current WIP - female char

zerojs

Hi all, recently i put up my portfolio for crits and someone said that nothing on there was even mediocre or industry standard. So i'm trying to better myself and start making better characters.

A female char i started a couple days ago, currently sorting out the hair/head.
Any feedback is welcome thanks.
Currently the whole thing is about 7k tris, but that includes the full body aswell as the clothes.


Whilst i was working on it i also starting making a variant, not sure i'll carry on with it though,this is as far as i got with it:

zerojs

progress

whats_true

Not sure if you want to go realistic or not, but the face is really soft. Adding some pours or dots would help give it more character.

Though, that may be a different art direction that your going for.

I like it!

AimBiZ

Gotta love the hair. Everything else looks promising as well.

BrodyB

The arms look a tad bit thin, and the legs look really straight. Bring out her legs a bit to add curvature and muscle. Here's a paintover.

Joao Sapiro

the eyes may be a tad too big ? other than that i say keep going

zerojs

Thanks for the feedback, ill have a look at the legs and arms.

zerojs

started finishing the top off.

J Randall

man thats pretty cool are you working off your own concept?

zerojs

i didnt use any concepts, when im making something just for my self/portfolio i just improvise.
But for inspiration i just studied the female characters of guild wars, final fantasy, lineage 2, requiem online.

thanks for the nice comments its the first time for me, usually i get alot of negative feedback.

zerojs

progress:

solar

Cool model, the AO on the face currently looks too strong/black. You could try selecting that part of layer in photoshop and using colour balance to shift it away from black, with maybe some red and blue? This would also work well on the hair which is looking far too black in the shadows.

renderhjs

Agreed AO pass to much greyscale alike,- try mixing it with different blend modes instead with just multiply.
Her face has imo. a poser expression - they eye´s have almost a rectangular shape it looks odd. Also there is a seam right in the middle of her face- which look rather male alike.

As for the hair I would add some color variations there- like some orange/ Brown strips or slight violet/pink.

Try some patterns on her clothing- it´s empty right now. Even if you like the model perhaps some line decorations on the borders.

zerojs

Yeah i need to put some strands in the hair definatly. Think i might have fixed that sharp seam on her face, not sure yet. Anyway, i been doin more with the dress today.

zerojs

Check first image for update, just updating that, no point posting more images.

Im not sure about the cape, i kinda rushed it, and i havent posed the hands with the staff yet.

Kawe

well. get to the dress already I assume it isn't going to be white?

zerojs

Made some adjustments to the face and boots and finally starting blocking in the texture of the clothes.

AimBiZ

I like where you're going with this. Keep it up!
I would like to see more contrast on the hair and color variation like Renderhjs said.

Cheers!

zerojs

Thanks for the kind words man.

zerojs

I decided she's gonna be a summoner, and this is her summon, that also works as her mount.

AimBiZ

That summon sure looks interesting. Are you done with that model too? Right now it feels you could put down a bit more lovin on it, like maybe making the hans mosre interesting. Wouldn't it be cooler if they were bigger? And I wonder if some of the small bevels you got going on are really that necessary. The feet could use more of it though.

Are you working from any concepts btw? I am curious what material the summon is made of.

Looks promising. Keep it up.

zerojs

I agree with everything you just said really, the hands might look cooler if they are bigger, ill try it. And yeah i rushed the feet really, but i made the whole summon in about 4/5 hrs so yeah i could do with a lil bit more polishing.
As far as concepts, none really, if you look at my WIP section of my website (www.zer0pages.co.uk/3d) you'll see that i've got plenty of imagination when it comes to mechs

AimBiZ

I see.

I also came to think of, the elbows don't make much sense to me. Perhaps simplify the upper arm a bit and make it slimmer, like the robots in UT3. Then the hands will look heavier.

zerojs

well i made some changes, hands do indeed look better now theyre larger, helps the silhoutte out nicely, and smoothed out the feet, added a bit more character to the top half too. Thanks for the help, its definatly made a difference. currently he is at about 6.7k tris, which is fine seen as im only makin this for my portfolio.

zerojs

can you post a link or something for an image of the robots in UT3 , i cant find any.

AimBiZ

Almost neither could I. :P

This was for concept I think.
http://www.beyondunreal.com/staff/hal/ut2007/screen01.jpg

The final models got much skinnier arms, but their forearms where huge.
http://features.cgsociety.org/stories/2007_12/UT3/images/Bot_battle.jpg

zerojs

o , i've never seen them, the one on the left in the concept is goddamn sex! very cool, thanks man

Nizza_waaarg

looks good. feel like the skin texture could use a bit of brightening (the chest mostly, looks kinda dark and has flat tones compared to the face).
Robot looks great, bigger hands ftw

good luck with the texturing

zerojs

ok so how about, his arms and legs CAN extend, like patlabor (one of my fav's).
Would kinda make sense, when the main char wants to mount him he shrinks down and then when shes on he extends up. hmm?

zerojs

AimBiZ

I dont like the legs extended. If she wants to climb up, the summon could simple lay out its arm as a ramp.
And even though I voted skinny arms I think you should look over the elbow construction since to me it looks like it could break easily. Would perhaps be more charming with the classic cylinderjoints, or perhaps something similar to the knees?

zerojs

Right well, im really stuck on texturing this characters clothing. Texturing and painting in general has always been my biggest weakness. And i really wanted to use this character to improve my texturing skills, but im just stuck on how to texture the dress. Anyone got any guides/ideas about painting textures for clothing that may help? anything, please!?
Heres what she looks like currently:

garriola83

think about how the material is built. you are lacking some natural seams and hemming on what something appears to be cloth. and you added a bit of lace on the stocking and maybe extrapolate from there. add that design to the overall like a motif or a theme. also good references are always key.

AimBiZ

I personally like to use custom brushes for getting the surface right. I usually have a base colorlayer then make several overlay layers and paint with either white or black depending on if I want highlights or shading. Last time I textured a character I painted the basecolorlayer as well with standard brushes.
Photosourcing might also work good, taking greyscale samples and use them as overlay usually works good for me.
Though it all depends what kind of surface you want to achieve. Study references carefully.

And btw, I think you could optimise your uv-map alot more on some parts.

And again, I really like the hairstyle.

Good luck.

zerojs

so after many attempts i thought perhaps if i re made the dress, perhaps a more realistic dress could be easier for me to texture. Does it look any better or just different? thanks for your help again!

zerojs

also made another lil pet for her

garriola83

her chin is way to pointy and im not talking about the jawline but the muscle underneath the lips that protrudes like a bulb looks like its tapering at the point of symmetry. thats kind of a rookie mistake but its easily fixable. i notice your render is getting these weird tris. i was wondering if youre rendering in some sort of isometric view. that might cause it. and it seems that you might be using skylight to render. skylight kills spec, and bumps so be careful. just some advice to a fellow char modeler.

zerojs

Ty for you comments, Im using 3 point lighting, and ive turned all spec off, i prefer to concentrate on just the colour map first then start lookin at spec etc. The wierd tris might be the AO map, i've not smoothed it out yet.

Anyway, starting texturing.. again.

Zephir62

Hot damn this is turning out pretty cool. Legs are too straight, beef up the thighs a little. Chin is a little pointy, could be flattened out.


personally, I liked the orange/white mix to the texture on the clothes better than the brown cloth.

zerojs

Think im gonna make the turqoise stuff metal, and the leg wamers too, also added a emblem and title, mech summoner..

zerojs

Starting to get the hang of texturing clothes now.

garriola83

theres still the line down the chin thats bothering me. thats the modeling itself.