Damn that's serious improvement ! Especially on the eyes, incredible how more expressive it is now !
You're doing some sick work ! (And I'm always a bit late to mention it , it's crazy how time flies by)
What's sure about you is that you clearly understood how to learn, well at least a learning way that works incredibly well for you. I'm stunned by how quick and how well you improve. I definitely need to stop spreading my self-teaching all over the place to have some similar results I guess .
So you got trapped into WoW and yet managed to keep learning, that's some achievement
The mine cart is also very impressive, you have improved your style, and you don't seem to want to stop improving ^^. At least it brings good jealousy from my side, it's truly inspiring to improve myself.
You did mention something that resonated with me though. "Anxiety control", and I couldn't help myself but automatically read "artistic anxiety control", like it's really a thing happening to me right now where I had to figure a lot of things in my life and lost a lot of time not doing 3D. And now I'm scared to even start doing something in 3D, everything seems so hard to do ! So I guess we all fall into that pit once in a while, but considering you can control your anxiety by sculpting a human skull while I do by modeling a mug ... I suppose I fell into a pit a little bit deeper than yours 😁.
Anyway, it's always cool to see you post here
Thank you for the compliments! Means a lot.
I do question my progress and results quite often, what you mentioned, about being scared of starting a new project after a long hiatus is very real to me, that almost made gave up actually, but with small steps I managed to get over and go through it, so please please do not give up, it doesn't matter it its a mug or kratos itself, what really matters is the action you took of persisting through this fear, maybe what can help also is to follow a course of someone or a topic that you like, that helped me a lot to get the basics again.
I stopped posting here again, i actually went almost 2 months without creating nothing, Im not sure if it's because of the change on my goals, which are to go more throught the character/creature art field.
But here I am again, I want to share with guys some work.
This head I did after doing the face features, I wonder if you guys can say who I used as reference.
After this I start a whole body study, it was REALLY hard, the blocking stage was a nightmare, I can't stress enough how frustrating it was, but after the blocking it went smoother, I want to get back to this guy and actually finish him whole, but this is what I get so far:
Everything i blocked out I just hid because they're pretty much blobs.
Anyways, that's where stopped for a while doing anything, and to get back to it I decided to give a break on lessons and studies and actually create something using a concept, so I chose a concept from the amazing artist Yu Nguyen on artstation and started working, I gotta say I'm having a lot o fun creating this guy.
It's still in the blockout stage and I have some concerns on how I will solve some problems like getting him into a pose and deal with the clothes and its folds, have no idea how I will actually do that actually, because sculpting the folds in a A pose doesnt make much sense, those folds should change when the character sits on the frog saddle for example, so I would love some tips on how to approach that.
That's it for now, I will keep you guys updated on this character in the future, stay safe out there whoever is reading this.
Hey, thanks for the kind words ! I'm (kind of) "back on track", even though I always manage to make the most boring project that the world has ever seen
By the way, how can you question your progression when it's THAT easy to see ? I mean, I can't seem to find where I made progress, but in your case it's so out there that I can't understand how you can not see it ^^.
Can't recognize the guy you took for reference, he seems familiar, but it's often the details that makes it easy for the eye. At least my brain definitely works better with particular details of a person's face rather than a general shape (to recognize someone I mean).
I think the blocking phase is what reveals the mastery in every piece. When you're really good at something, the blocking is merely a formality, but when you're learning, it's the worst part. Creating details is the easiest part for everyone, that's why the beginner often goes to detail way too fast (which is nearly always my problem ).
The anatomy seems pretty fine to me (this guy has a damn wide torso), only the point of view that is a bit disturbing as he seems to have a very arched back and his oblique makes it look like he has a big belly from behind, but I think it's just because of where the camera is.
Can't help you with the clothes, I have to figure it out yet myself.
But at least I think like you, of course you have to pose the model before applying any fold as it's supposed to react to the pose of the character. Using a bit of simulation to have the main folds might be of help though, and then do the final touch in sculpt. There's really nothing there that you can't achieve quite easily with you skillset
Turns out it was time to give up.. I feel like that was a way too big of a project to come back to stylized char/creature creation, so I'm going to put that on pause for a bit and get to study with small projects, for example now I'm doing a female bust sculpt to practice stylized anatomy/appealing, I might advance this one to retopo to practice texturing, not sure yet tho.
"Time to give up" ... I'm never able to tell, I'm always spending too much time trying to finish a project, I don't have the ability to give up ... Yet I feel like that's what's keeping me so far behind the likes of you (people who progress fast). Over estimation of the skills we have at a given time is the number one enemy for progression (or so it seems in my recent observations retrospectively).
The hard part is it's not pure technical skill that is at fault here, but mostly the brain capacity to know where to go / what to do next during a "big" project, it's a skill in itself but I don't really know how to develop this one ... If you ever find the answer to this, please tell me ^^.
So back to a bit of anatomy, even though a stylized one. At least it looks good already.
Not sure about the eyelids, lower ones especially. The front upper part of the ears seem a bit thin too, but I might be wrong, I need to practice anatomy myself.
Those are really good points of feedback Dabou, now that you mentioned the ears look way too thin indeed, thanks!
I did another stylized head study:
And about the giving up part, I believe there are pros and cons, one thing that I can tell you is that it's been a while since I last updated my portfolio and my computer is filled with eternal WIPs, so sometimes sticking to a project might not be the worst outcome (especially if it's one where you can practice a whole pipeline)..
Talking about whole pipeline, I decided to start another character yet again, and this time I really want to move on from the high poly and study the whole pipeline, creating the clothes were really frustrating and again I almost gave up, but I'm trying to go with a mindset that it doesn't matter if it will look good in the end, what matter for this project is reaching the end.
Here's the progress so far, most of it is still in the blocking stage.
I can understand the despair of seeing a lot of "unfinished" (is it even possible to finish something ?) work and thinking it's not something you can show on your portfolio. But it's an extreme, on the other side you can spend your whole life on a project that never ends (and you still have nothing to show in the end ^^). So yeah a good balance is needed, and so hard to find ... A whole pipeline as you say, takes generally a lot of time, even when you master everything, 3D takes time.
About your work now, the face is looking good ! I like the "strong" proportions and the eyes here feel way more natural (even for a stylized version). But now that I asked myself the question if you don't put the eyebrows a bit too high (for the two heads you've made, not the last character), I can't answer, something just "feels odd". Maybe it's just me, at least it looks fine on the bearded one.
For your struggles with clothes, maybe you try too hard too early ? Starting with the simplest form (from little project to little project, or study to study) and eventually add up on it (for a bigger project) would have been less discouraging ? It definitely doesn't look bad, but it's more about "what's the use of such clothes ?". I mean everything is fine for a medieval/fantasy kind of world but the kind of half-jacket is a bit strange. Maybe it's a totally common piece of cloth (I really have no idea) but it looks like a light armor and I don't understand its purpose. It's for the cold (looks like a modern jacket for that) ? It's for protection (won't protect much though) ? It seems a bit anachronistic, but maybe I'm wrong.
Last thing, the shoes (and so the feet) seem too little for a strong looking man like him. I mean he needs bigger feet to transfer the strength from the ground to the upper body, doesn't he ? Even for balance, with such a big chest, something feels wrong with the size of his feet.
First of, thank you Dabou for the words and the feedback on the shoes, I tried following what you said and it is indeed feeling better. Sorry for taking too long to reply, I went on a vacation trip for a week.
The work on the dwarf continues, actually the highpoly is on a stage that I call pretty much done, I don't wanna dive into too much detailing on the sculpt, I want to achieve that on the texturing phase.
Hey again! I'm excited to share with you guys the result of the dwarf character I was making, I'm glad I finally finished a character with the whole pipeline for games.
Replies
I do question my progress and results quite often, what you mentioned, about being scared of starting a new project after a long hiatus is very real to me, that almost made gave up actually, but with small steps I managed to get over and go through it, so please please do not give up, it doesn't matter it its a mug or kratos itself, what really matters is the action you took of persisting through this fear, maybe what can help also is to follow a course of someone or a topic that you like, that helped me a lot to get the basics again.
But here I am again, I want to share with guys some work.
This head I did after doing the face features, I wonder if you guys can say who I used as reference.
After this I start a whole body study, it was REALLY hard, the blocking stage was a nightmare, I can't stress enough how frustrating it was, but after the blocking it went smoother, I want to get back to this guy and actually finish him whole, but this is what I get so far:
Everything i blocked out I just hid because they're pretty much blobs.
Anyways, that's where stopped for a while doing anything, and to get back to it I decided to give a break on lessons and studies and actually create something using a concept, so I chose a concept from the amazing artist Yu Nguyen on artstation and started working, I gotta say I'm having a lot o fun creating this guy.
It's still in the blockout stage and I have some concerns on how I will solve some problems like getting him into a pose and deal with the clothes and its folds, have no idea how I will actually do that actually, because sculpting the folds in a A pose doesnt make much sense, those folds should change when the character sits on the frog saddle for example, so I would love some tips on how to approach that.
That's it for now, I will keep you guys updated on this character in the future, stay safe out there whoever is reading this.
I did another stylized head study:
And about the giving up part, I believe there are pros and cons, one thing that I can tell you is that it's been a while since I last updated my portfolio and my computer is filled with eternal WIPs, so sometimes sticking to a project might not be the worst outcome (especially if it's one where you can practice a whole pipeline)..
Talking about whole pipeline, I decided to start another character yet again, and this time I really want to move on from the high poly and study the whole pipeline, creating the clothes were really frustrating and again I almost gave up, but I'm trying to go with a mindset that it doesn't matter if it will look good in the end, what matter for this project is reaching the end.
Here's the progress so far, most of it is still in the blocking stage.
The work on the dwarf continues, actually the highpoly is on a stage that I call pretty much done, I don't wanna dive into too much detailing on the sculpt, I want to achieve that on the texturing phase.
I posted more images in artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1NLJro
Now the plan is to do a course to practice even more and learn new things, I want to create a character that needs the use of hair cards next.