to hold the weight of such a shield anyway.

And yes, I see what you mean with the face - it does feel somewhat off, I credit that to both my inexperience and trying to use a person with very few and badly aged photos for reference. Which sounds like rather a stupid choice now that I am here.

Thanks for all the input, @Elithenia, I greatly appreciate it and will try to improve on said points.

Bedrock

Your anatomy needs serious improvement.. The no1 thing you need right now is to start using references. Take the front and side shot of some guy who looks close to what you are going for and keep sculpting until all the proportions line up. I might even suggest downloading a skeleton from somewhere and to practice muscle sculpting to really cement the forms into memory. 

I wouldn't spend too much time on doing low poly work. Chances are you will need to do a couple full body nudes before you really nail the anatomy.

OtterBlotter

Bedrock said:

Your anatomy needs serious improvement.. The no1 thing you need right now is to start using references. Take the front and side shot of some guy who looks close to what you are going for and keep sculpting until all the proportions line up. I might even suggest downloading a skeleton from somewhere and to practice muscle sculpting to really cement the forms into memory. 

I wouldn't spend too much time on doing low poly work. Chances are you will need to do a couple full body nudes before you really nail the anatomy.

Thanks a lot for the critique, @Bedrock! I do agree that my anatomy is ways off, even though I did use references - I feel like I should learn to take a step back and just look at my model.

At any rate, tried making his head a little bit more human-like and beefed up the arms a bit as well. 



You are right, of course, that I shouldn't have even bothered with retopologizing at this point - everything just needs a lot of work before I should even think about it. Well, at least I had some practice with making proper edge flows!

Thank you for taking your time and pointing out my mistakes.