Huntress character - Need feedback on design, hair, face modelling!
vertex
Hi Polycount, I'm new here. I just graduated college (the UK kind) and I want to start applying for jobs. (Don't want to go Uni for various reasons). I do not want to be a character artist at the start because I find it too difficult, and the competition far too fierce, but I will certainly make more characters some time in the future, so that's why some feedback would be much appreciated!
model
Just the Bow&Arrow
Just the Dagger
Modelled in Blender, textured in Substance Painter. Snake Scale material made in Substance Designer. Hair was done with hair planes and furious stroking of my Wacom in Photoshop. Animations sourced from Mixamo, then fixed up in Blender a little bit.
Stuff I'm looking for feedback on:
- What would've been a better way to go about the hairstyle? I already found it super difficult, and the way I did it was mesh planes that were attached to curves for easier control. And I'm no hair stylist and I feel like I should've found better reference. But I tried doing that and couldn't find anything decent! Is there maybe a resource with a bunch of hairstyles?
- Issues on the face. I'd appreciate some feedback from people who are well versed with making faces and know exactly what feels so ugly about it. My current best guesses are that the eyebrow texture is too thick, the lips shape is too oval, and the overall head shape feels sort of non-unique. And almost masculine.
- Overall design - Do you think the clothing makes sense? I know the shoulder guard is just floating there, but other than that, is there anything else that bothers you or raises questions? I may not want to be a character designer, but I had to design this character by myself because it was originally a college assignment. I still did my best, and I'm sure some knowledge on this topic would still be extremely beneficial. Still though, for my next one, I'm definitely going to use someone else's concept.
- Any other advice that comes to mind that you think could improve on my next project!
Thanks!
model
Just the Bow&Arrow
Just the Dagger
Modelled in Blender, textured in Substance Painter. Snake Scale material made in Substance Designer. Hair was done with hair planes and furious stroking of my Wacom in Photoshop. Animations sourced from Mixamo, then fixed up in Blender a little bit.
Stuff I'm looking for feedback on:
- What would've been a better way to go about the hairstyle? I already found it super difficult, and the way I did it was mesh planes that were attached to curves for easier control. And I'm no hair stylist and I feel like I should've found better reference. But I tried doing that and couldn't find anything decent! Is there maybe a resource with a bunch of hairstyles?
- Issues on the face. I'd appreciate some feedback from people who are well versed with making faces and know exactly what feels so ugly about it. My current best guesses are that the eyebrow texture is too thick, the lips shape is too oval, and the overall head shape feels sort of non-unique. And almost masculine.
- Overall design - Do you think the clothing makes sense? I know the shoulder guard is just floating there, but other than that, is there anything else that bothers you or raises questions? I may not want to be a character designer, but I had to design this character by myself because it was originally a college assignment. I still did my best, and I'm sure some knowledge on this topic would still be extremely beneficial. Still though, for my next one, I'm definitely going to use someone else's concept.
- Any other advice that comes to mind that you think could improve on my next project!
Thanks!
Replies
Big issues I'm seeing primarily is that it doesn't feel feathery. The mask is being cut like the 1 bit masks they use in Fallout 4. Forgiveable if it's a game production. Not so much for a personal beauty shot. Without seeing you texture maps for it, it'll be hard to diagnose the exact things you'd need to do to fix it and perhaps the subsequent hair card layering you'd need to do.
FACE
It's not looking its best because:
1) Anatomy is overall off: not nailing the planes of the face, bony landmarks, etc.
2) That make up looks airbrushed on, not painted on. Makeup doesn't usually apply like that.
3) I don't think you baked the face from a high poly sculpt.
4) The eyebrows are also a problem, but it's because they're caked on. I'd suggest giving them thee same construction you give the hair.
DESIGN
This is the biggest challenge. There's a lot of opportunity to improve here.
Not much about her design tells me she hunts at all.
Jusst looking at her, I see a woman who has had to scavenge for weird trinkets in some trash pile of a world, and has maybe managed to find a couple pieces worth ussing ass actual armor. And most likely lives in the jungle or hot area given her clothes. Elements, icons, and symbols are not consistent across the trinkets. I don't sense a strong theme. It just overall reads as a hodge podge.
If you have the time, I'd revisit the concept again. Give her a more interesting silhouette. Focus on big, interior elements that emphasizes that she hunts. Recent good examples of this include Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn (though she doesn't have the strongest character design to me).
Good job on getting a model done though; that's a feat in and of itself for some.
You're right, the design lacks focus, it's not clear what kind of world this character lives in or what they do. I chose never to revisit this character(due to burnout) but I will absolutely use this feedback on my next project, so thank you.
Some very good points about the face as well. I did try sculpting, and failed, so eventually I had to resort to what I can do due to time constraints, which at the time was poly modelling, but I did learn a lot from my failures and for my next project I won't give up, however long it takes.
As for the hair texture, I can show you: [Link] (Alpha, Color, Normal)
There are three types of strands, from left to right the idea was:
1. The most common strand, for the middle part of the hair
2. The outermost parts of the hair, loose strands and the like
3. The innermost parts of the hair, just to provide a base and prevent the hair from being see-through.
I did this based on what I found on The Witcher 3's Ciri, but I couldn't grasp the principles of: 1) How to actually place these strands in the most efficient manner, 2) How to style the hair, 3) Most importantly, how to render the bloody thing in a game engine.
On Sketchfab it is indeed using 1-bit masking because other modes resulted in being able to see the silhouette of the bald head through the hair. I don't know if that's my fault, I thought it was just a limitation and everyone uses the 1-bit mask way.
In UE4 it utilizes the Dither node, resulting in a noisy 1-bit mask(looks slightly better than the Sketchfab version) since real translucency has issues with sorting and reflectivity.
In Blender Cycles I'm able to use proper translucency and that's where it looks the best.