@Taylor Brown , hahaha. Yeah, time really flies. Honestly, it didn't seem that long at all. I just told myself early on that I was just gonna get it right no matter how long it took and just kind of forgot about time. In the end I still didn't hit quality I wanted but definitely an improvement over anything I've done so far.
Thanks for the help and encouragement along the way. I really appreciate it.
I just received an in depth review of my work which I submitted to the Rookies 2019 competition. I thought it was very helpful and well worth the price ($54), as it was a pretty in depth review -- about 20 minutes worth -- from not just one person but nine industry professionals.
I'll give a paraphrase of the key points they made:
First, I was happy that most of the points they made were things I had determined myself as well. However there was a few things that I had an opposite conclusion on, so really useful to get that cleared up.
Key points were:
Going for photorealistic human and animal is the pinnacle. If you fall short (which I did), recruiters just gonna think, "well, he's not there yet." So if you are going for job ASAP, just focus on doing photo-realistic props to begin with.
From 9 judges, my grade was about a "C." That's what I gave myself as well. (though I added a + because, well I needed a little pat on the back.)
Show more understanding of anatomy. I was a little against some of the things they said about this as they felt I didn't show any anatomical detail in the tiger, but I did spend a LOT of time studying tigers -- I can tell you all the muscles and how they work together to make the beast hunt and kill -- but probably I was too careful and tried to stay very true to realistic tiger anatomy. That is, I took into account of fat and fur to a degree that you don't see big muscles bulging out. It is a pet peeve of mine to see overdone musculature -- I feel like that feels like the artist shouting, "look, I know anatomy!" -- but in any case, most everything they said was spot on and the fact of the matter is you got to show people what they want to see. If I feel like I need to be a little heavy handed to get people to understand what I know, just gotta do it.
Additionally, about the tiger anatomy, they mentioned that it looked like I had missed some important proportions in the jaw -- that if the mouth closed the teeth would ram into eachother. But I did actually design it so that the teeth line up perfectly -- I did not model it is pose to begin with. In fact I used a scanned tiger skull to build it off of... but this shows not a flaw in the judges perception but a flaw in my presentation. More on that below.
They also pointed out some common beginner mistakes I made with Durga's face and other anatomy. Eyelids being open like she's a deer in headlights; very generic shoulders and lack of care in curling of the fingers. I was not aware of the eyelid things but had kind of felt the same way about the hands and arms.
One thing they didn't mention but I think is a big weakness is there should be a lot more small folds and detail in the sari. Overall it's very stiff looking.
Biggest thing they thought detracted from my presentation was lack of breakdown shots. They feel that in-depth breakdowns is more important than the rendered presentation. Got to show that you understand all the technical details of 3d. When I submitted my project I had believed the opposite -- that for a competition the only thing that really mattered was the presentation. Well, now I know.
There was one little thing that irked me... they said some of the topology looked like auto-retopo or decimation master... I did all of it manually!!! That shit took a lot of time but I determined to do it right. I don't never use automatic stuff even in my throw-away practice work. (to be fair though, I only had one breakdown shot and it was kind of small. But anyway, even if the shoe doesn't fit it still lets me know what the perception is, and perception is reality, of course)
My take-aways and plan from here :
First, I have two more years to practice before I must get a job, so I'm gonna continue on with full characters and creatures. If I got to go backwards and just do props to get a job, I'll do that, but it's the same skills so I will keep on with the big challenges for awhile.
I will focus my next few characters and creatures on anatomy. Less quantity of additional props and complex clothing, and instead put all that time and attention in to proper hands, faces, ankles, toes, knees, belly buttons... you know, the good stuff. I probably won't spend as much time pushing for perfection, but just try to bang out a lot of 70% characters with the correct primary and secondary forms.
When it comes time to carpet bomb the interwebz with my portfolio, I'll make sure my characters have in depth breakdowns that demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that I understand how a game character fits into the entire game pipeline. Also, I'll be sure to fully demonstrate and explain all the decisions I made, the research I made into anatomy, and give plenty of shots from various angles to show off my work completely. If I took the time to make sure my tiger jaw is absolutely anatomically correct and is designed to be so in all poses, I need to show that so that it cannot be mistaken.
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