The Bi-Monthly CHARACTER ART Challenge | June-July

Alemja

Welcome to the Bi-Monthly Character Art Challenge!

New concepts will be chosen at the start of August
Previous Challenge Thread

How it works

• Every new challenge, 3 Character Concepts will be provided
  
• Pick one concept to work on for the duration of the challenge and post your progress here!
  
• Complete a 3D game res model of your chosen concept
  

Guidelines

• Help other artists grow! When you post an update, also leave a critique for someone else. Share knowledge you have learned
  
• There are no software restrictions; you're welcome to use as little, or as many different software packages as you like.
• There are no polygon or texture restrictions, it can be a 3,000 triangle hand painted model or a 100,000 triangle current gen model. Just make sure the final result is a game model, not a sculpt!
  
• You are welcome to cross post on different sites (Artstation, Facebook, Discord etc.) for additional feedback
  
• 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, 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
• If you feel anything should be modified or added to these guidelines, please let me know!
  

Resources

• Polycount Character Wiki 
• Polycount Tutorial List
• Polycount Character Art Challenge Facebook Group

Concepts

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

Concept by Jor Ros

Mulan by Elena Tormen

Some Sketches by Rong Chen

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. If I cannot find the source or original artist, the art will not be used
• If you are a concept artist and want your concept removed or want to create a concept for a future challenge please feel free to contact me.
  
• If you have any suggestions of themes you would like to see in the future, send me a message!
  

Vontadeh

Looks good, I might go for the girl
When is the deadline? 31st July?
Thanks for the opportunity!

Torch

Really like the female concept, it's like Mulan with a baseball bat

Alemja

@Vontadeh this is a very casual challenge so the soft deadline is July 31st, you're always encouraged to keep working on things if you want though! I pick new concepts every 2 months to keep things fresh.

@Torch It is Mulan! If you check the artist's Instagram they did a bunch of explorations if her in modern clothing.

Vontadeh

Awesome, thanks!

Molo

Gonna give the Mulan concept a shot. We'll see if I actually stay motivated to finish it. Good luck everyone!

beccatherose

The Mulan concept is so fun! Good luck everyone!

ecasie1

Working on a really rough block out for the "Some Sketches" robot baseball player. I still need to re-proportion the body a good bit, but I think It'll come out nicely if I have time to finish it. This is my first time working on the Bi-Monthly Character Art Challenge so any critiques are welcome!  

Agnes_E

Thinking about making the Mulan one my first proper try at zbrush, after only having worked in Mudbox before. It looks like a real fun challenge, especially the sweatshirt that has such a loose shape

Molo

@ecasie1 you are off to a flying start! I love the gesture and the proportions, feels like a very solid interpretation of the concept!

I'm plaiyng pretty loose with the concept but heres my blockout so far. Its all over the place but I'll hopefully have time to fix it later.

Prabh

@Molo
Nice Work 
keep posting

Nick_Simmons

I am looking for a challenge to put out some work and hold myself accountable. I will try my hand at the Guy with the baseball bat and Oni Backpack, looks really cool!

Nick_Simmons

@Molo I did a quick paint over on your work on the Mulan baseball character,


I just wanted to check your proportions. As i felt something were fundamentally differing from the concept. Mainly the neck and waist of the pants. I can tell your going for something more realistic but making those changes will go a long way in bringing your model more in line with the character of the concept.

You are definitely putting out some good work with the jacket and shoes. Everything is reading well for the most part! I would take a look at making the jacket read as a thicker windbreaker but other than that so far everything is working well!

Nick_Simmons

So yesterday I worked up my reference page for this projected using Pureref.
I went through and gathered references of the articles of clothing, props, and general apparel of the character. Then I identified how I wanted to represent the model in 3d. What immediately jumped out to me for this project was Over watch so I gathered some head shots of characters of similar build so I could have something to go off and a level of quality to aim for/ be inspired by.

Tonight I will start by sculpting out the head. Just to get a general idea of the look and feel of this character and set some guidelines as to how I will transfer the concept into 3d!

ellakkaa

Hello! I've been wanting to join the character art challenge since I joined but always had an excuse to not to, but now I'm finally kicking myself in the rear and taking part in this. Even though I have like six other personal projects going on, buuuuut...

Decided to do the Mulan concept, this is now about three sessions in. Slow but steady, trying to find the proper proportions before going into too much detail. I want to get them right since her clothes are mostly skin tight and that shows problems pretty well.

Nick_Simmons

@ellakkaa Looking good! Do you have a game plan for how you will do the the clothing? Marvelous designer or traditional sculpting?

one thing that sticks out to me on your block in is that her neck is longer and thinner than the concept. Beef up that neck and I am sure she'll look more like the curvy athletic build in the concept.

ellakkaa

@Nick_Simmons Thanks! I'm planning on sculpting the clothes, it'll be a fun challenge to try and get the weight of her jacket right. And you're absolutely right about the neck, thanks for pointing that out!

Agnes_E

@ellakkaa I personally would flatten down the nosebridge a bit, but great job on the proportions in general

Solid_Otter

Hey, folks. Going to try to join in on this one. 
@Molo  Nice! Are you going to keep playing with the face shape? I think her jaw is looking a bit strong. 

Here's what I have so far. Still gotta push and pull stuff. 

Alemja

@Molo You have a decent start! If you plan on going the realistic route I highly recommend basing the face off of an actress. Since the character is supposed to be Mulan you're going to want someone Chinese, I call this out because the face reads like it's a white/person-with-european heritage from below the eyes down.

I gathered some reference of a chinese actresss named Yang Mi as an example, and you can see how the jaw/chin is much softer and the nose is less pronounced.

Best of luck!

ellakkaa

@Agnes_E Thanks!

Some blockin progress. Having a lot of trouble getting the shapes of her face right, still needs a lot of work. Next job: collecting reference for her clothes as well as style references, and refining her anatomy.

robzxy94

Hello ! I just started myself this challenge . I'm going for the girl . At the moment I'm 3 hours into this sculpt . I think I started a bit late and I might not finish it in time but I'll do my best . What do you think about my proportions so far ? 

robzxy94

Molo said:

@ecasie1 you are off to a flying start! I love the gesture and the proportions, feels like a very solid interpretation of the concept!

I'm plaiyng pretty loose with the concept but heres my blockout so far. Its all over the place but I'll hopefully have time to fix it later.

What you did so far really looks cool but I have to point the fact that the sweatter even tho looks cool it's not right . In the concept is a bit fluffy and has 2 layers .  And yours feel thin like cotton . When you use MD try to play with the fabric presets to get the right material quality

SedimentarySocks

Decided to finally join in on one of these, this is what I've got so far:

Any feedback on the proportions/anatomy would be greatly appreciated, feel like I've hit a bit of a roadblock with it.

@robzxy94 The main thing i notice with the face is that the nose could do with being a bit lower and flatter, but other than that it looks pretty close. As for the body, the legs and torso needs shortening to bring it in line with the concept.

robzxy94

SedimentarySocks said:

Decided to finally join in on one of these, this is what I've got so far:

Any feedback on the proportions/anatomy would be greatly appreciated, feel like I've hit a bit of a roadblock with it.

@robzxy94 The main thing i notice with the face is that the nose could do with being a bit lower and flatter, but other than that it looks pretty close. As for the body, the legs and torso needs shortening to bring it in line with the concept.

I like what you did with the body . The only thing I have to say is that it feels like it's leaning forward 

robzxy94

Here is a small update . How are the proportions and anatomy now ?

ICESPADE

Good Afternoon,
I will be attempting the Concept by Jor Ros.  I am still in the stages of blocking out the character and placing his accessories accordingly.
@robzxy94 The proportions are getting there.  Try to push more on her silhouette. Legs and hips. Her clothes are form-fitting, so you won't really have to do much once you tighten up her shape. 

ICESPADE

Update: Closing in on the last parts of the blocking out stage. Now working in the shapes and forms.

Arnaud_ROY

Hi, long time i wanted to participate to the Character challenge here, but with my graduation project i've never found the time to I need more stylised character for my portfolio so I started to work on Elena Tormen's Mulan. 

creepyhooman

My progress so far.

AliArto

noo one week left i didn't know there is challenge in polycount i am new member i can't wait till august 
btw where i can find final work i saw Previous Challenge post it's all just WIP 

Djyver

WIP

Alemja

@AliArto This is a very loose, no-pressure challenge and I'm not strict on the deadlines, I switch the concepts out every 2 months to keep things fresh and attract other people who may not have enjoyed previous concepts. I haven't seen much progress on the previous challenge, but people have finished them in the past, sometimes way after the challenge has ended and that is totally ok.

SedimentarySocks

Think I'm about done with the hi-poly, hair still needs a bit more work. Any feedback would be much appreciated!

GinoArdelean

Good Evening.

Started this yesterday kinda late if I'm being honest but wanted to see how far I could get till the deadline I forgot to post the progress yesterday so here I am today.

I'm still in the blocking phase yet just trying to get proportions. Still, have some to fix but that's tomorrows work. I m struggling a lot with the left shoulder its really high and I don't really know how to pose it the back mask is really hard to get right because there's not much information there and I'm having a hard time reading the perspective. So if you have some c&c about that I'll really appreciate it.

@SedimentarySocks I think you did a pretty good job! if you want some c&c I would play a little bit with the volumes of the face like the eyes and maybe the hips too (?). But looking good overall.

creepyhooman

Next. I'm drifting toward semi-realistic interpretation of the concept and I've changed a few things (like the wrapped sport jacket around waist that can't be positioned like that?)

@GinoArdelean

I think the mask is really nice, it has it's character. The only thing so far is that the head in my opinion looks a bit small.

Djyver

---

Djyver

my skill in charactercreating will be better. I think

model

ellakkaa

This is how far I got before I injured my sculpting hand and I was forced to take a break from art stuff. I hope I'll be able to finish this soon but no matter how frustrated I am, now I just need to get my hand better.

creepyhooman

Other than the face and the hair high poly is done and prepared for the retopo.

entropia

When will the new challenge be up?

Alemja

@entropia Today! Sorry about the delay, things have been a little crunchy at work

Alemja

New Challenge is up! https://polycount.com/discussion/203559/the-bi-monthly-character-art-challenge-august-september

All of you are welcome to keep using this thread to work on your characters, it will just no longer be stickied.

GinoArdelean

Good Morning.

I'm kinda late caught a summer cold and I was feeling a little bit down so it took me a little bit longer to "finish it" There are some rough spots that could have received more love but I want to move one to the new ones as they look really good!

Had a ton of fun and learned a lot from the project was really fun tacking some of the problems like the mask or the pose.

It's a 15k tris 1X2048 albedo map Rendered in Marmoset. The mesh and uvs arent anything pretty just zremesh and uvmaster modified to not deform too much and not being too big.

The outline is the same mesh with the normals flipped and all black. kinda sad looking I should spend some time learning how to do a better one.

creepyhooman

And finally....a few months later.