[WIP] [Character Art] Aristocrats Witch - Gameready model

nele_s

Hello everyone! I am putting my other project Adonis Bleu (https://polycount.com/discussion/222438/wip-character-art-adonis-bleu-gameready-model) on hold for a little bit because work work has left me feeling burnt lately, enough to not have energy to be working on another hyperrealistic model.

I have started a more chill, stylised, project instead, based on this amazing concept art by Leslie Tran

nele_s

My first WIP - added colours & tried to get overall shape right

I realised after that I deviated too much from the original concept art in terms of proportions, so I went back to fix this

nele_s

I tried to make her look more round again, and more childlike proportions (larger head, toddler hands) to fit the concept art better

I feel like this exaggeration helps sell the stylised forms better and read better.

Any thoughts welcome!

JohannesAg

Looks really cool so far, some really nice shapes in there.
My two nitpicks might be that her fingers are strangely thin in the middle and bulge out near the tip.
And I think her lower half might be a bit more bell shaped in the concept, yours almost has that shape from the front but not from the three quarter view.

nele_s

Another update!
Still got loads to do, both polish & more detailing (hat/hands/sleeves/coat) but it's getting there.

First up, I wanted to improve the face. I felt like I could do better, so I started off by giving her a decent pair of eyes, ones that matched the concept art better. The previous pair I hadn't spent much time on. This improvement immediately made a huge difference, so I matched the rest of her face accordingly. It all reads a whole lot better than before.



Other than overall silhouette improvements, the biggest change I made after that was the woolly collar. I got the feedback of using fur shells to make them, something I've never done before, but I was immediately sold once I realised how it works and what the end result would look like. I adjusted my sculpt accordingly and I'm pleased with how it looks so far. The difficult bit was doing the little tufts and making sure it wouldn't look too busy or it would end up looking out of place with the rest of the piece.



Any thoughts welcome as usual!

Lewis_kennedy

your models coming along well, you may wanna rework the gem on her forehead though, maybe make it a bit wider and have it a closer colour to her eyes, also the edge of her boots could be maybe doubled in size, in the concept art it's notably thicker then the edges around her coat

Nuclear Angel

It is an adorable concept you have chosen to work from and she looks quite nice right now. I think though that you should push the shapes further to get that bell shape in. The arm puffs seem a bit to large and the stomach and hip aint wide enough. Look at her belt in the concept, and then compare it to yours in the 3/4th view.
Good choice to go with the shell approach for this kind of fur.

nele_s

Had some time off last week so was able to spend some more time detailing this little lady!

Felt a bit stuck with shapes, and wanted to reconfirm I am translating the concept as best I can in 3d, so I went back to do a few sketches in Photoshop. These are just for myself and might not mean anything to anyone else, but for me it's pretty useful to wrap my head around the concept better and get a feel for things - it is def not meant to be aesthetic in any way. It's a good exercise to try & recognise patterns & shapes, something I do more than once when developing a character as a sortof 'checkpoint' that I am not deviating too much or missed anything. Obviously I try to keep the angle & perspective of the concept in mind.

This is one such sketch:



Aaaand this is a comparative result:



And here we go, full view.
Little bit of a turnaround this time as I properly fixed the back too 

For the detailing on the hat & coat, I already had some base shapes hidden away as separate subtools, but because I had changed the overall shape I had to realign them. This was easy enough to do using the Zproject brush (such a lifesaver!) and then just using panel loops & some dynamic subdiv to complete. I also used Zmodeler & creasing to add a bit of subtle edges.

When doing symmetrical patterns like the curly shapes on the coat here, it might seem like a challenge to do because the coat itself isn't symmetrical anymore. However, using the Zproject brush for this really helped me out. Maybe there is an even better way to do this, but for me this method works really well. When using Zproject keep in mind it only works on single sided surfaces (so no thickness), and that it is influenced by the camera angle.
I know usually people like using the matchmaker brush but I can never get that one to work how I like it so this one is ideal for me.

Next on the list is trying to fix the furry coat a bit, it is currently too busy still and feels off with the rest of the sculpt. It's def something I have been struggling with the most, as you can probably tell from my previous posts.

Stay tuned ! (& feel free to comment)

nele_s

Finished some highpoly renders & put them on Artstation (more on there)   
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/w6WGg6