Now with slightly exaggerated neck and some other small fixes. Also the first muscle pass... almost none of it will be in the final sculpt but I figured it's both a good exercise and will help the forms read better once I smooth everything out...plus a sanity check on proportions.
I think sander has a point though, the sculpting process has thickened the legs dramatically. The character base mesh looks pretty good, but the sculpt looks more like a bodybuilder from the waist down, and a skinny man with boobs from the waist up (wide shoulders).
If you wanna see the muscles and stuff on your model as you sculpt, the best way to do it would be to polypaint them on to the surface of your basemesh imo. Leave the actual sculpting for achieving the end result you want, smoothing out all that bumpy muscle is just going to be a pain in the ass.
I'd pull the shoulders in and maybe pop the hips out a little to bring back the feminine look. Slimming the legs back down a little would help too. Also you wanna be careful around the neck area, the angle defined by the trapezius is looking too steep, it wants to be more of a 45degree offshoot from the neck and land further out, closer to the shoulder. This is again better on your base than it is in the sculpt.
tda, so true. *shrug*... but it was fun lol. I'll probably take a step back and redo the pass by only emphasizing the significant muscle groups now that i have a good idea of where they are.
regarding the neck/shoulder area, I have the shoulders rigged and they relax slightly in the pose but I too was wondering if the angle was still a little too square. I think I'll bring those down a bit more and pull up the trapezius... and hopefully i won't destroy the slenderness of the neck.
Thank you for looking out, good critique!
gsokol, sander - i had the exact same conversation in my head... lol
I so lied! I totally didn't start over. I was able to smooth the muscles out w/o any bumps using the directional smooth so that i have more control of smoothing the surface of the muscles without destroying the form all together.
Here she is with final-ish muscle pass, 1st face pass. hands and feet next.... and i guess cleaning up the normal madness in the crotch and elbows...
Crit on the arm. The Thumb is too flat and in line with the fingers. It should have about a 45 degree twist from the fingers when the hand is lying flat. This has resulted in the thumb bending at an odd angle when you have posed the hand.
stinger88: good call. so true I sort of fixed this on the female hand where it was much worse than the "demon" hands, 'll do those next. thank u.
Did another pass on the hand poses, and fixed a few things w/ the female hands.
Designing the chains... I want to make sure there's a feeling of tension, so unfortunately, although the snaky ones look rockin' imo I can't use them w/o kicking my lame idea in the face. :O
also... most likely will drop the idea of chaining the arms - although imo super cool, it's already getting a little busy down there and even though it will be lit darkly, i'm afraid of losing the focal point which will be her bust.
main thing i'd try gettin is a more interesting/swooshy gesture on the female. The overall pose and forms seem very straight and box-like, heaps of room to add cool gesture and shapes up in there (more twist in the shoulders to hips, exaggerated s shape in the spine, etc).
Hope that makes sense ^^;
(chains turned out real cool too btw)
edit: real crappy paintover but i'm kidna poop with words
clavicle atm should be a bit more of a v, it's kinda upside down atm and pulling to far down. Could try making the leg pose a little more dynamic possibly and the forms a little more curvey... just some thoughts anyways
I have to agree with nizza, the pose that she's in is very straight forward for being chained to a bunch of big man arms. Maybe add some more agony into her pose, like the s-curve that nizza mentioned for the spine. arch the back more like she's trying to escape. You can really work up a painful pose with this one. Plus all the draped stuff you have in the concept will make the pose really pop
this is a cool way to mishmash anatomy studies together keep it up!
Tweaked the pose and adjusted skinning a bunch here and there. The knee is looks like it wants to eat my face but overall I really like where its going - i definitely just need to tune it. Thanks for the crits and encouragement dudsters. Skinning will be the end of me i swear!
After 2 fn days.. something that looks like some kind of hair.. %^@#% Max alpha sorting!!!!
Maybe you guys won't like it... but you know something!? I'm not even going to say it.
I may go back soon and do the hair again... hopefully get this thing out of max too.
Tuned the pose a bit too.
...There's your goddamn ankle super happy cow. Hope you're super ... happy. :P
Her cheeks look a little flat just underneath her lower eyelids making her appear a little less feminine.
Perhaps pulling them out and softening them abit could help.
I think the body proportions are definately there though.
Super Happy Cow: LOL.. you think this hair is bad? You should have seen the 5 other attempts that I was too embarrassed to post. :O I agree though, It's hardly something to be proud of... gonna be honest - the neck stays, it's elongated for sure but i love it oh so much.
Melonman: Good call on the cheeks - I had them way over inflated and then tuned them down.. evidently too much w/o noticing that I lost that curve. I'll be going back to the face for sure.
Thanks gangsta's! I appreciate you looking out.
In this pass: Laid out the necklace/ornament base geo..(yea, it's fn goat skull fool! Look out.. yea its gonna be held up by chains, what do you think this is!? this ain't a game)
Next - gonna sculpt out that goat skull and do alpha/normal maps for the ornaments...then the goo that the hands will be coming out of (alpha and normal).. then maybe some quick underooooo's and work on bringing her over into marmoset or something... can't wait to start "actually" texturing/materials.
Ahh this is all looking really good but its reeeally bothering me that you didn't chain her to the hands like you wanted to at first...it makes me wonder...why are there even arms there at all if they aren't holding anything??
got the rest of it into marmoset w/ normal and a quick grayscale diffuse.
Will do a proper texture pass next, add the arm goo.. I want the arms sorta ghostly, coming out of this sticky demon goo so that's the plan.. and tattoo's!. Oh and the light crown... and then lighting rendering and one in the bag!
Diffuse/Spec pass on the props and hands
Reduced stomach.
planaria: Thank you ! lol, i was just thinking about the glowy blue tips.. and missing them, we had such good times together - im a bring those back.
firecracker197: I know dude, but chaining the arms would be like putting wings on a spaceship.. sure it would look cool but... no chaining the arms.
super happy cow: Good call on the neck normals - i want to go and do another pass on the face in z for next round - hating more every and i'll tackle the neck than. Thanks dude
I'm surprised with myself about how well the goo worked out.... the body paint is aight.. i guess.
Only the halo's left to go. And then a polish pass: Do another sculpt pass on the face, make the skin colder, add more color depth, spec for the nails on the demon arms, eye lashes...another spec/gloss pass on the goat skulls.. smooth out the goo spikes...
could you believe that it's only 13.5k in tris? I can't. but it is, and thats still dirty - w/ a day at opt it'll probably end up at around 10k !!!
archillesian: Thanks man... I'm honestly surprised w/ how good she turned out compared to what I thought would become of her too, though strangely I'm not quiet as satisfied as i imagined i would be
cordell felix: Ah, dude, I put the finished girl only as the first post.. let me correct that.
skullsplitter: Thansk! ..re: breasts - to each his own :P
Working on the male base mesh.. Just got it sort of there but I'll still spend another day or 2 i think cutting the loops for proper animation and so on.. and also he's sorta dumpy right now.. I'm definitely not planning on making him completely lean but not this lol..
I really like your stuff, but I have one critique about your Blue Siren: you put good effort into and made the arms strecthing out look good, I think it´s a little sad that you cant really see much of them in the dark blue light right now.
VERY nice results on the lady, looking forward to the other dude.
But you really should work on the hands! They are so flat both for the girl and your new mesh. Even if you model them in a flat pose, fingers are placed along an arc, making the middle of the hand highest, and add some more bulk to the thumb base.
Took a few days break. Reworked the leg mesh/rig/skinning. I think it's pretty good, added a hip twist bone 1/2 down the upper leg - works way better then twisting at the hip. Next the torso and shoulders.
Most of the articulation is much more extreme then the final pose and it seems to hold up pretty well right now so.. we'll see.
Next the skin/rig the hands, neck, and head.. pose again and see what happens - if it looks alright i'll be moving on to the monkey base mesh - then it's all fun the rest of the way.
alright
so I posed it aaaand.... it was a total trainwreck. at first. which made me really sad since i spent so much time reworking the rig and skinning thinking i was headed in the right direction.
then i posed it again... and again.. and again. and then i got to this - which although not great, i find acceptable for the time being... maybe even slightly pleased.
I ended up messing with the head/neck a whole bunch after the fact so that's wrecked right now but easy fix for tomorrow.
From here I'm pretty sure with another day of tweaks to the pose/geo/skinning and rig pivots i can make something of it.
P.S. in retrospect, i think it's a fair amount better than the same point in time for the previous piece... so i guess at the very least i'm slightly better
lol. and so there u go, i hope it looks half this awesome when its 3d.
started the base for monkey, nm to show so for next time. redid the pose a bit - again for next time.
once the i get the monkey on there i'm gonna do 1 final concept run where i plan to work out all the clothes, hair, mask, spear, face paint and all the little tidbits..
I 100% agree with skullsplitter. The first thing two things that grabbed my attention on the female character is that the face needs a bit of an anatomy check and the breasts are sticking straight out and have no weight from gravity.
I'm gonna steal this image straight from EOF's thread, because it displays it perfectly.
The breasts on your character are currently doing the Madonna type thing in the lower right of that pic.
Replies
He just said he did a muscle pass, and almost none of that will be used. Womens wouldn't be very pretty without skin to cover them muscles.
If you wanna see the muscles and stuff on your model as you sculpt, the best way to do it would be to polypaint them on to the surface of your basemesh imo. Leave the actual sculpting for achieving the end result you want, smoothing out all that bumpy muscle is just going to be a pain in the ass.
I'd pull the shoulders in and maybe pop the hips out a little to bring back the feminine look. Slimming the legs back down a little would help too. Also you wanna be careful around the neck area, the angle defined by the trapezius is looking too steep, it wants to be more of a 45degree offshoot from the neck and land further out, closer to the shoulder. This is again better on your base than it is in the sculpt.
Hope this helps!
regarding the neck/shoulder area, I have the shoulders rigged and they relax slightly in the pose but I too was wondering if the angle was still a little too square. I think I'll bring those down a bit more and pull up the trapezius... and hopefully i won't destroy the slenderness of the neck.
Thank you for looking out, good critique!
gsokol, sander - i had the exact same conversation in my head... lol
Here she is with final-ish muscle pass, 1st face pass. hands and feet next.... and i guess cleaning up the normal madness in the crotch and elbows...
Crit on the arm. The Thumb is too flat and in line with the fingers. It should have about a 45 degree twist from the fingers when the hand is lying flat. This has resulted in the thumb bending at an odd angle when you have posed the hand.
Did another pass on the hand poses, and fixed a few things w/ the female hands.
Designing the chains... I want to make sure there's a feeling of tension, so unfortunately, although the snaky ones look rockin' imo I can't use them w/o kicking my lame idea in the face. :O
also... most likely will drop the idea of chaining the arms - although imo super cool, it's already getting a little busy down there and even though it will be lit darkly, i'm afraid of losing the focal point which will be her bust.
As i'm looking at it, i'm filled with hate - those will almost definitely be much thinner >:
... gonna throw in a couple big links here and there too i think.
... and really hating the rightmost arm - that's gonna need love.
Sharpened shoulders
main thing i'd try gettin is a more interesting/swooshy gesture on the female. The overall pose and forms seem very straight and box-like, heaps of room to add cool gesture and shapes up in there (more twist in the shoulders to hips, exaggerated s shape in the spine, etc).
Hope that makes sense ^^;
(chains turned out real cool too btw)
edit: real crappy paintover but i'm kidna poop with words
clavicle atm should be a bit more of a v, it's kinda upside down atm and pulling to far down. Could try making the leg pose a little more dynamic possibly and the forms a little more curvey... just some thoughts anyways
Reference:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Anatomy-Artists-Fritz-Schider/dp/0486202410/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1296120441&sr=8-3"]Eritz Schider -Atlas of Anatomy for Artists[/ame] this one was super helpful!
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/078948045X/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i5?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0V2RE6S3NB230GSNTFHB&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846"]Sarah Simblet - Anatomy for the Artist[/ame] This book was barely helpful.. When she made that book I bet she was thinking... "Muscle structure? Pft.. we don't need muscle structure where we're goin'"
The idea was popped up when I saw this this
this is a cool way to mishmash anatomy studies together
Tweaked the pose and adjusted skinning a bunch here and there. The knee is looks like it wants to eat my face but overall I really like where its going - i definitely just need to tune it. Thanks for the crits and encouragement dudsters. Skinning will be the end of me i swear!
After 2 fn days.. something that looks like some kind of hair.. %^@#% Max alpha sorting!!!!
Maybe you guys won't like it... but you know something!? I'm not even going to say it.
I may go back soon and do the hair again... hopefully get this thing out of max too.
Tuned the pose a bit too.
...There's your goddamn ankle super happy cow. Hope you're super ... happy. :P
Perhaps pulling them out and softening them abit could help.
I think the body proportions are definately there though.
Keep it up.
Super Happy Cow: LOL.. you think this hair is bad? You should have seen the 5 other attempts that I was too embarrassed to post. :O I agree though, It's hardly something to be proud of... gonna be honest - the neck stays, it's elongated for sure but i love it oh so much.
Melonman: Good call on the cheeks - I had them way over inflated and then tuned them down.. evidently too much w/o noticing that I lost that curve. I'll be going back to the face for sure.
Thanks gangsta's! I appreciate you looking out.
In this pass: Laid out the necklace/ornament base geo..(yea, it's fn goat skull fool! Look out.. yea its gonna be held up by chains, what do you think this is!? this ain't a game)
Next - gonna sculpt out that goat skull and do alpha/normal maps for the ornaments...then the goo that the hands will be coming out of (alpha and normal).. then maybe some quick underooooo's and work on bringing her over into marmoset or something... can't wait to start "actually" texturing/materials.
Finally got it into marmoset!
Check out the ug hair! It's half-joke. This week it's all gonna come together i think!
got the rest of it into marmoset w/ normal and a quick grayscale diffuse.
Will do a proper texture pass next, add the arm goo.. I want the arms sorta ghostly, coming out of this sticky demon goo so that's the plan.. and tattoo's!. Oh and the light crown... and then lighting rendering and one in the bag!
p.s. ever thought of having her look down? any reason she is looking away ?
Diffuse/Spec pass on the props and hands
Reduced stomach.
planaria: Thank you
firecracker197: I know dude, but chaining the arms would be like putting wings on a spaceship.. sure it would look cool but... no chaining the arms.
super happy cow: Good call on the neck normals - i want to go and do another pass on the face in z for next round - hating more every and i'll tackle the neck than. Thanks dude
The goo!
and body paint!
I'm surprised with myself about how well the goo worked out.... the body paint is aight.. i guess.
Only the halo's left to go. And then a polish pass: Do another sculpt pass on the face, make the skin colder, add more color depth, spec for the nails on the demon arms, eye lashes...another spec/gloss pass on the goat skulls.. smooth out the goo spikes...
could you believe that it's only 13.5k in tris? I can't. but it is, and thats still dirty - w/ a day at opt it'll probably end up at around 10k
the finished girl.. called her "Blue Siren".... idk
rough idea... next the male base mesh.. alright!
cordell felix: Ah, dude, I put the finished girl only as the first post.. let me correct that.
skullsplitter: Thansk! ..re: breasts - to each his own :P
oh and obviously the head.
THAT came out excellent.
Finished the base, at least for now, and set up bones for the rig. Next, actually set up the rig, skin, pose while tweaking the base..
The neck/shoulders weird? idk
Rig, skinning, and pose... soo many problems w/ it right now.. *sigh*
Basically, I think i'm going back to square 1 before this madness goes any further.
I'll start with the feet tomorrow and for each joint really spend time on topology, where the rig goes, and how it works.
...sad.
But you really should work on the hands! They are so flat both for the girl and your new mesh. Even if you model them in a flat pose, fingers are placed along an arc, making the middle of the hand highest, and add some more bulk to the thumb base.
Took a few days break. Reworked the leg mesh/rig/skinning. I think it's pretty good, added a hip twist bone 1/2 down the upper leg - works way better then twisting at the hip. Next the torso and shoulders.
Refined topology/proportions overall. Refined hands.
Most of the articulation is much more extreme then the final pose and it seems to hold up pretty well right now so.. we'll see.
Next the skin/rig the hands, neck, and head.. pose again and see what happens - if it looks alright i'll be moving on to the monkey base mesh - then it's all fun the rest of the way.
so I posed it aaaand.... it was a total trainwreck. at first. which made me really sad since i spent so much time reworking the rig and skinning thinking i was headed in the right direction.
then i posed it again... and again.. and again. and then i got to this - which although not great, i find acceptable for the time being... maybe even slightly pleased.
I ended up messing with the head/neck a whole bunch after the fact so that's wrecked right now but easy fix for tomorrow.
From here I'm pretty sure with another day of tweaks to the pose/geo/skinning and rig pivots i can make something of it.
P.S. in retrospect, i think it's a fair amount better than the same point in time for the previous piece... so i guess at the very least i'm slightly better
lol. and so there u go, i hope it looks half this awesome when its 3d.
started the base for monkey, nm to show so for next time. redid the pose a bit - again for next time.
once the i get the monkey on there i'm gonna do 1 final concept run where i plan to work out all the clothes, hair, mask, spear, face paint and all the little tidbits..
I'm gonna steal this image straight from EOF's thread, because it displays it perfectly.
The breasts on your character are currently doing the Madonna type thing in the lower right of that pic.
Anyways - here's some exploration on the mask concept for my second character.
also the pose with the monkey now
then bake, and hopefully it looks good on the low poly - i don't think it will look terrible.
....and thats only about half way through this piece i think - so much to go :O