[WIP] Neopets Fanart - Vira
greentooth
Felt inspired to model this character after Claire Hummel posted an art dump of the vector art they made for Neopets (which you can find on her website here!) Neopets was a big part of my childhood and without it I don't know if I would be working in games now -- it inadvertently introduced me to coding and digital art at a really young age. I have a lot of really fond memories of the site and thought it would be fun to revisit it in 3D!
This character, Vira, has different proportions and details in almost every image of her, but I mostly pulled from this image:
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Character Lore from the Neopets site:
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My plan is to make a model capable of really strong, cartoony, exaggerated facial expressions with lots of squash/stretch. I'll be rigging and posing her a bunch of different ways with different props -- there's a dagger design specific to her, and also tons of cool "evil" mirror designs I found on the website. Might even give her a petpet to do some interaction poses.
Here's what I've got so far model-wise. Haven't locked in the cheek fur and tuft of hair just yet. Will probably accentuate the cloth folds in the dress a little bit more. Something about the boots is bugging me but I'm not quite sure what yet...
Any feedback at all would be appreciated
This character, Vira, has different proportions and details in almost every image of her, but I mostly pulled from this image:
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Character Lore from the Neopets site:
Vira was a pretty and vain Acara, spending her days playing in the flowers, making daisy chains to braid into her long hair. One day, she wished to be the most beautiful Acara in the whole of the world, but the wrong ears heard her wish. "You are pretty," the shadowy voice said. "Only I can make you beautiful..." Ever since, Vira has wandered those same fields, kissing the flowers, but making them poisonous to the touch. The magic mirrors she gives away do not show reality, but a twisted, ugly version of it. Anyone who looks into her mirrors at first finds themselves very beautiful, but that beauty fades into ugliness, and the mirror whispers with a dark voice, "There's only one way to get your beauty back..." |
My plan is to make a model capable of really strong, cartoony, exaggerated facial expressions with lots of squash/stretch. I'll be rigging and posing her a bunch of different ways with different props -- there's a dagger design specific to her, and also tons of cool "evil" mirror designs I found on the website. Might even give her a petpet to do some interaction poses.
Here's what I've got so far model-wise. Haven't locked in the cheek fur and tuft of hair just yet. Will probably accentuate the cloth folds in the dress a little bit more. Something about the boots is bugging me but I'm not quite sure what yet...
Any feedback at all would be appreciated
Replies
Could you share a wire frame screenshot so we can see the typology by any chance?
Main changes include combining the pointy fur with the face, which I did with a combination of curvetubes for the major shapes and snakehook for the smaller bits of fur. Adding the fur messed up my facial shapes from certain angles, especially around the undereye/cheek area, so i still need to go back in and correct that. I might just need to revisit the eyeballs and sockets in general -- getting them just right on these cartoon characters can be pretty tricky.
Gif showing the head from different angles, plus some of the detail on fur/horns:
I also started shaping up the clothes and added garment construction details like seams and stitching (I'm using the Orb brush pack stitch brush here). While these aren't present in the original design, I felt they added some more "believability" in the 3D version, and make it look a bit more polished.
The boots have been really bugging me, getting the height and shape to look right has been fussy. I decided to make the opening less chunky and change the shape to contour to the leg more, and added a finished edge to the ankle.
I found the black and white tights made the design visually too busy on the legs, too much repetition with the buckles on the shoes. Most images of the character don't have the tights at all, but I might try fishnets (maybe just a little bit peeking out of the boots).
Let me know what you guys think!
Personally, I think the asymmetric fishnets add a lot to the character without being too busy, though maybe a similar look using the tights could work?
Either way keep up the great work, looking forward to see progress on this
Paintover with a few thoughts. Might want to try some harder edges on fur and horns, especially if you go for the fishnets. I like the cute look it has now though and the stitches are a great touch.
Keep it up!
WIP!
just an update to keep myself moving. I think i over-rendered the cloth with too many little wrinkles, going to move back towards bigger establishing folds so there is more definition and style. I think she needs a necklace, like a long cord with a pendant, and some asymmetrical socks like I sketched previously to break it up and add interest!