With face or without face in this female warrior model ?

eternalmonke

Hi, this is my first ever post in Polycount. Hoping to get critique so I can improve better. I am currently experimenting on the art style for a game I'm developing. Going for a flat-ish and clean style.

At present I'm conflicted about whether the character looks better here with or without the eyes. Due to the nature of the game, I could go either way. I'm aware this is also a very subjective question. So just let me know what do you think which is better in your opinion ?

I

carvuliero

Either way I have suggestion for both :

If no face try to give it a more interesting and define face shape also think of a interesting relation between hair and face something that create interesting character [check Ashen they have pretty cool characters without face]

If face place it on it correct position eyes in the middle and so on 

eternalmonke

carvuliero said:

Either way I have suggestion for both :

If no face try to give it a more interesting and define face shape also think of a interesting relation between hair and face something that create interesting character [check Ashen they have pretty cool characters without face]

If face place it on it correct position eyes in the middle and so on 

Thanks for the in-depth feedback! I didn't realise the face placement I had chosen was odd. Maybe it's because I had created it with anime faces as a reference. Will tweak around with it later on.

Ashen is a great reference. I saw this game's trailer once but then forgot what it was actually called. Will need to play it. Followed your advice and made the face completely flat and smooth similar to your gif.

Seem to feel quite nice and relaxing. Do you think there is anything else I might be missing here in the pure faceless version as shown here ?

carvuliero

Slight wider face will work better with body proportions

Feel like her belt/skirt is too low but does will depends how long her legs are and the thing on her shoulder could have a better gesture + you need something to balance wide hip .Breast thing could be better and if there are straps they should point to the shoulders so you have to reroute few things

eternalmonke

@carvuliero I basically re-learnt how to make a proper face from scratch, so I think it now feels a lot better and "human" than what I had made previously while remaining stylized. Once I made this I now understood better why the previous face felt so weird. Is this an appealing result overall now ?

eternalmonke

Feels like a fatter lower lip is also a good decision. Taking some notes from Jojo's art style.

carvuliero

Jojo version looks pretty cool

eternalmonke

carvuliero said:

Jojo version looks pretty cool

Thanks! Having fun and seeing where this goes

Now the above are my experiments with shaders directly in unreal, and these are my latest iterations. The shadows and occlusion like effects seen are basically soft thick outlines that blends with the character through post processing. Aiming for a neat and unique stylized output, and I think this is in a good direction.

As an art style, would you say this is good ? Any critique is appreciated.

eternalmonke

Reduced the noise in the shading a little bit.