The Quarterly CHARACTER ART Challenge | July - September

Alemja

Welcome to the Quarterly Character Art Challenge!

New concepts will be chosen at the start of October
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!

Lord Crème-De-La-Crêpe by Fabien Lavrand

Bubble Gunner by Harumi Namba

Mr. Pop by Gaston S. Garcia

How concepts are chosen:

• Trying to keep it consistently one masculine character, one feminine 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!
  

PastyPict

I love all three of these concepts. I haven't had a chance to look for any other possible candidates, but I'll probably be work on Lord Crème-De-La-Crêpe.

Alemja

@PastyPict Nice! Looking forward to seeing you give it a shot!

owlety

First time trying this challenge.
It is not finished, but this is as far as I got for now. 

Ink9

Mr. Gumibear

PastyPict

I'm still in the blocking out phase. I started with blocking out the muscles as you can see on the left. I then fused them together and expanded from there to make the sleeve on the right. I've not sculpted clothing before, but it's really difficult. As you can see it's a rather blobby mess. I've heard before from industry professionals to use Marvelous Designer for the cloth, and then refine in ZBrush. I'm thinking I might invest in MD or maybe Simply Cloth for Blender.

Alemja

@PastyPict I would definitely go to a lower subdivision on your model and just focus on the big forms for now. The latest Zbrush has some cloth tools, I honestly wouldn't worry about any of that stuff right now and just focus on all of the big forms and proportions.

Domwhit93

This is my first Challenge on this site too, so i'm deciding to take a shot a Bubble Gunner.
Going for a Stylized/toon look for this one
Here's my Ref.

Here's the Blockout I finished earlier today. I'll have a Dynameshed/clean(er) model tomorrow, calling it a night
 

jod13

Dumb question, but is this challenge suggesting we use a particular theme or group of concept art, or just any credited character concept art we fancy (assuming we've received permission)? Love the gummy bear bouncer, and I'd love to give it a shot, but I wasn't sure. 

credited character concepts, say that three times fast

owlety

@jod13

You pick one of these 3 concepts and create a game-ready 3d model.

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

So give the gummy bear bouncer a try and don't be shy to post progress

jod13

Awesome, thanks @owlety ! I'll give it a shot  

Domwhit93

Hey everybody, just checking in, I know I have a lot to do still. Currently blocking out the face but here's what I have so far 

lerrine

Domwhit93, your research are really amazing! I definitely will try to work more with board!

I am give a go too!
Still working on the base shape and far from done, but getting there!

Domwhit93

Lerrine: Thanks, I used used PureRef, it allows you to drag, drop, crop, sort, etc. images to how you see fit, and a bunch more other features, also. completely free. but i would suggest getting to know the program before you end putting yourself in a situation you can't click out of.

As for me so far I  just started the head model

AwesomeRookie

Great work everyone! I know I'm joining up late but I'm going to try to speed thru this and get it done in time. 
I just started with the basemesh block out - going to start refining stuff soon

GerQZ

Domwhit93

It looks to me like you're detailing the hands and body a bit much? Maybe a simpler/more stylized look would look better for this kind of character, just think of the characters you see in the switch pokemon games.

Domwhit93

so far, however i just retopo with the full body model, just gonna start on the clothes

AwesomeRookie

Getting cranking on the high poly - gotta keep pushing that detail here

GerQZ

@Domwhit93

It looks to me like you're detailing the hands and body a bit much? Maybe a simpler/more stylized look would look better for this kind of character, just think of the characters you see in the switch pokemon games.

GerQZ

@Domwhit93

Really quick paint over, hope it helps you a bit with your anatomy.

Domwhit93

@GerQZ I see what you're saying, which is why i retopo'd to get better control of the mesh entirely, giving me room for a smoother overhaul/geometric control, a lot has been toned down,

as far as stylized goes, as I do love the art direction for the Pokemon Sword/Shield games. However, it ventures to far on the soft side for the vision I have for this. Also shown in my first post on the picture board, the art direction i was leainng more towards is Luxe from Fortnite. The brow, sterno, and zygo placement has been bugging me on my end, it is common (in ones that I have come across) the tear duct of the eye rests lower the other end of the eyelid i in most stylized cases.

Still working on the roller skates at the moment so nothing to really post.

Domwhit93

Good Afternoon everyone! I' m still working on clothes (overthinking on the skirt tbh)

But at the same time i updated the face just a tad bit, and of course there's more but there's so much gear and i still haven't started the gun yet 

UPDATE: So I've made the bulk of the items, I know I still have some ways to go, but here's my progress for clothes and accessories, as well as detailing the head a little more, still some things to clean up on both

GerQZ

@Domwhit93

You can lower the deltoids a bit more, that will help define the trapezius
muscle a bit better, as you can see the trapezius is a little too short
and the head is a tad too big in relation to the body.

Domwhit93

@GerQZ : Thank you, that helped a lot


SO! After long hours(days) of grueling trial and error finding the right approach to get the braids to a point of which i'm satisfied, decided to get the Maya plugin Braidmaker, as far as that goes here's my first pass, i'll be tweaking them accordingly in Zbrush, on another note. this means a lot for me to get to this point, as far as hair goes. so tonight i'll be tackling the gun and detail the clothes

Alemja

@Domwhit93 Those braids are looking great!

I would double check your proportions too, I know the action pose of the piece makes it a little hard, but judging my her proportions and doing a loose "heads tall" paint over it looks like she should sit at about 7.5-8 heads tall (minus the wheels on the skates), and your model currently sits at 6

Hopefully it's not too late to fix it at this point, I think it will help your model feel lot better.

@AwesomeRookie It's looking great so far! I hope you can keep going at it, and if you can get some of those folds to be a bit sharper I think it will be right on point.

@lerrine I hope you can keep at it! It is coming along

@PastyPict @owlety I hope we can see more progress from the both of you!

Domwhit93

@Alemja Yikes. . .  if that's the case, at this point it's probably dunzo. at best this was fun while it lasted. However, after crunching hours away at reshaping this thing according to your ref, it's practically no use. With only 6 days left i might have to be realistic at this point, with that said, looking forward to the next one. If that's a thing (still new here)

PastyPict

Been trying to do a little bit here and there after work (not been great at that lately to be honest). Though since I'm new-ish to ZBrush, I often find I get stuck in watching a bunch of tutorials on how various tools work and different methods, which eats up time. I will probably continue to work on this character outside of the challenge, so I can at some point add it to my portfolio. But until this challenge ends, any feedback would be great.

Certain things like the mouth and legs are still in block out phase. I've decided for this project I'll focus on following Michael Pavlovich's methods in his YouTube videos and translate relevant methods over to my model.

Last time I posted I received a suggestion for using the new cloth features in ZBrush, so this is my attempt so far at pushing and pulling with the new cloth brushes on the shirt and the sleeve.
I intend to keep the torso, arm and bust as separate pieces and will be covered by the cape when I build it.

Alemja

@Domwhit93 A new challenge will be up in October, you have another month. These challenges are also meant to be casual, you're more than welcome to keep working on them after the time is up.

GerQZ

@PastyPict

My advice for you would be not to overly rely on watching tutorials, it is way more important I think to practice, sketch and work on your art fundamentals (every day), one think you could do is step away from this project for a week or so and sketch every day, then when you come back to it you'll look at it with a fresh perspective.

When it comes to your project, you could work first on a base mesh for the body, then mask the pieces of clothing and extract them using the extract function on zbrush, don't work detailing piece by piece, try to have a low poly mesh with all of the pieces that you'll be working on, but keep it low res, you can use dynamesh for this, once you're happy with the mesh, then you can start to build up your res and details. This approach is good so that you don't get fixated for hours on the smaller pieces/details.

Domwhit93

@Alemja That makes sense, and I guess as far as that goes, I did manage to take about a day to redo the entire model.
However I ran into a huge issue here (In which I sense a "circle/cycle" approaching). 
so according to the heads of my last model, this one here is 2 heads taller but then that made the original head way too small.
However the number of heads this model is another story.
So my new dilemma (put simply) becomes; head>body, or body>head then, trying to reshape everything to fit the other in order to "equal it out" which then destroys the form all together.
 
On another note, I also decided to take a crack at using Marvelous Designer, to get a good look at how the clothing would look in a tight fit, im iterating that as much as I can until i found a base to get that right shape of clothing I want, but with said that I'm just gonna have to take a break on this entirely. Just felt like showing the progress however

lerrine

all the projects seem to progress really well! Really excited to see where all of you are next!

I am still going slowly shaping! I feel I am starting to get close to the desired shape and might soon clean the shape and put more details!

bkost

@lerrine Great blockout, I look forward to seeing the gummy material. I imagine Bump Offset or Parallax would get the job done

*Or could just pump up SSS and translucency, similar to 'Robbie "Ribbit" Lorenzo'

Neox

@PastyPicti

I think you are going into details faaaaaaar too quick. you should get the main proportions done first, the block out all the elements, then start detailling stuff.

Gohaeva

Hi, so I have been working on Lord Crème-De-La-Crêpe and this is what I have so far.

PastyPict

@GerQZ @Neox Thanks for the advice guys. I'll probably step away from it for a bit and come back.
Also, when you say to sketch every day, do you mean 3D sketching or 2D?
And should these be long time consuming sketches, or multiple quick sketches for trying to get the forms and proportions right?
I also have recently bought a male anatomy reference statue since I haven't had the opportunity for life drawing classes, but it's one static pose. Does that make it less useful for where I need to improve?

lerrine

@bkost Didn't that artist! Thanks for the tips! Render is definitely my weak point, I need to experience more!

@Gohaeva nice modeling! evolving good!

I added some details and made a gummy bear material test. But more work on the lighting needs to be done for the face highlight to pop more.
Still need to work on material.

GerQZ

@PastyPicti

Yes, 3d sketches, but 2d sketches help too, I usually spend 20 minutes to 1 hour each and try to do it everyday.

Domwhit93

So..... after taking a decent vacation, I took another shot at it, and I can finally say i've reached a point where i'm "satisfied" *knocks on wood*. With that said here's what's set up so far, and I will finally be tackling the gun, refining the clothes, and doing accessories. 

jod13

I'd recommend checking a reference for the butt and boobs - I know it's stylized but even for the curviest women I haven't seen anyone who looks like their butt stuck out like that as if disconnected to the leg or where the boobs faced away from one another.  The other wrinkles and stretching on the shirt look good, but the direction of the boobs seems off, and I know fashion has been extremely high cut at the waist the last two years but that body suit would be incredibly uncomfortable. Normally a body suit or swimsuit would follow the curve of the body more, not be even narrower than the bikini line. The proportions are way better though! You might want to block some feet in so you can figure out the basic size - the hands and feet are usually similar in proportion - but the colors look nice. Lots of progress! 

Domwhit93

@jod13 I appreciate that of course, and i'm also glad you like the colors at least haha, I also want to state that the clothing is not final, I only used MD just to see where the wrinkles lie with bodysuits since there aren't really a lot of good pictures show wirnkles too well when i looked up body suits. Also what i made in MD, came out very asymmetrical. but i still on the gun so i'll get back to that  

jod13

I've never used MD so I can't offer any advice, but it's definitely not a bad first try! Tank tops might be a good reference if you're not finding good photos - they hug the chest and waist the same way, and tend to be made from the same stretch materials as bodysuits I was trying to focus on the new stuff, since I know you've had previous comments, but it's a lot of progress! I just started this week (gummy bear) so I'm definitely not as far. 

Alemja

@Domwhit93 Proportions are reading a lot better now! Great update

@Gohaeva Looking good so far! Keep at it!

lerrine Looking good! Can't wait to see you tackle more materials

jod13

I didn't get to work on my bear this weekend like I hoped but I figured I should post what I've got and hopefully work on it during this week His proportions are a bit wonky, but I wanted to try my hand at a semi functional low poly body/base before I started noodling things and sculpting in zbrush. Shoulders are confusing and difficult! So hopefully between editing and posing this I'll be able to fix the proportions and add the clothing and whatnot. If I'm lucky, it'll save me a little time on the low poly afterwards for baking. Definitely need to bulk up the shoulders, get that face connected and get his gummy tube arms all puffy. 

lerrine

I didn't want to take time to do proper UV, but I ended up making a low poly model and make UV and texture for it.
And I made more materials test!
You can see the model here for now:
https://skfb.ly/6UYBD

jod13

Nice colors! Love his little sour gummy tie. The pants look a little plastic to me, rather than fabric, but I know it's WIP so that's not necessarily final

AwesomeRookie

I'm done! I was going to do it in Unreal but decided on using Maya and Arnold instead so doesn't really fit the challenge requirements but...
Here he is:

Isunoj

AwesomeRookie said:

I'm done! I was going to do it in Unreal but decided on using Maya and Arnold instead so doesn't really fit the challenge requirements but...
Here he is:

Well done. I really liked the shader.

jod13

Super cool! Great job! I like how all the clothing is different materials - they're more like candy than fabric, and it's really interesting to look at! He's very gummy looking, for sure. I'm not sure I'll catch up lol but I think it fits just fine without using Unreal, you can always pop it in there later if you want to! 

Brian "Panda" Choi

@AwesomeRookie
Turned out solid!  The shirt reads more flesh than candy; not sure what material you were going for there

Torch

@AwesomeRookie looks superb, great finish - but no icing club with sugar on? Either way you nailed it, grats! 

AwesomeRookie

@jod13 @Brian "Panda" Choi 
Thanks guys! I was going for marshmallow on the shirt but yeah - definitely should have worked on that shader a bit more
@Torch I got lazy haha