Blacksmith Character
Hey all,
First time poster, long time lurker, very inspirational work you people have here so i decided to pluck up the courage and post some work too.
This is going to be my second fully normal mapped character. The model is based on a blacksmith / engineer type character, ive got the main part of him sculpted, just got to add a few more objects (glasses, belts wrapped around the gloves, tools to go into the holders on the apron.)
Piccys:
C&C greatly welcomed.
First time poster, long time lurker, very inspirational work you people have here so i decided to pluck up the courage and post some work too.
This is going to be my second fully normal mapped character. The model is based on a blacksmith / engineer type character, ive got the main part of him sculpted, just got to add a few more objects (glasses, belts wrapped around the gloves, tools to go into the holders on the apron.)
Piccys:
C&C greatly welcomed.
Replies
Great start!
A real blacksmith will have piles of tools, custom tools only he knows what are for. The loops on the apron are a good place to put some nameless iron tools. There is a place for a big ass hammer, but that really depends on what your making. This guy doesn't look like he makes double headed axes. Watchmakers could be called blacksmiths too, with all the custom metal parts they have to make.
Hope this helps, either way this guy needs bigger hands and a thicker wrists! Blacksmithing takes some serious strength. Probably why I haven't gone past dabbling.
Google some blacksmiths tools when the time comes, here's a start:
http://www.bgcmonline.org/docs/bsd08_files/ToolBox.jpg
Gonna agree with n88tr on the apron. It should be a thick leather to keep the sparks caused by smithing from igniting his pants.
Also as GugloPWN said, bulk up his upper body a bit, unless he's a watchmaker he's probably swinging a mallet most of the day. Even if he is older he'd still be build like a brick shithouse.
Other then that, watch your trapezius muscles.. they looks like they're sticking out a bit too far. Keep at it, it'll be a fun project for sure.
The loops on the apron could use some detail to show how the loops are attached onto the apron. right now the loops look too perfect. The apron has some nice folds in it but remember that those loops would be following the folds. If the loops are made of leather they should droop a bit as well.
Check out this image
http://www.mytoolstore.com/graber/040008.jpg
You can see that the leather loops are slightly stretched and drooping.
Keep up the work!
I think a watchmaker is a good sense of direction of where im trying to go with the character. He prefers the more delicate work out there.
Small update: Made the apron longer, made the traps smaller / narrower and got some glasses on the go too.
Got some things done - redid the tool holders, got some tools and did the belt around the gloves. I think i'm done with the highpoly now.
Piccys:
But i think head could be a little bit smaller, neck in the lower part thiner. And his back, it seems to be flat. Cant wait to see him textured
~P~
Sirdelita: Sorry, should have started this a bit more clearly in my first post (i did mention it in my second though). He's more of a watchmaker then a full on blacksmith, he does the more delicate line of blacksmithing.
I am not a fan of harsh criticism, but I'm seeing this more and more on Polycount these days; students who sign up in large groups, and bolster a general mediocrity by posting in each others threads and saying how great everything is.
I don't have my wacon here to do a decent paint-over, but I will as soon as I get to the office. here is my criticism, which I hope, in all sincerity is helpful in improving this piece.
Crit:
The proportions are generally alright, and I really like that you took the curvature of the hand into consideration, but you should consider making the fingers more delineated per joint section, right now they kinda look like long curved thin sausages.
His neck muscles do not flow into his upper back, and therefore the rest of his body in a way that makes sense. Basically, you'd see a neck like that on a much thicker man, with wider shoulders. Additionally, his neck is too long, and the muscles too pronounced.
His body seems like a straight cylinder, and although there are people who exhibit this flat body type, you're missing an opportunity to bring a unique style to the character, and to tell the story of his body by adding volume and weight. Although this can be fixed when weighted/animated, he is standing far to erect for a man of his age. Also, where is his rear end? It looks like he has no butt.
The strap holding his apron on looks like it turns into a collar when looking at him from the back, and is generally too thick. Secondly, the buttons looks like they're made out of clay. I think the folds in his clothes are "ok", but they seems somewhat haphazard and too much like clay, you could stand to make them a bit sharper.
My area of most concern is the face/head. The proportions here are not correct, and the mouth area should be completely reworked. the "pursed" lip thing is very common, and needs to be weeded out as soon as possible as you learn to improve your character work. The "duck bill" mouth effect is very prevalent, and you should look to his graphic to help solve it (not the best reference, just the quickest one I could find- steven stahlbeg has a much better example if someone else cares to post it):
Next, the wrinkles are haphazardly placed, and do not really lend any credibility to his age. They are uniform in size, depth, and length, and scattered around. This is not the correct approach to making wrinkles. Look at the image KillingPeople posted for a correct approach.
The next think to consider are the facial proportions. His ear is too big, and placed in the wrong part of the head, his nose and lips are out of proportion lengthwise and should be reworked:
I hope this has been helpful. To any other students or people new to 3d, please stop with the gushing posts , or offering expertise when you don't have the expertise yourself.
I may be starting to sound a bit like "hyper" from anyone who remembers, but I think it's gotten kinda bad these days.
We want to honestly help new members and people new to 3d to improve, and while praise is wonderful, and even this posts deserves some praise for the good work and effort he's put in, I think this gushing stuff needs to stop.
Also you raised a good point. Blowing sunshine up my arse is all well and good, but im here to learn, and further myself as an artist. So i want all the help i can get, be it negative or positive.
Also just for the record, im not part of any student group (100% self taught). But i have seen it going around for a long time in my lurking days too.
As the head seemed is the most concerning part of the model i reworked it
first.
- Reworked the mouth (seems to be my weakest area when sculpting)
- Reworked the forehead
- Reworked the eyes and the wrinkles coming from it.
- General proportion tweaks.
I kept the ears and nose big, (but not as big
Piccy:
Thanks Again.
I thought the exact same thing. Seems like if hes been swinging a hammer his whole life he'd have 24" pythons brother.
Character looks good though. :thumbup:
I commend you on being self taught, I did the same thing myself, and I have great respect for people who take their education into their own hands.
Your new face has lots of improvements over the old one, good job.
Here are some things to consider, especially the critical folds around the eye.
Sorry for the lack of update guys been kinda busy and all (excuses excuses, i know
What's Done:
- Tweaked the sculpt a tiny bit.
- Got the low poly done.
- UV mapped and baked.
The normal map is in the early stages at the mo, got some errors i need to fix.
Got the model running through Xoliul's shader, which is awsome. But i think im getting a few artifacts round the head where the seams are - from a distance you can see black lines following the seams, but when you zoom in, they're gone.
weighs in at 9360 tris.
Piccys:
Thanks
Keep it up man.
I've got some of the texturing done. Haven't tweaked the normal map yet cause i was just to excited and jumped straight into painting.
- Face is pretty much done. I'm having a few issues with painting the hair though, what's the best way to approach this?
-Main part of the apron is done.
-Doesn't have his giraffe like neck any more:poly124:.
Piccys:
Thanks
-Buddikaman
Seriously though, looking pretty awesome, skin looks good, although that seam on the top of his head needs some attention.
I think the biggest thing this thing lacks, is reference. I can tell you modelled this 90% from your head, and you likely weren't using much of the reference you might have gathered.
You also seemed to skip out on a lot of 'fundamental' things, when you skipped ahead to the higher detail.
I've struggled with making old men before, and had the fortune of getting a LOT Of crits thrown my way by artists much better than me (MM especially pushed me in my old man thread to rethink my workflow).
Going back to the VERY VERY beginning of this, I would say you jumped too quickly into your micro details without realising your proportions, and shapes are off.
Ears, noses and other parts of cartilage continually grow into their old age, and your sculpt should reflect that. Right now it looks like the facial structure of a young man, with old person makeup.
The inner corner of the eye, is physically almost always lower than the outer corner. The reference photo that was posted is highly misleading, because the skin sag at the outer corner pretty much folded past where the corner of the eye is supposed to be (follow the eyelash location to see what i mean).
The nose dosen't seem wide enough. Each nostril should go as far as the vitreus humour (another important detail that you never modelled). The shapes generally seem off. I would highly recommend 2 drawing books by Burne hogarth called 'Dynamic Anatomy', and 'Drawing the human Head'. He breaks down pieces of facial anatomy such as the nose into SHAPES (nostril, filtrum, bridge, bone, cartiledge), which I've found to be very helpful in sculpting faces.
There's plenty of crits to be made about the mouth, cheeks, neck, and chin, but I think overall it has less to do with any of those individual pieces, but about your methods in approaching this model.
You need to gather REFERENCE! REFERENCE REFERENCE REFERENCE!
It's a pretty good start, but I would suggest you go back to refine the sculpt. There's a lot of anatomical principals you seem to understand, but not know in depth.
Even though the eye placement is correct, the way youve modelled it makes it seem like you are unaware of many of the details of eyes. You neglected the fold above the eye, the vitreus humour, the eyeball has virtually NO clearance from the eyelid, lack of eyelashes, the direction the wrinkles should be going.. etc.
Seriously use this as an opportunity, to study in depth the facesof 50 old people. The skeletal anatomy, the muscular anatomy, the topological anatomy. See which kinds of noses are particular to different regions, then do the same for the eyes/mouth/ears etc.
Even by skipping ahead to the textures, It seems like you never gathered any reference for it. The colour is nearly completely flat. Old people are supposed to have liver spots everywhere. Their moles are supposed to become much more pronounced, and generally the tones are supposed to change all over. Blue spiderweb veins, wierd white splotchiness on the epidermal layer... Theres supposed to be blues under the eyes, pinks on the lips, desaturated on the nose, yellows around the mouth.. and more grey where the stubble/hairs are supposed to grow (which you have some of).
There's supposed to be a HUGE difference between baby skin, woman skin, teenager skin, and old man skin. Your texturing really dosen't seem to reflect that.
All in all, it's a decent model. But if you want to REALLY push yourself to get better, you should try to understand everything there is to understand about it.
-Woog
Thanks for the kind words guys.
I'm glad you saw an improvement in the face PeterK (must mean im doing something right
JacqueChoi: Have a cookie for being so helpful.
You where spot on with the reference stuff, i did a few doodles, grab a few references and just modelled/sculpted away like a blind man. It's a problem i have which i have to get over, as i know it makes things more difficult down the road.
Books look good, i'll look into them, i need a decent drawing book.
It's funny i've haven't found many decent old people reference pictures on the internet, so at work when i speak to an old person i just stare at their face instead of listening/responding, kinda odd.
Trying to take everything you've said on board, but i'm confused with the vitreus humour, maybe i'm being retarded but from a quick google the vitreus humour is the jelly stuff inside the eyeball.
-Diffuse is pretty much finished now.
-Layed down a super wip spec map.
I'm pretty happy how it turned out, but always looking to improve it.
Piccys:
Marmoset kicks arse:
Thanks
- Tweaked the diffuse map, added more liver spots/moles, more colour variation, and some eyebrows!
- Got a spec map too, i'd love some input on this as it's my first proper attempt at a spec map.
- Fixed some normal map issues.
Thanks for all the brilliant input over the course of this project, i learnt so much. Im so glad i signed up. Cant wait to start a new one.
Piccys:
Thanks again.
http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Drawing%20the%20Head%20and%20Hands.pdf
This shows my noobiness but, do you always have a AO map with a normal map? i don't usually see them with other peoples work.
Thanks
~P~