Everyone keeps pushing for more and more realism, more realistic, do these crits to make it real but the more I do that the further and further it gets from how I want it to look, massive style creep. In it's current form I can finally see what people mean by saying there is too much a difference between the face and body style, it's just horrible now.
The nose is a hell of a lot better, if you go back to the beak you had, that would be a huge mistake.
I don't think anyone is pushing realism, my paint overs probably come out more realistic because I have trouble hitting the painterly style. But everyone is pushing you to change the bits that take left turns from human anatomy and nudge you in the direction that will help the stylistic impression.
Stylistic characters are based off of actual anatomy with some simplifications and exaggerations. The old rule of, "you need to know the rules before you can break them" holds true. The style you're after is impressionistic of real world objects. The more you know about the object and the more informed you'll be about what to simplify and what to exaggerate. It's weird but to do simplified exaggerated work you sometimes have to know a crazy amount of real world stuff.
Paint over:
The lips are like someone chopping down a tree with an axe instead of using a chainsaw to cut a slit.
The lips aren't a straight line, their thickness and forms need to be accounted for.
In general I tried to render the face with a light above and slightly behind his head, instead of a flash light shining in his face, which is how I used to shade faces when I was starting out.
The shading on the lower half of the face is darker than the top. Pior once pointed this out that the top of the head shades the face, like if you hold an egg upside down the pointy part is shaded by the big round part. You can also fake manly stubble. Giving the person a manly granite jaw, hahaha.
The lip color is a different color than shading on the face but not bubble gum pink.
The brows aren't raised, and the eyes are given a slight squint, again to counteract the surprised look. The shading around the eyes helps with this also.
Now you can argue that this looks more realistic, but I have trouble hitting the painterly style with faces and there was a fair amount of realism in the face. Hopefully what I was trying to illustrate with the shape of the brows and the muscles around the mouth make a point even if I had trouble nailing the style, which isn't really all that defined to begin with...
I made the changes you mentioned and redid the lips, but for some reason the face just keeps getting worse and worse and I don't understand why. I've painted it over repeatedly looking at all sorts of real photographs and even cutting parts out of them but it just keeps coming out horribly alien and bizarre.
It had something when it was still black and white, something I can't put into words, it just looked GOOD, but now its lost whatever that something, it has no essence anymore, it's some horrible monstrosity imitation of a face done by aliens and no matter what I do to it, it just keeps getting worse.
Unscrupulously cheated and directly used a photo of real eyes to fix it. It sorta looks better now, but the face itself is not his face anymore, it's just a face.
Also please ignore the problems around the face and hair there is a seam i have been negelecting to clean up while I focus on the face. He looks like an actor but I can't place the name.
It goes back to what I was trying to say earlier. Dont obsess with painting that texture straight on the UV map - for some models, the perception is so distorted (especially with mirrored UVs) that it never looks good. I wasnt kidding when I suggested you should paint a 2D illustration of that face, using one of your perspective screenshots as a base to paintover. I mean, it really, really works. Then, you do whatever is needed (copy-pasting, projection, 3d painting, whatever to achieve that look). Basically, do your own paintover man, be your own art director. Thats the best way to grow.
You say the face doesnt look like anything anymore. Show us, on a paintover, what you want it to look like!
Also, work lower res. By working too high itll start looking like one of those "highres texture packs" for older games. Look for and study Kenneth Scotts quake1/quakeworld texture work.
This may be a stupid question from someone who is more or less a lurker at these forums for the time being but...
Your choice for the eye color surprises me, is it supposed to be as neon and unrealistic as it is right now? I think that the eyes would look nicer if they were a darker hazel color, like most green eyes tend to be. Right now, I get a very cyan feeling from the eyes that seems rather inhuman, kind of reminded me of final fantasy 7.
Otherwise the model is really really coming along. Oh, and what others are saying about critique is more or less my thoughts too. We're all here to help you and give input, and as artists we find it hard to properly self assess our work. Some things that look good to others may not look good to you and vice versa.
the problem right now is not whether to go more realistic or to go in a more stylistic direction, imho there is a huge style gap between the body proportions and the face, if yu want to go for a more toony, more stylized character - fine i'm totally with you but then the face needs to be less naturalistic, more stylized
It had something when it was still black and white, something I can't put into words, it just looked GOOD, but now its lost whatever that something, it has no essence anymore, it's some horrible monstrosity imitation of a face done by aliens and no matter what I do to it, it just keeps getting worse.
it had nothing when it was black and white. to you tit might appear as if the face has lost his esscence, but IMO thats certainly not the case. i also completly disagree that the black and white face "just looked GOOD". it had no color after all. the recent face has alot to improve on, good luck.
I think he is deffinately less douche baggy now. Vigs paint over made him look more bad@$$ and your helped, but vig had more contrast and I think it helps alot.
Just flipped through the thread and IMO you might be working with too many refs. You posted alot of 'random' pics. I'd honestly find that too distracting, but I think it might've also lead to alot of critiques that were also confused at to what your aim is.
I agree that the collar/hood is fine to have, but maybe instead of pulling the shoulders down and away just making the collar less wide, and maybe taller would give it more shape instead of the shape rolling from the collar down the arm you'd get a step there.
collar, step down/out to shoulder, then down arm. It would break that front silohette that says he has high/wide shoulders.
apart from that I don't know, the silohette isn't that bad, just nothing really strong that sticks out.
oh yeah, i think the nose has benn too pointy the whole time, and the bottom of nose should be flatter.
maybe bigger hand feet to make him more cartoony proportionally, and he'd still look thin, not bulky.
I've stopped checking/replying this thread while I am at work from now on because I get too distracted replying to it, so I'll batch reply when I get home from now on.
First @pior: I'm only working on a 512x512 map right now, the face part takes up around 256x256, I wasn't really going for having him look like these:
Nothing against old games, I love Quake and all them to bits, but I don't understand why I should go to like a 128x for the whole thing, that'd only give me 64x pixels to define the face, I'm doing pixel art at that point, not hand painting.
I will on the other hand do a paint over of the face myself, I hadn't considered doing one myself before now. It will probably help me get down how I want it to look without needing to worry about UVs and stuff.
@Yokai: I never wanted the face to look realistic, but I'll tone the eyes down anyways like you say. I guess I'm just not good enough of an artist to bring that out very well yet.
@Neox: No problem for me I can tell you right now I want to go more stylistic, but every time I try I get crits like 'That's unrealistic, fix it.' I'm referencing it a lot and not to mean I'm strictly doing just one thing but ideally I'd like it to be Torchlight-ish, that or like or Wow-ish in terms of what level of not realism. I personally think it looks unrealistic and stylized myself right now, like I'd never mistake that for a photo or anything but a hand paint, but that's probably just because I've been working on it for so long.
My largest goal is mainly to have it NOT look like HL2 or Modern Warfare or something like that. Ideally it should look not out of place in a world that looks like Torchlight, or Wow in terms of art style.
@lampekap: I didn't mean adding color made it lose it's essence, it still had it when I first added color, just all the minor alteration to face shape and the shading gradients since then gradually diminished whatever quality it had wwhen it was B/W that made me like it.
@Baddcog: Haha yeah I intend to darken it up like Vig's I really liked it too, but first I want to get the face looking right before I make such a drastic change.
To make things completely clear I am shooting for something that wouldn't look out of place in a world that looks like Torchlight or WoW, only a modern setting, not medieval. That's not to say 'I'm doing Torchlight.' I just mean hand painted and everything like that.
I'll try increasing the gap between where the collar stops and arm starts like you said, more of a stair case then gradient.
Not so much his feet but his hands are already pretty huge compared to his face, that is something I am struggling with is that its like it has to be either hyper realism, or every single part of his body has to be ridiculous exaggerated in some way, like I don't think huge feet look good on him that much when I had them before so I shrunk them down a fair bit.
I don't know, maybe we need a few word for it or I'm just calling it the wrong thing. What I am NOT going for is anything like HL2 etc, or on the other end of the spectrum I'm not doing like Ren and Stimpy of Battlefield Heroes or something like that.
Well, I did this and it came out waaaay too realistic. Also still very unlikeable, he looks mean and dead inside.
Ill try another. This time I wont look at any real world references, they show me proper lighting and all but don't help me capture handpainted at all.
What do you mean by realistic? Do you mean anatomically correct? Can you show examples of what you mean?
Good question. Maybe? I'm not sure. I'll try and example of what I am shooting for. Like.. Simpler, less every single detail. More boiled down essential, less everything? Stronger 'unrealistic' transitions between light and shadow maybe? Like, the middle ground between anime and reality.
You kinda got me stumped here.
Lets travel back in time (and to mars) and say something sorta like the style I pulled some hair from earlier:
Too bad I cropped all the faces out of it back then.
Also a couple of pior's are sorta close to what I am shooting for as well. I like his work.
Here we go, more 'essnetial shape-ier'
I pushed it a little too far here but you get the idea. He kinda looks like a deranged serial killer now.
Well, here's a pic of the torchlight characters. Figured having it to look at discuss might help you pin down what you want more.
I also wonder what size of tex you're using. Possibly alot of the smoothness is just too high res and actually detrcts imo from the lower poly style. (It also gives you alot more room for errors and a ton of little things can look off. If you paint smaller there won't be as many details to fuss over so it might help focus on the real issues more).
looking back and forth a few times I think there are several things you should focus on.
1-values, like I said Vig's paint over really exagerates the darks and highs. That really adds shape, and also adds to the 'cartoony - cel shading look' that torchlight has.
They also seem to really outline things with darks.
(I gotta save to see the pic so it's tough to post...
2-Hair. Notice the torchlight characters hair is more like one color. Then it has a few streaks of birght or dark.
Yours has tons of details comparitively... Maybe that makes it seem more realistic than you want.
I think I'd say the same about the pants, they have nicely painted details, but maybe they are too fine, too many, and not enough contrast.
Looks like you were painting in greyscale so you probably do the color layer overlay thing?
Might be good to go back to greyscale and really hit some highs and lows first. Really punch the main details and keep the details fairly large and blocky.
Then add color overlay.
Just to add, unfortunately I think modern characters can be harder to make unique and as styled as Torchlight. Silohette wise.
Torchlight's fantasy so you can have giant armor, glowing belts...
Modern stuff is more tame. Your guy looks like a snowboarder, so you can always go mohawk or something. But it's harder to add elements soley for shape and get away with it.
What're you gonna do? Give him an I-pod, lol.
Like-wise your guy is kindof just an average typical dude. The barbarian is huge and bulky, the girl is super curvy with long legs..
Haha Baddcog I think we came to the same conclusion at the same time, I edited my post into a more 'essential shapes' form ala cel shading. It looks kinda bad right now but I just got started.
And the full texture map is 512x, the face takes up roughly 256x in it's corner. I don't really want to go smaller, I'd rather clean up a little problems then lose that detail by reducing my texture map.
I've had a bunch of people time and time again tell me not to do it in B/W and I should have gone color from the start so I'm not going to go back now that I've gotten this far, I think I can handle doing highlights and shadow in color without needing to desaturate it again.
I'm not just strictly trying to do Torchlight exactly, I only brought it up since it was the most recent hand painted thing I can think of that is similar. I'd rather not change the pants and everything else to match it, I'm happy with those the way they are now, it's more like the face has to match the pants, rather then everything has to become a Torchlight clone.
@Snowfly Oh wow, I've never gotten fan art before. You've given me a huge smile and made my month, I love it. You're better at illustrating the sort of look and feeling I was going for then I am at explaining it to eeryone. He's even got the cigarette that I had in the fanart type one image thing I'd done myself, amazing. I am inspired.
It wasn't supposed to be a paint over but I liked it too much not to try at least try it.
The contrast is a bit too strong/literal with mine, but it's a start. No part of your sweet fan art was cut/pasted directly in this, it's totally painted myself just looking at it, felt like copy paste was cheating. I did too good a job being exact, so now I have to make it more... realistic? Haha, in the sense that the lighting doesn't make any sense right now.
Eye's are a bit funky right now too. He's sorta half closed squinting just generally smaller then mine in the nice fan art, but for open eyes mine are a little strange.
try and keep the colours a bit purer ie use a midtone then lighten or darken. not only use darks but use complementary colours.
I use the smudge tool a lot ( personal choice )
This is a little face a did yonks ago. all the flesh painted on one layer apart from a pair or stock ears I made earlier.
Well I think that's a step in the right direction, more or less.
You need to fix the upper lip, the philtrum is way too wide and doesn't start under each nostril but is about the width of the bridge between each nostril, its roughly tear drop shaped. Whenever you over define the philtrum you get cat face.
The cheeks are too sunken (even for someone suffering form malnourishment) which doesn't really fit a main character all that well, more like suffering NPC who you need to save, but that's my opinion. BUT the highlights aren't conforming to what the underlying anatomy would be. There isn't enough light hitting the top of the cheek where the cheek bones should be.
The nose has a really strong highlight flanked by two deep dark shadows, revisit the saddle bag critique I mentioned earlier.
There are a few other various anomalies but I think you should work on finding and fixing them. I consider observation and self critique to be the most valuable skills artists can have. Coordination and reflex can be honed over time but without observation an artist can't really grow on their own. With me posting as much as I do about this and that, I think I'm not letting you develop those skills... which is something pior touched on earlier, 1-2 pages ago.
Everyone else was doing it. I've never painted a texture in my life so parts of this could be very stupid - those more experienced can feel free to point that out, but I needed something to help wake me up.
Hey Everyone. I was pretty busy over the weekend and Monday but now I have an update for you all. It's a doosey.
I basically reshaped the entire face and texture topology. There are still a couple problems with it but it's come a long way. I'm starting to realize how incredibly minute little problems can change the overall feel of the face.
Current problems include:
-Eyebrow looks funny in the side view.
-Unnatural blue shadow on the nose
-Mouth might be too far forward and forehead too bar back, must consult real life face reference again.
-Need to redraw the mouth again, unsatisfied
-Same with the look of the eyes.
-He kinda looks like a dick who is looking down on everyone.
Bam, reasonably good looking well adjusted human being? No changes to the mesh yet though, needs adjustments in the jaw and forehead a bit. Some small problems on the chin and lips with blending too. Looks good from the front, sides are kinda wonky.
Redid the hair again, fixed a lot of the seaming along UVs, only a little bit left around the shoes.
I'm getting to the point again where It's not done, but its close enough that I struggle to find things to change and fix just because I've been looking at it for so long.
Nice one madmuffin! I think you're really starting to hit the visual direction you set out for yourself.
Here's a quick paintover that doesn't try to change the art direction choices you've made, just enhances what's already there (I hope):
-Add slight shadowing across the seams to give the main shapes more overall separation. (i.e. white coat to purple sleeve, neck to t-shirt)
-Contrast matte surfaces vs. shiny ones (i.e. gloves, shoes, pant stripes vs. rest of pants)
-Apply a bit of zone shadowing to add volume (i.e. chest and abdomen area on t-shirt, thigh to calf area on pants)
-Clean up excessive wrinkling so the surface is an easier read (coat sleeve, coat sides, pant legs)
-Add a rim specular on the 'cuffs' of each section (pant legs, purple sleeves around the cuffs, lab coat collar right where it turns downwards)
-Add in seams to break up the shapes for a little more visual interest (around shoulders, button area on coat, seam traveling across coat middle, zipper area)
All really great crits Snowfly, I'll get on that immediately.
And @Vig, there is a green dot? I'm not seeing it, could you circle it for me or something? When I maximize the saturation on the texture file, no green reveals itself to me but maybe I just fixed it since then without realizing it.
Huh yeah maybe my monitor is just bad, I thought it was set right but I guess not. That green blends in completely with the rest of it, I would have not caught that in a million years.
Now that there are arrows I can see it if I strain, Ill have it fixed in the next update.
Anyways, I left it kind of late tonight, slacking a little since its a Monday so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. The glove is the only part looking up to par right now, everything else I think I could push a bit more given the time before I show it.
Added little rhinestone dealies or maybe they are studded knuckles, need to be spaced out more. Not sure if I liked them yet or not.
I'm not really satisfied with the changes I made. Like, they look good when Snowfly did it but I'm just not capturing it right. I feel like I am completely drained of any ability to hand paint because I stopped for a weekend and I just completely lost it because of that.
It's just not popping. Also the shoes ended up too specular and glossy by accident. I UV'd them terribly and it makes making changes to them a bitch.
I'm just not feeling it in wishy-washy terms. I don't know how to state it any other way. Ill try bringing it into Photoshop's 3d paint and see if that doesn't help.
EDIT: Figured out the problem. Turns out my brush hardness was only at 50%. DURP.
Redid most of it. I liked it more this time around. Going to remake new shoes on him. Specular on legs needs adjusting, and arm highlights need to be moved together in the center.
One very, very important thing to remember when doing lowpoly stuff is that you can always edit the UVs while working on the texture. Especially at such low polycounts, its crucial. If a circle on your texture looks way stretched on the model, edit the UVs, not the texture. If for some reason you are working from somebody elses UVs and cannot change them, work on a copy with edited UVs then bake that back to the original ones later. Also, if you need a clean straight line, dont paint it diagonally, paint it straight and adjust the UVs accordingly.
It gives a tremendous amount of control. Oldschool Jap games are fantastic for that kind of stuff, whereas oldschool western games tend to be more locked when it comes to creative UVing.
Also, bad monitors can fuck up someones work pretty bad. If the colors tend to shift when you move your head around, its time to throw it out and get a new one. Middle-range Dells should suit your needs perfectly. But if you get one and it feels wrong, simply return it and get the model one step above.
One very, very important thing to remember when doing lowpoly stuff is that you can always edit the UVs while working on the texture. Especially at such low polycounts, its crucial. If a circle on your texture looks way stretched on the model, edit the UVs, not the texture. If for some reason you are working from somebody elses UVs and cannot change them, work on a copy with edited UVs then bake that back to the original ones later. Also, if you need a clean straight line, dont paint it diagonally, paint it straight and adjust the UVs accordingly.
It gives a tremendous amount of control. Oldschool Jap games are fantastic for that kind of stuff, whereas oldschool western games tend to be more locked when it comes to creative UVing.
Also, bad monitors can fuck up someones work pretty bad. If the colors tend to shift when you move your head around, its time to throw it out and get a new one. Middle-range Dells should suit your needs perfectly. But if you get one and it feels wrong, simply return it and get the model one step above.
P
Some great advice.
3dsmax has "preserve UV's which is great for tweaking geometry and not hosing your UV layout. Inside Graphite Modeling Tools there is a Tweak UV setting also, this helps you buy letting you slide the UV's around while looking at the 3D model in the viewport.
One other thing you can do is start with your geometry squared off, unwrap and texture it, then twist and deform it afterward.
To add to Pior's advice about tweaking and baking back to your original layout. On the tweaked version you can also add loops and verts to problem areas that will help you manipulate the UV's.
humm... If his monitor sucks doing some web tests might not lead to a solid diagnosis, hahaha. But you are right, its not the end of the world, there are some pretty amazing artists who are color blind.
The proper skintone was a major bitch to get right, and I'm still not totally 100% happy with it. It always seems like its either glowing in the dark too much, the shadows too dark, too saturated, not saturated enough, shadows too bright now, no shadows at all, bad makeup job, etc. Turns out you can tell really easy when something is wrong with the face since we see them so often.
I think I got it to a decent state though. What you're seeing is like 500+ different layers. I need to refine my process. Still some cleanup to do though, mainly around the mirror seam.
Oh and ignore the hair, it got messed up here while working.
dude I just noticed the pic you got your color swatch from (kasia )
anyway..nice progress on the work - really shaping up and you can really see the progression
- question though, i know you're trying to get this perfect, but as a low-poly game asset have you thought about how it will be displayed - as in game res on screen. If it's a super-zoomed out top down isometric view then don't go too overboard with crazy pixel-perfect detail...
@pior Totally all true, I didn't mean to say that I wasn't messing with my UVs around all the time and everything, I'm doing that. What I meant was that I packed everything so tight that there's no much room to move the shoes around like dramatically reposition them, its not a stretching issues.
The top of the shoe is in the top left and it's sides are middle right. I could have unwrapped it better at first but at this point I'll have to do a lot of work to fix the problem rather then just struggle/work around it. I know I SHOULD but I just really don't want to.
And my monitor is a really nice reasonably expensive one in good condition, not even a year old so I don't think it's bad and I need a new one. I think the problem was just Muzz mentioned later on, I -AM- colorblind, so in the image below
Even with the arrows I can barely make out the green on the eyebrows, on my monitor or on my work computers. I can tell the eyes are green and the skin is reddish but the eyebrows are dark and it just all sorta blends together. What it probably was is when I was coloring the eyes, I miss-clicked on the brow and never noticed. But like for those numbers in colored circles and stuff tests, I can only see like 1 number in one of them, no others.
@Vig I wish I had have known about that sooner, I was using this convoluted mix of planar maps and edit poly/UVW modifiers and other stuff to keep the UVs from moving while I moved the underlying geo and not making the UVs stretch everywhere. Highly useful.
@Achmedthesnake Haha yes it's Kasia, I had her in my quick reference folder, normally for modeling women but this case skintone was borrowed.
And yeah I know what angles and distance I want it viewed from but I want it to look good all around anyways, even if you see the back of his head 90% of the time.
Moved a whole bunch of stuff around so that the boots were easier to texture.
Not really satisfied with them though, they look like purple latex robot boots right now.
Also messed with some specularity and stuff on the sleeves.
This is my original reference for the boots. More like this. Most of the details and look got lost since I originally referenced from this. Ill redo the boots again tomorrow, gotta head to bed early today.
Oh my Lord. 11 pages and 2 months of Polycount suggestions and THIS is what I'm looking at? I'm going to make a list: Neox, Earthquake, Perna, Jonny, Pior,B1ll ... to name just a few have commented, given advice and THIS is what I'm looking at?? These guys are digital alchemists and THIS is what I'm looking at?? I need to lie down. Seriously.
Oh my Lord. 11 pages and 2 months of Polycount suggestions and THIS is what I'm looking at? I'm going to make a list: Neox, Earthquake, Perna, Jonny, Pior,B1ll ... to name just a few have commented, given advice and THIS is what I'm looking at?? These guys are digital alchemists and THIS is what I'm looking at?? I need to lie down. Seriously.
Have you not seen his progress? Pretty good IMO.
I have to say the face is looking good, much more character.
Ignore Juju everyone learns at their own pace and you have made a ton of great progress just keep in mind that on your next project this should have a turnaround of a few weeks at the max. As you practice more and more the time spent on projects will reduce. If its not then that is probably an area that you will need to improve on.
Ignore Juju everyone learns at their own pace and you have made a ton of great progress just keep in mind that on your next project this should have a turnaround of a few weeks at the max. As you practice more and more the time spent on projects will reduce. If its not then that is probably an area that you will need to improve on.
Yeah, obvious troll was obvious. Just report and move on with it. I work full time so I only get to spend like an hour or two after work on it every day but you're right it's taken a really long time. That and I haven't really done much hand painting before, besides some houses and stuff, so I'm basically learning it all from scratch, including some anatomy and stuff as well.
Every time I do it though I get faster, eventually I'll get that turn around rate.
Well as someone who pops in on occasion, popcorn in hand, to read the newest pages of this of this saga-thread I will say this;
Sh*t or get off the pot.
While I have to commend you for your "stick-with-it" ethic, I say, finish this and move on to the next character. Iteration is your friend, especially when you're learning. Take what you've learned (and you clearly have learned) and move forward. If you keep beating this (albeit not so dead) horse you'll end up with diminishing returns and a head-ache. Take heart, I'm saying this just as much to myself as I am to you. I stew on my projects for sure.
Stewing aside however, I can't help but think you've become hooked on the thrill of checking your thread. Hell we've all been there. It's fun to get responses from so many talented and frankly kind folks.
Nonetheless if you want to get anywhere man, for your own sake, wrap it up.
Thank you everyone for the kind words, and you're right Bumper I've been on this way longer then I anticipated, though I've learned a lot. The dead line I gave myself is the 9th because of the upcoming Pre-Dominance War, even if I am not 'done' by then I'm going to wrap it up, and maybe come back much later to rig it. I'm pretty much almost done now anyways, its mostly fixing seams now rather then dramatic changes.
I wouldn't say I have update thrill though, I mean I like it when I get good crits but most of the time I avoid checking it too frequently especially while at work for fear of drama starting up again and making the rest of my day crummy.
Ill have some final stage polish up soon.
EDIT: Redid the shoes, and on that note unless anyone has any other say I am going to call him in the last 1% to go here.
Spent forever on it. Anything glaring I should change or is he done?
WHOOP made the feet a little smaller, they were bugging me.
Replies
I don't think anyone is pushing realism, my paint overs probably come out more realistic because I have trouble hitting the painterly style. But everyone is pushing you to change the bits that take left turns from human anatomy and nudge you in the direction that will help the stylistic impression.
Stylistic characters are based off of actual anatomy with some simplifications and exaggerations. The old rule of, "you need to know the rules before you can break them" holds true. The style you're after is impressionistic of real world objects. The more you know about the object and the more informed you'll be about what to simplify and what to exaggerate. It's weird but to do simplified exaggerated work you sometimes have to know a crazy amount of real world stuff.
Paint over:
The lips are like someone chopping down a tree with an axe instead of using a chainsaw to cut a slit.
The lips aren't a straight line, their thickness and forms need to be accounted for.
In general I tried to render the face with a light above and slightly behind his head, instead of a flash light shining in his face, which is how I used to shade faces when I was starting out.
The shading on the lower half of the face is darker than the top. Pior once pointed this out that the top of the head shades the face, like if you hold an egg upside down the pointy part is shaded by the big round part. You can also fake manly stubble. Giving the person a manly granite jaw, hahaha.
The lip color is a different color than shading on the face but not bubble gum pink.
The brows aren't raised, and the eyes are given a slight squint, again to counteract the surprised look. The shading around the eyes helps with this also.
Now you can argue that this looks more realistic, but I have trouble hitting the painterly style with faces and there was a fair amount of realism in the face. Hopefully what I was trying to illustrate with the shape of the brows and the muscles around the mouth make a point even if I had trouble nailing the style, which isn't really all that defined to begin with...
It had something when it was still black and white, something I can't put into words, it just looked GOOD, but now its lost whatever that something, it has no essence anymore, it's some horrible monstrosity imitation of a face done by aliens and no matter what I do to it, it just keeps getting worse.
Unscrupulously cheated and directly used a photo of real eyes to fix it. It sorta looks better now, but the face itself is not his face anymore, it's just a face.
Also please ignore the problems around the face and hair there is a seam i have been negelecting to clean up while I focus on the face. He looks like an actor but I can't place the name.
You say the face doesnt look like anything anymore. Show us, on a paintover, what you want it to look like!
Also, work lower res. By working too high itll start looking like one of those "highres texture packs" for older games. Look for and study Kenneth Scotts quake1/quakeworld texture work.
(so much for a nostril btw haha)
Your choice for the eye color surprises me, is it supposed to be as neon and unrealistic as it is right now? I think that the eyes would look nicer if they were a darker hazel color, like most green eyes tend to be. Right now, I get a very cyan feeling from the eyes that seems rather inhuman, kind of reminded me of final fantasy 7.
Otherwise the model is really really coming along. Oh, and what others are saying about critique is more or less my thoughts too. We're all here to help you and give input, and as artists we find it hard to properly self assess our work. Some things that look good to others may not look good to you and vice versa.
it had nothing when it was black and white. to you tit might appear as if the face has lost his esscence, but IMO thats certainly not the case. i also completly disagree that the black and white face "just looked GOOD". it had no color after all. the recent face has alot to improve on, good luck.
Just flipped through the thread and IMO you might be working with too many refs. You posted alot of 'random' pics. I'd honestly find that too distracting, but I think it might've also lead to alot of critiques that were also confused at to what your aim is.
I agree that the collar/hood is fine to have, but maybe instead of pulling the shoulders down and away just making the collar less wide, and maybe taller would give it more shape instead of the shape rolling from the collar down the arm you'd get a step there.
collar, step down/out to shoulder, then down arm. It would break that front silohette that says he has high/wide shoulders.
apart from that I don't know, the silohette isn't that bad, just nothing really strong that sticks out.
oh yeah, i think the nose has benn too pointy the whole time, and the bottom of nose should be flatter.
maybe bigger hand feet to make him more cartoony proportionally, and he'd still look thin, not bulky.
First @pior: I'm only working on a 512x512 map right now, the face part takes up around 256x256, I wasn't really going for having him look like these:
Nothing against old games, I love Quake and all them to bits, but I don't understand why I should go to like a 128x for the whole thing, that'd only give me 64x pixels to define the face, I'm doing pixel art at that point, not hand painting.
I will on the other hand do a paint over of the face myself, I hadn't considered doing one myself before now. It will probably help me get down how I want it to look without needing to worry about UVs and stuff.
@Yokai: I never wanted the face to look realistic, but I'll tone the eyes down anyways like you say. I guess I'm just not good enough of an artist to bring that out very well yet.
@Neox: No problem for me I can tell you right now I want to go more stylistic, but every time I try I get crits like 'That's unrealistic, fix it.' I'm referencing it a lot and not to mean I'm strictly doing just one thing but ideally I'd like it to be Torchlight-ish, that or like or Wow-ish in terms of what level of not realism. I personally think it looks unrealistic and stylized myself right now, like I'd never mistake that for a photo or anything but a hand paint, but that's probably just because I've been working on it for so long.
My largest goal is mainly to have it NOT look like HL2 or Modern Warfare or something like that. Ideally it should look not out of place in a world that looks like Torchlight, or Wow in terms of art style.
@lampekap: I didn't mean adding color made it lose it's essence, it still had it when I first added color, just all the minor alteration to face shape and the shading gradients since then gradually diminished whatever quality it had wwhen it was B/W that made me like it.
@Baddcog: Haha yeah I intend to darken it up like Vig's I really liked it too, but first I want to get the face looking right before I make such a drastic change.
To make things completely clear I am shooting for something that wouldn't look out of place in a world that looks like Torchlight or WoW, only a modern setting, not medieval. That's not to say 'I'm doing Torchlight.' I just mean hand painted and everything like that.
I'll try increasing the gap between where the collar stops and arm starts like you said, more of a stair case then gradient.
Not so much his feet but his hands are already pretty huge compared to his face, that is something I am struggling with is that its like it has to be either hyper realism, or every single part of his body has to be ridiculous exaggerated in some way, like I don't think huge feet look good on him that much when I had them before so I shrunk them down a fair bit.
I don't know, maybe we need a few word for it or I'm just calling it the wrong thing. What I am NOT going for is anything like HL2 etc, or on the other end of the spectrum I'm not doing like Ren and Stimpy of Battlefield Heroes or something like that.
And now to do a paint over.
Ill try another. This time I wont look at any real world references, they show me proper lighting and all but don't help me capture handpainted at all.
Good question. Maybe? I'm not sure. I'll try and example of what I am shooting for. Like.. Simpler, less every single detail. More boiled down essential, less everything? Stronger 'unrealistic' transitions between light and shadow maybe? Like, the middle ground between anime and reality.
You kinda got me stumped here.
Lets travel back in time (and to mars) and say something sorta like the style I pulled some hair from earlier:
Too bad I cropped all the faces out of it back then.
Also a couple of pior's are sorta close to what I am shooting for as well. I like his work.
Here we go, more 'essnetial shape-ier'
I pushed it a little too far here but you get the idea. He kinda looks like a deranged serial killer now.
I also wonder what size of tex you're using. Possibly alot of the smoothness is just too high res and actually detrcts imo from the lower poly style. (It also gives you alot more room for errors and a ton of little things can look off. If you paint smaller there won't be as many details to fuss over so it might help focus on the real issues more).
looking back and forth a few times I think there are several things you should focus on.
1-values, like I said Vig's paint over really exagerates the darks and highs. That really adds shape, and also adds to the 'cartoony - cel shading look' that torchlight has.
They also seem to really outline things with darks.
(I gotta save to see the pic so it's tough to post...
2-Hair. Notice the torchlight characters hair is more like one color. Then it has a few streaks of birght or dark.
Yours has tons of details comparitively... Maybe that makes it seem more realistic than you want.
I think I'd say the same about the pants, they have nicely painted details, but maybe they are too fine, too many, and not enough contrast.
Looks like you were painting in greyscale so you probably do the color layer overlay thing?
Might be good to go back to greyscale and really hit some highs and lows first. Really punch the main details and keep the details fairly large and blocky.
Then add color overlay.
Just to add, unfortunately I think modern characters can be harder to make unique and as styled as Torchlight. Silohette wise.
Torchlight's fantasy so you can have giant armor, glowing belts...
Modern stuff is more tame. Your guy looks like a snowboarder, so you can always go mohawk or something. But it's harder to add elements soley for shape and get away with it.
What're you gonna do? Give him an I-pod, lol.
Like-wise your guy is kindof just an average typical dude. The barbarian is huge and bulky, the girl is super curvy with long legs..
(Don't judge, it's not supposed to be a paintover)
And the full texture map is 512x, the face takes up roughly 256x in it's corner. I don't really want to go smaller, I'd rather clean up a little problems then lose that detail by reducing my texture map.
I've had a bunch of people time and time again tell me not to do it in B/W and I should have gone color from the start so I'm not going to go back now that I've gotten this far, I think I can handle doing highlights and shadow in color without needing to desaturate it again.
I'm not just strictly trying to do Torchlight exactly, I only brought it up since it was the most recent hand painted thing I can think of that is similar. I'd rather not change the pants and everything else to match it, I'm happy with those the way they are now, it's more like the face has to match the pants, rather then everything has to become a Torchlight clone.
@Snowfly Oh wow, I've never gotten fan art before. You've given me a huge smile and made my month, I love it. You're better at illustrating the sort of look and feeling I was going for then I am at explaining it to eeryone. He's even got the cigarette that I had in the fanart type one image thing I'd done myself, amazing. I am inspired.
The contrast is a bit too strong/literal with mine, but it's a start. No part of your sweet fan art was cut/pasted directly in this, it's totally painted myself just looking at it, felt like copy paste was cheating. I did too good a job being exact, so now I have to make it more... realistic? Haha, in the sense that the lighting doesn't make any sense right now.
Eye's are a bit funky right now too. He's sorta half closed squinting just generally smaller then mine in the nice fan art, but for open eyes mine are a little strange.
I use the smudge tool a lot ( personal choice )
This is a little face a did yonks ago. all the flesh painted on one layer apart from a pair or stock ears I made earlier.
You need to fix the upper lip, the philtrum is way too wide and doesn't start under each nostril but is about the width of the bridge between each nostril, its roughly tear drop shaped. Whenever you over define the philtrum you get cat face.
The cheeks are too sunken (even for someone suffering form malnourishment) which doesn't really fit a main character all that well, more like suffering NPC who you need to save, but that's my opinion. BUT the highlights aren't conforming to what the underlying anatomy would be. There isn't enough light hitting the top of the cheek where the cheek bones should be.
The nose has a really strong highlight flanked by two deep dark shadows, revisit the saddle bag critique I mentioned earlier.
There are a few other various anomalies but I think you should work on finding and fixing them. I consider observation and self critique to be the most valuable skills artists can have. Coordination and reflex can be honed over time but without observation an artist can't really grow on their own. With me posting as much as I do about this and that, I think I'm not letting you develop those skills... which is something pior touched on earlier, 1-2 pages ago.
This article from last year is the best I've found so far. Art isn't always about drawing sometimes its about, reading study and understanding, then doing
http://www.artistdaily.com/blogs/features/archive/2009/02/02/understanding-anatomy-lips.aspx
The top image here breaks the lips down into 5 segments, understanding this helps shade the lips when the time comes.
Also this link is really helpful in understanding the complex anatomy of the face.
http://www.artnatomia.net/uk/artnatomiaIng.html
I basically reshaped the entire face and texture topology. There are still a couple problems with it but it's come a long way. I'm starting to realize how incredibly minute little problems can change the overall feel of the face.
Current problems include:
-Eyebrow looks funny in the side view.
-Unnatural blue shadow on the nose
-Mouth might be too far forward and forehead too bar back, must consult real life face reference again.
-Need to redraw the mouth again, unsatisfied
-Same with the look of the eyes.
-He kinda looks like a dick who is looking down on everyone.
Bam, reasonably good looking well adjusted human being? No changes to the mesh yet though, needs adjustments in the jaw and forehead a bit. Some small problems on the chin and lips with blending too. Looks good from the front, sides are kinda wonky.
Adjusted some of the derp out of it.
It's that time again.
Redid the hair again, fixed a lot of the seaming along UVs, only a little bit left around the shoes.
I'm getting to the point again where It's not done, but its close enough that I struggle to find things to change and fix just because I've been looking at it for so long.
Here's a quick paintover that doesn't try to change the art direction choices you've made, just enhances what's already there (I hope):
-Add slight shadowing across the seams to give the main shapes more overall separation. (i.e. white coat to purple sleeve, neck to t-shirt)
-Contrast matte surfaces vs. shiny ones (i.e. gloves, shoes, pant stripes vs. rest of pants)
-Apply a bit of zone shadowing to add volume (i.e. chest and abdomen area on t-shirt, thigh to calf area on pants)
-Clean up excessive wrinkling so the surface is an easier read (coat sleeve, coat sides, pant legs)
-Add a rim specular on the 'cuffs' of each section (pant legs, purple sleeves around the cuffs, lab coat collar right where it turns downwards)
-Add in seams to break up the shapes for a little more visual interest (around shoulders, button area on coat, seam traveling across coat middle, zipper area)
keep going!
The hair is looking a lot better, not so saturated and blown out.
The face is looking great (aside from the green dot on his eyebrows?) some really great shading and color choices.
And @Vig, there is a green dot? I'm not seeing it, could you circle it for me or something? When I maximize the saturation on the texture file, no green reveals itself to me but maybe I just fixed it since then without realizing it.
Now that there are arrows I can see it if I strain, Ill have it fixed in the next update.
Anyways, I left it kind of late tonight, slacking a little since its a Monday so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. The glove is the only part looking up to par right now, everything else I think I could push a bit more given the time before I show it.
Added little rhinestone dealies or maybe they are studded knuckles, need to be spaced out more. Not sure if I liked them yet or not.
I'm not really satisfied with the changes I made. Like, they look good when Snowfly did it but I'm just not capturing it right. I feel like I am completely drained of any ability to hand paint because I stopped for a weekend and I just completely lost it because of that.
It's just not popping. Also the shoes ended up too specular and glossy by accident. I UV'd them terribly and it makes making changes to them a bitch.
I'm just not feeling it in wishy-washy terms. I don't know how to state it any other way. Ill try bringing it into Photoshop's 3d paint and see if that doesn't help.
EDIT: Figured out the problem. Turns out my brush hardness was only at 50%. DURP.
Redid most of it. I liked it more this time around. Going to remake new shoes on him. Specular on legs needs adjusting, and arm highlights need to be moved together in the center.
One very, very important thing to remember when doing lowpoly stuff is that you can always edit the UVs while working on the texture. Especially at such low polycounts, its crucial. If a circle on your texture looks way stretched on the model, edit the UVs, not the texture. If for some reason you are working from somebody elses UVs and cannot change them, work on a copy with edited UVs then bake that back to the original ones later. Also, if you need a clean straight line, dont paint it diagonally, paint it straight and adjust the UVs accordingly.
Example :
http://www.pioroberson.com/modelpages/pior_f4nena_04.png
Another one, bit extreme and not optimized but you get the idea :
http://www.pioroberson.com/images/3d_pior_twisted.png
It gives a tremendous amount of control. Oldschool Jap games are fantastic for that kind of stuff, whereas oldschool western games tend to be more locked when it comes to creative UVing.
Also, bad monitors can fuck up someones work pretty bad. If the colors tend to shift when you move your head around, its time to throw it out and get a new one. Middle-range Dells should suit your needs perfectly. But if you get one and it feels wrong, simply return it and get the model one step above.
P
3dsmax has "preserve UV's which is great for tweaking geometry and not hosing your UV layout. Inside Graphite Modeling Tools there is a Tweak UV setting also, this helps you buy letting you slide the UV's around while looking at the 3D model in the viewport.
One other thing you can do is start with your geometry squared off, unwrap and texture it, then twist and deform it afterward.
To add to Pior's advice about tweaking and baking back to your original layout. On the tweaked version you can also add loops and verts to problem areas that will help you manipulate the UV's.
Go do some webtests and it should be pretty easy to work out.
If you are its not really something to worry about, you just need to know its there. (ive been working for a year and it only minorly affects things.
Robert Fawcett
http://www.illustration-house.com/bios/fawcett_bio.html
Peter de Seve
http://www.peterdeseve.com/
Nathan Andrew
http://nathanandrew23.blogspot.com/
Charles Meryon
http://www.artnet.com/Artists/ArtistHomePage.aspx?artist_id=11699&page_tab=Artworks_for_sale
Michael Chesley Johnson
http://mchesleyjohnson.blogspot.com/
dude I just noticed the pic you got your color swatch from (kasia
anyway..nice progress on the work - really shaping up and you can really see the progression
- question though, i know you're trying to get this perfect, but as a low-poly game asset have you thought about how it will be displayed - as in game res on screen. If it's a super-zoomed out top down isometric view then don't go too overboard with crazy pixel-perfect detail...
@pior Totally all true, I didn't mean to say that I wasn't messing with my UVs around all the time and everything, I'm doing that. What I meant was that I packed everything so tight that there's no much room to move the shoes around like dramatically reposition them, its not a stretching issues.
The top of the shoe is in the top left and it's sides are middle right. I could have unwrapped it better at first but at this point I'll have to do a lot of work to fix the problem rather then just struggle/work around it. I know I SHOULD but I just really don't want to.
And my monitor is a really nice reasonably expensive one in good condition, not even a year old so I don't think it's bad and I need a new one. I think the problem was just Muzz mentioned later on, I -AM- colorblind, so in the image below
Even with the arrows I can barely make out the green on the eyebrows, on my monitor or on my work computers. I can tell the eyes are green and the skin is reddish but the eyebrows are dark and it just all sorta blends together. What it probably was is when I was coloring the eyes, I miss-clicked on the brow and never noticed. But like for those numbers in colored circles and stuff tests, I can only see like 1 number in one of them, no others.
@Vig I wish I had have known about that sooner, I was using this convoluted mix of planar maps and edit poly/UVW modifiers and other stuff to keep the UVs from moving while I moved the underlying geo and not making the UVs stretch everywhere. Highly useful.
@Achmedthesnake Haha yes it's Kasia, I had her in my quick reference folder, normally for modeling women but this case skintone was borrowed.
And yeah I know what angles and distance I want it viewed from but I want it to look good all around anyways, even if you see the back of his head 90% of the time.
Not really satisfied with them though, they look like purple latex robot boots right now.
Also messed with some specularity and stuff on the sleeves.
This is my original reference for the boots. More like this. Most of the details and look got lost since I originally referenced from this. Ill redo the boots again tomorrow, gotta head to bed early today.
Have you not seen his progress? Pretty good IMO.
I have to say the face is looking good, much more character.
Ignore Juju everyone learns at their own pace and you have made a ton of great progress just keep in mind that on your next project this should have a turnaround of a few weeks at the max. As you practice more and more the time spent on projects will reduce. If its not then that is probably an area that you will need to improve on.
Yeah, obvious troll was obvious. Just report and move on with it. I work full time so I only get to spend like an hour or two after work on it every day but you're right it's taken a really long time. That and I haven't really done much hand painting before, besides some houses and stuff, so I'm basically learning it all from scratch, including some anatomy and stuff as well.
Every time I do it though I get faster, eventually I'll get that turn around rate.
And mad kudos to all the relentless mentors. That's why polycount is such a great place
Sh*t or get off the pot.
While I have to commend you for your "stick-with-it" ethic, I say, finish this and move on to the next character. Iteration is your friend, especially when you're learning. Take what you've learned (and you clearly have learned) and move forward. If you keep beating this (albeit not so dead) horse you'll end up with diminishing returns and a head-ache. Take heart, I'm saying this just as much to myself as I am to you. I stew on my projects for sure.
Stewing aside however, I can't help but think you've become hooked on the thrill of checking your thread. Hell we've all been there. It's fun to get responses from so many talented and frankly kind folks.
Nonetheless if you want to get anywhere man, for your own sake, wrap it up.
I wouldn't say I have update thrill though, I mean I like it when I get good crits but most of the time I avoid checking it too frequently especially while at work for fear of drama starting up again and making the rest of my day crummy.
Ill have some final stage polish up soon.
EDIT: Redid the shoes, and on that note unless anyone has any other say I am going to call him in the last 1% to go here.
Spent forever on it. Anything glaring I should change or is he done?
WHOOP made the feet a little smaller, they were bugging me.