Honestly dude I don't think you're ready to start creating unique characters yet. I would highly recommend going back to the fundamentals. Start studying anatomy and watch some DVD's on how to create 3D characters.
Stop making excuses and just get to work. There's no magic in character design or modeling, it all just comes with practice and an understanding of what you're looking at and what you need.
And, to be frank, it's pretty apparent you don't know anatomy. At least not as well as you may think. Nine months of figure drawing is, in the long run, not much. I've been drawing people for years and I still have a ton I know I need to learn.
Practice.
Practice, practice, practice.
Draw real people, learn what makes them work, learn how they're put together. Once you understand and can create real things, you're then prepared to go more abstract with things like TF2-style drawing and modeling.
For a TF2 model like this proportions are required, but not 'so' much anatomy. As long as you follow good base orthos on the type of build you want for the character you should be fine, but once you get into sculpting and texturing full blown anatomy is a must, and it takes months of a daily hours of sculpting to get atleast a decent result. But before you take that comment and run with it, Ill also add in that this is a horrible character to start with (tf2 I mean, the style).
Work on general knowledge of modeling first, not long and you can look at any object and figure out a basic plan for it in an instant in your head. As the objects and shapes get more complex you build more solution pathways in your mind for when even more complex obstacles come along.
Start off with a simple male figure and go from there.
Really, like Swizzle said, its just a matter of going for it. Trial and error until you know what you're doing to an extent where you need other sources of input and criticism, and thats where polycount comes in.
Also, Keen posted a link to Gnomon. You DO NOT have to spend money on tutorials to become a decent artist at all, they are helpful but there is a huge variety of free tutorials that essentially show you how to do the same thing (just requires more improvising). The blender tutorial I posted is enough to get you going in how to approach specific shapes, and from there start experimenting. If you're confident in what you've learned and you're willing to invest (and gamble) for more knowledge from a tutorial, then bite the bullet and go for it. What I meant by gamble was that there are a select few tutorials on gnomon about character modeling, were you don't get what you expected (I was expecting to be spoon fed honestly, whenever I pay for tutorials it means im literally stumped on a process and its critical to my progression that I figure it out).
Once you actually start being able to make decent characters, the only hard part is getting motivated again (even though creating them is a blast). Ive had an urge to create a templar knight over the past 2 weeks with tons of free time and I still haven't started. Ill do a little practice here and there for armor and thats about it.
After a quick review of your threads, you're better off going back to the modeling basics and just practicing with objects around your house and following tutorials. You're going to frustrate yourself jumping into character art.
It's kind of a little too late for that option. I have to build for finish building a 100 K triangle environment for school also none of the threads represent me currently except the 2nd last stuff in the sketchbook thread.
not sure if I missed it.. but perhaps decompile a tf2 character model and use that as reference? something to help you connect anatomy, because right now you have taffy man. Get rid of the turbosmooth/subdivide and just try to get the blockout looking right before you try to model in specific details.
Oh man, I think you are way ahead of yourself. It would really do you some good to take everyone's advice here and go back to the basic and learn how to model and draw properly. Judging from this threads and other I am not sure you are listening to people. At first I thought this was a gag thread until I saw your other threads. Good Luck man.
not to be rude, but it doesn't seem to be working. Everyone has their own style of doing things, but get your foundations in order, then get your own style of how you work.
1. You don't even have the right proportions yet, but you're modeling in shoes, pockets and a nose. So when you need to go back and adjust the anatomy, you're going to waste a shit ton of time moving verts and making everything flow right.
2. theres a gap to fit a 747 between his legs. Just looks at a photo of a naked dude and see whats wrong. Also, not sure why theres a pinch right below the nutsack on each leg.
3. Arms and legs have no definition.
4. I'm not 100% certain, but from the shots you have shown, I'm going to guess he's twice as wide as he his thick.
I could make a list to 20, but I hope you get the point.
It might sound goofy, but maybe you should start out with creating basic primitives for each part of the body and refine them as you go. Seems like it would be better than having a bunch of separate dense meshes that you blob into shapes. really should start with lower poly meshes.
I'm just an env guy, so I'm sure alot of char guys here could really be much harsher than me.
Like so many others have already said, you need to step back, to be honest, it may be faster to start from scratch.
Seeming as your new to character models, find yourself a solid orthographic (front back side) shot of a male (Nude), aswell as other ref images. At the moment it seems like your just trying to guess the anatomy...and failing badly. I say your lack of modelling skill isn't hampering your progress, its your lack of anatomy knowledge. Start with a low poly primative (personally i start most stuff with a cube) and block in details VERY slowly, Get the torso the right base shape, then the arms, then the legs etc etc until you have everything in place, in the right scale and the right distance apart. Only after you have this basic shape should you start adding in loops and getting more detail.
Every now and then take a step back, turn off the lighting in your scene, so you just have a flat black image, and pan around the character to check the silhouette. Stay away from smoothing your meshes like this, you should be able to get a good understanding of the shape of your model from your unsmoothed mesh.
Usualy i'd give a quick paint over, but i get the feeling it may just be over looked....
Also, it seems your creating a highpoly mesh at the moment, and it got me wondering, does TF2 even use normal maps? I have no experience with TF2 modding so please correct me if im wrong!
I'd go back to the concept phase and try to match the TF2 style before even modeling. If you want, you can just paint over the current sniper to get a good proportional baseline. Then start low and block out a mesh, making sure you match the overall proportions, shapes, and silhouette/posture of the concept.
Cooljay, you're getting all the right advice from people who know what they are talking about, so why not pay it a little more heed? You're only setting yourself up for a lot of wasted time and effort by attempting to... do whatever it is you're doing to create these models. I know because I did the exact same thing, and it's not all that fun to look back on.
When people tell you to start over with the basics, they're not just talking to the walls. It's something you should really take seriously if you want to improve as a character artist.
Take a look at the link Frell posted. I guarantee you it will help you more than you can believe if you stick with it.
Replies
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category.php?page=1
Good luck.
Even though you dont have blender, try this for a start:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/blender/character-modeling-in-blender-basix/
And, to be frank, it's pretty apparent you don't know anatomy. At least not as well as you may think. Nine months of figure drawing is, in the long run, not much. I've been drawing people for years and I still have a ton I know I need to learn.
Practice.
Practice, practice, practice.
Draw real people, learn what makes them work, learn how they're put together. Once you understand and can create real things, you're then prepared to go more abstract with things like TF2-style drawing and modeling.
Work on general knowledge of modeling first, not long and you can look at any object and figure out a basic plan for it in an instant in your head. As the objects and shapes get more complex you build more solution pathways in your mind for when even more complex obstacles come along.
Start off with a simple male figure and go from there.
Really, like Swizzle said, its just a matter of going for it. Trial and error until you know what you're doing to an extent where you need other sources of input and criticism, and thats where polycount comes in.
Also, Keen posted a link to Gnomon. You DO NOT have to spend money on tutorials to become a decent artist at all, they are helpful but there is a huge variety of free tutorials that essentially show you how to do the same thing (just requires more improvising). The blender tutorial I posted is enough to get you going in how to approach specific shapes, and from there start experimenting. If you're confident in what you've learned and you're willing to invest (and gamble) for more knowledge from a tutorial, then bite the bullet and go for it. What I meant by gamble was that there are a select few tutorials on gnomon about character modeling, were you don't get what you expected (I was expecting to be spoon fed honestly, whenever I pay for tutorials it means im literally stumped on a process and its critical to my progression that I figure it out).
Once you actually start being able to make decent characters, the only hard part is getting motivated again (even though creating them is a blast). Ive had an urge to create a templar knight over the past 2 weeks with tons of free time and I still haven't started. Ill do a little practice here and there for armor and thats about it.
Start small and work your way up.
1. You don't even have the right proportions yet, but you're modeling in shoes, pockets and a nose. So when you need to go back and adjust the anatomy, you're going to waste a shit ton of time moving verts and making everything flow right.
2. theres a gap to fit a 747 between his legs. Just looks at a photo of a naked dude and see whats wrong. Also, not sure why theres a pinch right below the nutsack on each leg.
3. Arms and legs have no definition.
4. I'm not 100% certain, but from the shots you have shown, I'm going to guess he's twice as wide as he his thick.
I could make a list to 20, but I hope you get the point.
It might sound goofy, but maybe you should start out with creating basic primitives for each part of the body and refine them as you go. Seems like it would be better than having a bunch of separate dense meshes that you blob into shapes. really should start with lower poly meshes.
I'm just an env guy, so I'm sure alot of char guys here could really be much harsher than me.
Seeming as your new to character models, find yourself a solid orthographic (front back side) shot of a male (Nude), aswell as other ref images. At the moment it seems like your just trying to guess the anatomy...and failing badly. I say your lack of modelling skill isn't hampering your progress, its your lack of anatomy knowledge. Start with a low poly primative (personally i start most stuff with a cube) and block in details VERY slowly, Get the torso the right base shape, then the arms, then the legs etc etc until you have everything in place, in the right scale and the right distance apart. Only after you have this basic shape should you start adding in loops and getting more detail.
Every now and then take a step back, turn off the lighting in your scene, so you just have a flat black image, and pan around the character to check the silhouette. Stay away from smoothing your meshes like this, you should be able to get a good understanding of the shape of your model from your unsmoothed mesh.
Usualy i'd give a quick paint over, but i get the feeling it may just be over looked....
Also, it seems your creating a highpoly mesh at the moment, and it got me wondering, does TF2 even use normal maps? I have no experience with TF2 modding so please correct me if im wrong!
Good luck....
When people tell you to start over with the basics, they're not just talking to the walls. It's something you should really take seriously if you want to improve as a character artist.
Take a look at the link Frell posted. I guarantee you it will help you more than you can believe if you stick with it.
tf2 barley uses normals at all so there is no need to do a high poly.