Stryker Revealed! WIP

stryker

Hey. Creating a self-portrait. Roughed it out over the past few days. Been trying to work a lot on my geometry flow. I want a lip sync friendly and expressive realistic model. Spent an extensive amount of time on the ears today trying to get them just right. This is what I got so far:






C&C appreciated thanks in advance!

If anyone is on Blogger I will be posting updates there too and would love to hear from you!

http://seanriker.blogspot.com/

SnaFuBAR

Could we get some front and side profile shots? You seem to be missing the concave spot above the lip and some skin folds below the eyebrows. I don't know what you specifically look like, but it feels like your eyebrow ends abruptly, your jaw needs some definition leading to the ear and something about the mouth is feeling off. Maybe it just feels puckered, and i understand you haven't defined the lips yet. Could also do with some cheekbone definition.

Looks like you're off to a good start, though.

stryker

Yeah, the lips do feel kinda puckered. was having trouble with getting the area around the eyes to feel right. Maybe once I throw some spheres in for eyeballs it will start to take some better shape.

Here is my reference image (Me):



Front:


Side:

JGcount

Dont bre afraid to start over on certain areas like the mouth if it is causing you issues. You learn something new each time.

Imo, mouths are probably the hardest part of the human anatomy to nail down. Edge flow is very important, and rembember that the upper lip is "over" the lower lip...if that makes sense.

SnaFuBAR

Looks like you're running into the same problems I had when I first started, and, I'll blame it on the beard, it kind of hides features. :shifty:

Take a look at what Ive done here with the folds of skin above the eyes, and at the corners. As it was mentioned by Mike Yevin, the jaw on mine needs to be more in line with the front of the ear, and I'm seeing this with yours as well.

Your muscles in the neck come from behind the ear to around the front of the neck, so the topolgy needs to follow that. The ones that stick out that should be followed are the trapezius and the sterno...

this... http://www.anatomycolleges.com/Free_Course/images/h_n_muscle.jpg

Also, imo it's better to have the skull's topolgy radiate out from the ears, rather than to stack quads front to back like you have. Did you start from a spherified cube as well?

also, helps to not have your head tilted back when you make a reference of yourself.

stryker

I have officially stepped into the zone of high poly: 84530 Verts and climbing. Making some updates then I will bake it back to a low poly. This is what it looks like today:



Front:



Side:



Worked out some of the bugs mainly in the eyes, nose, and lips, though the whole model got a little bit of a makeover. It's amazing what a couple observations from a neutral party and a good night's sleep can do to help you see problem areas. It's getting there.

@JGcount - The lips were a lot more challenging than I thought they should be. I guess because the surrounding area doesn't have hard lines to define where it is...and that I have a beard. I think I made some headway though.

@SnaFuBAR - I'll definitely blame it on the beard! Just have to fill in the blanks I guess. Worked on the Sternocleidomastoids. Yes, I did start from a cube. Good old box modeling. Takes some patience to make it feel organic. I'm still trying to decide which approach I like best. I had tried using a sphere where the triangles ended up on the inside of the ear. Wasn't a huge fan of that approach, but I only tried it once. I've tried starting with a plane as well, but zipping up the seams at the end can be cumbersome. Are either of these the approach you were talking about with the ears?

SnaFuBAR

oh wow i totally meant to link you to my post.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1296854&postcount=2212

take a look at especially your cheeks and jawline. You've got to get closer to the "planes of the face" such as this http://philippefaraut.com/store/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/p/l/planes.jpg

See how it goes from the cheekbone to basically the corner of the lip, and then towards the back of the cheek, above the jaw, it rounds out into the ear? That's the best way I can describe it.

As for the sphereified cube comment I made earlier, what I meant was that i made the entire shape from a sphereified cube, which I later didn't like. I deleted everything just behind the eyes and remodeled to get this current topology, which in my opinion, gives a better skull shape.

Getting better, but not quite there. You literally made the exact same mistakes I did but learning is half the battle Self portraits are fun huh??

Snader

The front of your ears needs to flow into the rest of the head better.

stryker

@SnaFuBAR: The planes of the face reference was very helpful! Glad I'm not making new mistakes no one has heard of before :poly122:.

@Snader: So was the ear. I think the perspective of my reference was throwing me off, so I took it into my own hands and ignored my original references.

Worked it a bit. The differences are more subtle at this point, but it looks more natural. Wish I'd had a better expression in my reference hehe....

I think it's coming around! More later...

stryker

Been doing some work. Finished my High Poly and baked it. Roughed out a diffuse that still need some attention. My tangent normal map gives me some strange shadows on the cheeks and eyes that I need to iron out, so it's turned off for now. Not liking the forehead right now. It had looked too big, now it looks to small. Orthographic isn't much help when trying to figure out spherical shapes as such and the perspective view is very exaggerated.

High Poly:



Diffuse:

beezul

nice use of photography as a diffuse. very well applied to the geo. i do think however you should move some of that geometry around some. especially above the upper lip. this area looks particularly odd with a strange crease. lookin good so far