Retrogasm 2018 - Sami (Advance Wars)

JunkieKong

Hey all, I've entered the Retrogasm comp and I'm making Sami from Advance Wars:
I want to properly challenge myself, making a female character is already something I never do and I've decided to get away from my usual hand-painted, unlit characters, which should force me to git gud at substance PBR.

I've made a start and been mucking around for a while on proportions and face:

I'll probably be tweaking the face and hair for weeks to come because I'm still not happy with it, but for the rest of the body -- OH SWEET MERLIN WHERE ARE HER FINGERS??!




C&C welcome, I'll try to post updates here when I've got something good to show.

JunkieKong

Just like Santa being resurrected on the third day of Christmas, I'm resurrecting this project while I've got some holiday time to work on my own stuff.

Being away for it for so long has probably been good to look at it with fresh eyes and pick out the areas that need to be changed, hopefully you'll agree Sami is looking better! Also my power cut out while I had the files opened and corrupted both the latest zbrush and maya file I was working on, super fucking annoying but I guess a good excuse to redo the face and such.

I'm doing the gear like knee-pads/shoes/pouches etc using traditional edge retention modelling because I don't think my zbrush skills are anywhere good enough to get clean results by sculpting them.

Maybe I'll finish this thing? Who knows, still lots to do!

Quasar

The new version is definitely better. Are you trying to reproduce the same style as your reference material though? In the drawing her face has more Asian qualities, though it's a rather unique style. Your proportions are off by quite a bit too; even though it's a stylized character, her proportions are quite realistic

JunkieKong

Hey @Quasar thanks for the feedback! I think I'll do another pass on proportions, your proposed changes are definitely closer to realistic but it's not really the look I'm going for. I like the idea of her having long legs + baggy pants, but right now perhaps the legs and torso could be a bit shorter, closer to your proportions. She definitely has a big bobble head in the original art, so I'll be keeping that exaggerated but it could be scaled down a tad.

Quasar

Yeah, in hindsight the proportions I gave her in the paint over were too realistic. In your reference picture she stands 6.5 heads tall, which is actually realistic, but they made her torso short and legs long for a more stylized look. Anyways, keep at it

Torch

Nice update on the face, looks way better. Before going into any detailing I'd fix the proportions as mentioned, also some work to the general gesture of the model is needed. Right now the gesture and rhythm is very generic and stiff, the body is also fairly boxy and not very feminine. It would be good to study some female gesture in drawing and other sculpts here on Polycount, then try and mimic that more closely.

If you're able to I would strongly recommend checking out Matt Thorup's (aka Redbeard) Gumroad and more specifically, the advanced female design tut - could apply pretty well to what you're doing. 

https://gumroad.com/redbeard

Can't wait to see more  

JunkieKong

@Torch great feedback - I definitely need to work on the form, I'm never sure how far gesture should be pushed for a neutral pose/what will result in a natural looking end product. Thanks very much for the tutorial recommendation, I'll try to check it out soon, could be exactly what I need! This is my first proper attempt at a female character and it's kinda challenging to not make it look like a train wreck!

Anyway here's a small update on some proportions and tweaks to anatomy. Have not touched the arms or hands yet and that's the stuff I'm dreading...