Home 3D Art Showcase & Critiques

Western Tale Character WIP: Reynard

andersh
polycounter lvl 10
Offline / Send Message
andersh polycounter lvl 10
Hello Poly Count, this is my first WIP thread here, long time lurk.

I will post WIP's for a character called Reynard here. This character is from a collaborative art project I started up recently with some friends. We wrote a story with all of these characters to give us some context for creating artwork. We're taking a page from the Skillful Huntsman / Exodyssey playbook. The project is called Western Tale.

I am hoping to finish this character in time to put on my graduation reel. Going to get as much done as possible this week!

Concept:
reynardSketch05.jpg

I had been working on the base mesh and bust over the last week, and yesterday began sculpting the clothes for the character out of simple cubes:
Reynard01.jpg
ReynardBust01.jpg

I have done better busts, not sure where I went wrong on this one but I think I'm going to scrap it and try to go for a little bit of a celebrity likeness on the next one.

Critique very much wanted on this process! Thanks!

Replies

  • Luke_Starkie
    Offline / Send Message
    Luke_Starkie polycounter lvl 8
    Looks really good Sir, The only things i can crit on is that the ears seem to high, and the eyes seem a little to big :)

    Awesome work anyway :D
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    I am working on the white vest but have a problem that I am not sure about: whether to include the collar as one piece in the same ZBrush subtool, or to model it separately.

    I decided to model the collar separately, but I am worried that it might not integrate into the rest of the vest once I start sculpting. But maybe since the collar is folded over I can hide the seam.

    Thinking about going ahead and modeling up the vest rather than doing it this way with a simple cube base, because the whole collar integration thing is making me nervous.

    I'd like to hear thoughts on the matter.

    Here is the base vest at the moment:
    Reynard03.jpg
  • Helixx
    Offline / Send Message
    Helixx polygon
    Personally I'd say if you haven't spent too much time on it and it's gonna cause you to lose some sleep just redo the vest with the collar attached. The rest is looking good so far, I'd just keep an eye on your fold size and variety so that it matches the fabric.
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    I ended up remodeling the vest base mesh completely in Maya.

    Reynard04.jpg

    To make it easier to handle in zbrush, I UV'd the vest in four parts - collar left and right, vest left and right. In ZBrush now I can break this into polygroups based on UV's and handle them each separately, making the process a bit easier to cope with.

    So far I am pretty happy with the way it is working out, I just need to thicken up the collar and I will try to get in the major vest wrinkles tonight.
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Update:

    Moving on to the sleeves. Not sure how I like the button holes on the jacket collar..
    Reynard06.jpg
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Update: Completed the shirt collar and rolled up sleeve, added the wrist strap and the gloves are nearly complete.

    Not sure how I feel about the look of the wrist strap sticking out - maybe its the position on the outside of the wrist...or maybe its just sticking out too far.

    Reynard08.jpg


    Tomorrow's plan: Add any other misc. straps, begin larger belt, begin belt pouch and/or canteen.
  • brandoom
    Offline / Send Message
    brandoom polycounter lvl 15
    looking good so far Andersh.

    I think you need to looking at the wrinkles. They are pretty uniform for the whole character. Each peice of clothing is going to produce different looking wrinkles due to the nature of the fabric. I found a couple images you might want to look over.

    10415372_2597804_full.JPG

    orange_dress_shirt_1.png

    You have hills with no valleys basically.

    Also i think you've lost a bit of the original shape of the character, his body is looking a lot wider than you have in your concept drawing.

    Its looking good though. Keep up the good work, its definitely coming along!
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Modeled the belt yesterday. Now I'm trying to decide how/where I want the jacket to tuck under the belt.

    Reynard09.jpg
  • conte
    Offline / Send Message
    conte polycounter lvl 18
    looks good, but it was an arsh's basemesh firstly?
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    @conte: Nope. Can you direct me to said base mesh though? A quick google led me to this thread but it doesn't quite look like the correct thread: http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1555

    Btw I did use a base mesh called "the purist" posted at CGChain by Monte Cristo. I had to modify the base mesh to remove his junk.
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    I have created Reynard's rifle over the past couple of days. School has started up, found out I only have the next 4 weeks to finish up all of my portfolio work for my final class. Yikes.

    Here is the concept by my friend Bennett Jobling:
    reynardrifle.jpg

    A Side View Render of the high poly model pre-smoothing:
    Rifle01.jpg

    A Shot of the "floating" geometry:
    Rifle02.jpg

    And the model smoothed in zbrush, ready to sculpt the cloth and put a couple of dings into the metal:
    Rifle03.jpg

    My hard surface is rusty, so this was a good exercise. Also, I have never tried floating the geo over the main surface before, but from all of the tutorials I have seen, this should bake out fine. I hope.

    More to come. I want to get the entire high poly for this guy knocked out before the week is done, and then get the low poly complete and UV'd (hopefully well on its way to being texture complete) by the following week.
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Finished sculpting the cloth wrap on the rifle butt, charm, and rifle scabbard:

    Rifle04.jpg
    Rifle05.jpg

    I may have gone a bit overboard on the alpha textures on the scabbard, but I'm OK with that. I may apply some leathery alphas to the jacket, but much less intense.

    I am currently working on the belt that attaches the scabbard to the character.

    But I made the mistake of modeling the rifle in a different scene file and it is sized differently from the main character. This wouldn't be too much of a problem except I've got my rifle broken into multiple parts in multiple ZBrush tools. So I am having to use a proxy rifle mesh to line the belt up on the character, then later I'll move the final low poly rifle mesh into place after I've baked it off.

    Pain in the arse.
  • Alec3d
    I don't think you went overboard with the alphas, reminds me of worn leather (presumably what you were going for?)
  • cycloverid
    Offline / Send Message
    cycloverid polycounter lvl 15
    Wow, okay, I didn't make the connection after you responded to me about being in competition with our rifles! I really appreciate the concepting here, and the design is pretty cool too.

    If I were you, I'd be really careful about the face. It looks like your proportions could use quite a bit of work. I need to brush up on facial anatomy myself, but I wanted to show what I mean:

    ReynardPAINTOVER.gif

    The rest is coming along very nicely. In fact, I should have been working on my gun instead of this!!! :poly121:

    Your game project looks great btw. Good luck man!

    Note: I wasn't looking at your drawing when I made this, so keep that in mind!
  • Sirdelita
    Offline / Send Message
    Sirdelita polycounter lvl 10
    God I absolutely love those gun designs! I'm a sucker for bandages!
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Working on a new head for Reynard.

    HeadSculptPreview01.jpg

    Need to punch the eye lids out some more...want to "stylize" it a little more over all. Obviously I need to get to the hair, but I'm looking around for examples of good ZBrush hair right now.

    The character is supposed to be late teens/early 20's. Might not be hitting it totally...

    Anything else anyone sees about it?

    -I have some more stuff to post but I'll screen shot it later...
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Head update after a bit of critique on a different forum...
    HeadSculptPreview02.jpg
  • d00kie
    Offline / Send Message
    d00kie polycounter lvl 17
    looks kinda like Sean Penn. great improvement!
  • dolemite
    Great character man. Love the gun especially.
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    @d00kie: I didn't intend for this, but I thought he ended up looking a bit Mr. Frodo. (Actor's name escapes me).
    @dolemite: Thanks for the kind words!

    Here's some shots of the new head plus some final little bits and bobs.
    Reynard11.jpg
    Reynard12.jpg

    I just want to do one more detail pass and a bit of cleanup and then I'm calling the high poly done -

    want to do another pass on the head (throat and hair specifically).
    was thinking of adding a second, smaller pouch. but i'm feeling lazy..
    arm needs a little more attention, need to lengthen the fingers.
    and maybe a little more leather texture here and there.
  • BradMyers82
    Offline / Send Message
    BradMyers82 interpolator
    Hey, good job so far. Those folds are looking nice.
    My main crit atm is the back of the vest is hanging weird, and the belt seems to not be interacting with the cloth. The belt seems to be floating because of this, but if you got some stress folds in that area it would give the belt a much better sense of weight.
    I'm really digging the detail of the high poly so far, keep it up!
  • Krypteia
    Good work!

    The character might appear a bit too old for late teens/early twenties. I've done a quick google search of males in their early twenties, take a gander and see what you think:

    http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00577/74/18/577788147_m.jpg

    http://lh4.ggpht.com/_lc7ey6bqaK8/SckAtJeKcsI/AAAAAAAAA7Y/Qy0iRHPPl00/s640/anthonybatista.jpg

    http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/andrew/scs/cs/15-463/f06/pub/www/projects/proj2/jingj/me2ken2/morph60.jpg

    Obviously these haven't been weathered by a hard, western-style life - but I'd say for younger go with an overall smoother appearance. Maybe less wrinkles on the forehead.

    EDIT:

    Here's Christopher Reeves in his early twenties apparently:

    http://www.capedwonder.com/images/picture-folder/images/career/CW-early-Reeve-portrait-02.jpg
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Youngified him by simply filling in some of his cragginess with the clay tool =)

    ReynardBust02.jpg
  • crazyfingers
    Offline / Send Message
    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    Nice improvements you've made to the face there. He's definitely got the expression of a dude you'd see in a western, not that easy to capture, good stuff.
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Nearly done with the retopo, will start UV'ing tomorrow:

    Reynard14_retopo.jpg

    I expect that with the gun and scabbard added, the final poly count will be around 13k. I can probably trim it down some, but I am dead tired of staring at this retopo. I think could always trim some off after the bake...

    This is my first real attempt at trying to cute the major folds into the low poly, I observed some other people's work and the only constraint I kept on myself is that it must stay under 15k polys.

    Let me know if you guys see any major errors that won't bake well/deform well...
  • andersh
    Offline / Send Message
    andersh polycounter lvl 10
    Yarr, here he is with Normal + AO:

    reynardPreview02.jpg

    About 25% done with the texture - hope it goes well!
  • Snefer
    Offline / Send Message
    Snefer polycounter lvl 16
    Bake looks fine :) But I think you could take him down a 1000 tris or so without loosing any info :)
  • poopinmymouth
    Offline / Send Message
    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    This is looking nice. I dig the pants. It really needs some nice colors, be sure to pay attention to shadow tones, and don't let them go too black from your light bake.
Sign In or Register to comment.