Sketchbook: Pangarang
polycounter lvl 11
Hey everyone. Here's a character building project I've been working on for the last couple of weeks. Just looking to get some general feedback and some tips if anyone sees areas I could use some help in.
This is a 12-14 year old kid done in a more cartoony, exaggerated style. Hence the big shoes, biggish hands, smaller shoulders. Total polycount including props is 10,000 while the character alone is 6300.
I'm trying to keep the base mesh for this character under 7000 polys, not counting the props. Next up, the posessed nun.
WIREFRAMES
She is an unholy nun of a Satanic church. The style here is exaggerated realism. Really skinny, starving body, long bony fingers, knobby knees, yet posed in a seductive manner. Contradicts the nature of a true nun and to our perception of beauty.
My main goal for her is to show off my familiarity with certain dynamics like gravity (chains), nCloth (dress), and fire dynamics (a part of pedestal). Because nCloth eats up polys, my polylimit is a little higher than I would otherwise set for my characters, sitting at 7500 - 8000. I estimate the entire scene including props to be around 15,000 polys.
This is a 12-14 year old kid done in a more cartoony, exaggerated style. Hence the big shoes, biggish hands, smaller shoulders. Total polycount including props is 10,000 while the character alone is 6300.
I'm trying to keep the base mesh for this character under 7000 polys, not counting the props. Next up, the posessed nun.
WIREFRAMES
She is an unholy nun of a Satanic church. The style here is exaggerated realism. Really skinny, starving body, long bony fingers, knobby knees, yet posed in a seductive manner. Contradicts the nature of a true nun and to our perception of beauty.
My main goal for her is to show off my familiarity with certain dynamics like gravity (chains), nCloth (dress), and fire dynamics (a part of pedestal). Because nCloth eats up polys, my polylimit is a little higher than I would otherwise set for my characters, sitting at 7500 - 8000. I estimate the entire scene including props to be around 15,000 polys.
Replies
But great job on textures/models
I also have a third character who i've kept in the dark cause i'm deeply ashamed at how I've neglected him, lol. Graduation requirements are 3 characters. Each one has to be modeled, uved, textured (with spec and normal/bump maps included), rigged, skinned and animated. And we have 11 weeks! The typical result is 2 good characters and 1 ugmo one. Not that its an excuse for me, but I have given my third character alot less attention than these two
Again thanks for taking the time to critique my work. I've tried posting on the cgsociety forums but sofar have gotten no feedback at all.
Got some samples of newer work I've done since then. I realize I don't have enough props on my website so I'm starting a little prop project, and another character. Here are some pics.
and the face looks really good as well, I am having a lil difficulty making faces, but I am familar with how the edge loops work. one pattern I've seen work and I try sticking to is there is a loop that goes across the bridge of the nose, down the side of the cheek and comes up below the bottom lip, as shown below. I jsut dont the skill to make refined detail in faces like youv'e accomplished
also you can just call me GsK or kanible
anyhow hope that helps
Thanks for the edge loop reference - I've got that same picture lying around somewhere in my reference pic folders, lol.
One thing I should point out with modeling faces - just like drawing or any art form, the rules aren't set in stone as to how the loops should flow. The one never changing rule is that the edge loops should be optimized for deformation of the face. If you're designing a character who, for example, doesn't blink but can open his mouth really wide, polys that would otherwise be around the eyes should be distributed to the loops around his mouth and nose so the deformation there would occur with less stretching.
But with a generic face model like the example I posted, then yeah, what you're saying makes total sense. As always, your feedback is muchly appreciated.
I can't stress how important it is to have a solid reference picture to model off of. Cause the skater kid had a good drawing that I worked from. that's the only reason i think he turned out the way he did, so thanks for noticing that.
here's an update of my radiator.
Decided to throw in my skater character to give it a little more life ...
Still needs lots of props to fill it up though.
Adding some base textures.
Here's a new character painting I just started.
chest of draws
waste basket
closet
skate tool on table
rug on floor next to bed (wood floors are frikn cold in the morning)
posters on wall above computer (skate posters maybe)
game console
Check the size proportions in room to your character. If the character is a kid the objects in the room may be bigger than he is. example that skate board is huge compared to the desk even the widest skateboards are not that big. compare size proportions of objects in the room and adjust them based on that.
window needs to be a sliding window or have a frame of some kind to hold the window pane.
poster board above the bed is huge compared to everything else.
I know you may already have some of these things in your updated version that you have not posted yet, just trying to help.
looking good tho, I am making a room right now for work and I feel your pain. The character is nice and I like some of the action poses you have been giving it.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to more updates.
Are you a skateboarder?
Thanks for the prop ideas. I'm trying to squeeze all the props and furnitues into 1 UV map, maximize the hell out of that UV space (and UVing eats up ALOT of time!). It'll probably be a 2048 map. I'm slightly surprised that the door looking thing didn't strike you as a closet - cause it is :P I guess it's the awkward angle I've got it at. Thanks for the encouragement. I hope this piece will show that I am not limited to characters, that I can do props too!
Lol, I'm not a skater, I'm about the farthest thing from one as you can imagine. I've always admired the skater culture though. The urban art, the movement, crazy posing, youthful exuberance, fashion sense, everything.
Here's the concept picture they provided.
It's looking a little too symmetrical at this point, I'm gonna have to add those cables to mix things up a little. Can anyone see anything else I can do to improve on this?
as for the new environment concept you're working on, there seems to be more grime and wear and tear on certain elements of the walls and ground that would add more to the overall feel and look. definitely lighthing needs work as Ged mentioned and i agree with opening some panels and adding the cables and wires seen in the actual concept.
where's the floating sphere?
Thanks for the excellent critiques. The difference in colour scheme is a by-product of me tampering too much with the textures without constantly referring back to the reference. I will be fixing that up for more critiques. There's still quite abit left to do with this piece before I can consider it done.
@Illybang
You're right, that air conditioning unit is in an extrememly dangerous spot, lol, my lack of research and knowledge is to blame there. As for the scifi room, you're right, the lighting needs lots of work. Aka, the lighting needs to be STARTED, lol. I've made some progress with this piece since posting but no big changes to post an update. I'll be putting it up here as soon as I'm done.
Meanwhile, I took a break from these environments to render out some of the props I'd done previously. I'll be posting them on my portfolio website to replace those INCREDIBLY OUTDATED props I have on there right now. Here they are for your critiques! Thanks for all the comments sofar, keep em coming!
And also, to keep up with my drawing (I've been doing proportionately ALOT more 3D work), I did this piece in Photoshop. About 1 hour. I need to bring my drawing up to speed ... also any tips on rendering organics in Photoshop would be muchly appreciated. My skills aren't quite where I'd like them to be
I've updated the bedroom scene I posted earlier in the thread. I'd love to hear some critiques from you guys. Here goes.
And here's an update of hte scifi room with some extra details added in, and the lighting too.
I dont think the lighting in either of the pieces is really showing off the quality of your work, the bedroom scene needs more ambient lighting the desk and tv cabinet looks like a black blob to me. The sci fi room has got very flat lighting and isnt nicely drawing your focus to the ball like in the concept, a soft round spotlight pointed at that corner and one light where the ball is should be enough.
@ Slingshot - I'm glad to hear the room didn't turn out too bad. After wasting ALOT of time judging every little thing (and making little changes here and there), I was starting to feel that the improvements I made didn't proportionately reflect the time I was spending scrutinizing it. So after awhile I said enough was enough and forced myself to move on and light it. I will definitely get some ambient lighting in there because now that I look at it with fresher eyes (I've been working on yet another project in the meantime), you and Ged are spot on with your comments so I thank you for that.
I'll update as soon as I have something noticably better to show for both pieces. Meanwhile, here is a WIP shot of that aforementioned project (rendered at a bigger size this time). Crit away!
A water tower in the background or on the roof would look nice too
http://www.ghosttownexplorers.org/california/panamint/panamint.htm
Some little ideas to "break" things up in yer scene...
Only 3 crits so far:
1- Covered wagon looks really small, usually two people can face each other with their knees bent. Wagon tarp looks too small.
2- barrel looks small compared to the guy too.
3- I would make the horse hitching post like this: http://natchez-trace.thefuntimesguide.com/images/blogs/hitching-post-and-picnic-table-at-trailhead.jpg
it is more of a traditional horse post than the one you have which looks to modern.
Allthough both #'s 1&2 of my crits can be shrugged off due to what the wagon or barrel are used for.
Idea: get a perfect side view of a horse and put it on a flat plain and put it in your scene next to your hitch post, wagon, person to compare size/ proportions. I think they used quarter horses back then.
Looks good so far tho other than those small things.
I've been having time away from my personal projects, getting a full time job and all. But I don't want to let my personal portfolio lag behind so here we go with an updated image. There's alot of things I'd love to fix in this scene, but I'd like to hear what people have to say first, if they see the same things as me
Just Two crit's, change some of the doors to be a different color and their frames to match the building color a little more. I noticed the doors are using all the same texture in the bottom right picture cell almost right away because of the bright white color.
The light color of the frames makes the doors look too wide even tho they are the right size
looks nice tho.
Your little town is coming along nice tho, looking forward to the final on this.
</excuses>
Returned to my character roots and came up with this guy. Any crits welcome of course.
Here's something a little new - tried doing this in Zbrush, which I find - character models seem to look much better in Zbrush than Maya. Wonder whats up with that.
So I want something like this:
Base model here:
Sort of progressed model here:
I think it takes a turn for the worst in this latest version. Have to take the time over the long weekend to fix this.
Any advice is muchly appreciated.
Also an environment piece.