[Finished] Emily

Lythrae

Hi everyone! ♥

I'm new to polycount, I want to improve my art in general. I feel like posting it here and getting feedback would be a great start.
I feel a bit scared of showing my work as it's nowhere near as amazing as all of the other posts, but I guess everyone starts somewhere! 

This is one of the two characters that I'm working on for my final major project at university. The character is an average girl in her 20s.
I started the model using primitives and dynamesh. I am still very lost finding a style for the character. I want it to be stylised, something like Overwatch or League characters, specially the ones in the K/DA video

Lythrae

Progress:
Added Toes
Made some changes, specially to the face and refined it more

brettd

Hi Lythrae

I'm also new to polycount, but I hope I might be able to be of some help

The character looks like a solid start. I'm not sure what you're using for reference, but have you checked out the polycount wiki? They have some resources for anatomy, topology, etc.

For your character in particular you might find this anatomy reference useful, and if you've not already looked at it, the article about K/DA animation (with concept art) might help with getting the style you want.

For your actual model the main thing I notice is the legs being a bit off proportion. I'd make the thighs larger, and reduce the gap between them (particularly where they meet at the pelvis the gap is too wide). Across your model the form is generally quite soft and smooth. Having more clear landmarks might help to get the overall proportions and anatomy all correct, and also for pushing the shapes closer to a stylised look.

I hope that's helpful, you've got a good start. It looks like you've done a good job with the hands (Which I'm rubbish with), and I particularly like the hair.

Lythrae

Thank you so much for the feedback brettd! I changed the proportion of the legs and made the gap more narrow as you said and it looks so much better!  I am looking at references of all types, from real life to stylised characters, I still need to add some landmarks but here is some progress:







I polypainted the face here (though I turn it off while sculpting because I get a bit confused with the lights and shadows):

I find it really difficult as well to sculpt hands, here are some early wips of the hands incase it helps ! 



The base of the hand started off with a sphere, but I used the taper option to make it into a square and then shaped it with the move brush. Then I started adding cylinders and for the finger tip I used a sphere. I still need to work a lot on the hands, but I will be posting progress

And thank you for the references and the wiki!! (I had no idea about them! )

HixaLupa

It can be hard to see in T and A poses but try and see if the tip of her fingers would reach halfway down her thigh when they're hanging down straight, that can help you see if the arms or torso or thighs are too long/short I feel like her feet are a little on the large side? But it does seem in proportion to her arms (idk if you've heard about your foot fitting between your elbow and wrist, again hard to try and visualise in A/T pose but something to bear in mind maybe?)

I'm really liking the face though she's really cute! I wonder if pushing the size and angle of her eyes could make her more stylised just to tease it beyond reality a tad more? Hope some of these ramblings might help lmao

theStoff

Looking great so far! I have a small note about the face. the sides of her head at the top bulge too much I feel making it seem like the cheek bones are traveling up the skull. he ears could maybe stick out a bit too. right now they seem like they're being held back by something. Lastly I think the shoulders look a little tight almost as though she's shrugging. Either way though you're doing  a great job. Just carry on

Lythrae

HixaLupa said:

It can be hard to see in T and A poses but try and see if the tip of her fingers would reach halfway down her thigh when they're hanging down straight, that can help you see if the arms or torso or thighs are too long/short I feel like her feet are a little on the large side? But it does seem in proportion to her arms (idk if you've heard about your foot fitting between your elbow and wrist, again hard to try and visualise in A/T pose but something to bear in mind maybe?)

I'm really liking the face though she's really cute! I wonder if pushing the size and angle of her eyes could make her more stylised just to tease it beyond reality a tad more? Hope some of these ramblings might help lmao

Thank you for the feedback!!

(ignore the shoulders )

I find it so tricky to know what's right in stylised proportions, does it look good or should I make the torso shorter?
In the concept art of K/DA the legs are more exaggerated, but I don't think I want the legs so long for this project


(another weird image sorry lol) But yeah! you are right, that actually helps a lot, I feel like I should make them a bit shorter!
And thank you! I'm glad you like the face, I will try playing with the angle of her eyes! Thank you so much

Lythrae

theStoff said:

Looking great so far! I have a small note about the face. the sides of her head at the top bulge too much I feel making it seem like the cheek bones are traveling up the skull. he ears could maybe stick out a bit too. right now they seem like they're being held back by something. Lastly I think the shoulders look a little tight almost as though she's shrugging. Either way though you're doing  a great job. Just carry on

Aaah! Thank you so much, those are really good points! I kept thinking there was something wrong with the face but wasn't sure what! I'll work on those and I'll keep updating  

By the way I LOVE your work! Your style is amazing!!

Lythrae

Some more progress! 

(now looking at this picture I can see the issue for the shoulders, I was focusing on the top part of them, but I think is underneath the shoulders where it needs fixing)

Made the face a bit more stylised based on the feedback! (I think I like it a lot more now!) 

I finished the retopology (I am still not finished with the highpoly, but I'm thinking of reprojecting the details and continue working on it)
I feel like the retopo for the hands is not very good, I don't know (I still need to make the fingers thicker, maybe that's why it looks weird?)
if someone can give me critique on this that would be great! (or the topology in general)

brettd

The models looking good, you're making nice progress!

The topology generally looks good, but there's a few bits you could change to get better edge flow for deformation.

A reference I find quite useful is Brian Tindalls website, his body and face mesh is really clean and with good edge flow.

Your torso looks good, the only thing I'd change is the shoulder/neck and the pelvis. The top of the shoulder is good, but you could do with more loops beneath. If you're going to be animating or posing the model, those areas will need a few more edges which follow the direction of movement. The same thing with the pelvis, tweaking the angle and density of the loops will give you a better mesh when deformed.

For the hands, I'd add an extra loop to the thumb so that it can end cleanly (and in the same way as you've done the other fingers)

I'd also add an extra edge between each finger, so that you've got more to work with when moving the fingers around.

Apart from that it looks pretty good! For sculpting it might be helpful to push the last edge loops on the finger closer to the end, so that you've got a more square tip without the sharp angle. And then adding, or moving the loops along the fingers so that they are tighter at joints helps when fingers are bent.

Lythrae

@brettd thank you so much!! This has been super helpful! 

I've also have done some quick photobashing to see what outfit would suit the character. 
She is 18-22 years old girl that goes to university and suffers from mental health problems. How I imagine her is like a sweet and creative person that just wants to fit in with the rest of the people and make friends.

I've also been looking at the art of Life is Strange, as I think its kind of what I'm looking for in terms of clothing for this character.
I will be using Marvelous Designer for the clothes but I still want to explore how other outfits would look




(clothes in this pic are not final, they are just for now) 

Apart from the outfit, I also need to work on her hands and hair, so I will continue updating soon
I have another character for this same project, which is a creature. Not sure if I should post it here, or just start a new thread with the progress of the creature

Thanks so far everyone for the wonderful feedback ! 

Lythrae

Made her dress and part of the boots in Marvelous Designer (yep I completely changed her outfit )

Made the coat in ZBrush and also changed her face
These are some ref images that I'm using for the character:


I want to create a pattern with the roses like the ones in her dress (picture on the right) and I'm working on a palette that will match both of the characters. Link to the other character post

Lythrae

I'm really enjoying handpainting the textures, especially the face! Though there's something wrong with the face but I can't tell what it is

Lythrae

I finally finished it! Thank you for all the feedback and support, I feel like I have improved and learnt a lot from this project!!

Emily on Sketchfab and Artstation

♥ Emily ♥

Cordero

nicely done! I guess you have been busy with these projets!  
a few tips regarding uvws: it's a good idea to keep everything that you can "vertical" on the uvws. for example, try and avoid rotating the head in the uvw space, keep it straight ( you can see thick white lines on the image below to show you some of the examples ) 
so basically, whenever you have something that is symmetrical, it is a very good idea to try and keep it symmetrical in the UVW space as well, keeping the mirror line vertical on the uvw space, just as on the geometry.

another quick tip is, if you UVW everything to one texture map, you can try and scale up the face and eyes of the uvw map, so they will have more texture resolution to them. that is good, because you can paint in more detail there, and generally the face is the spot which draws the most attention, and is shown quite often.

good luck with your next projects!

Lythrae

Thank you so much for all your feedback @Cordero !! This is great! I'll follow this on my next project, I think I should look more in depth into how to UV unwrap properly and clean because I'm always rushing this stage thank you and good luck with your projects too!