New Character Artist - Critique Please

Probable Muppet

Hiya All,

I'm a new user here looking for critiques on my first character model. I am concerned that I may have issues with edge flow and was hoping for some advice on how to improve. Any advice would be great, thanks.

Note: If the material is too distracting I can repost.

Thanks in advance.

Probable Muppet

Anyone?

BelgianBoolean

Hey mate, overall, it's looking pretty good. My biggest concern is the amount of edges around the waist/hips. You could cut that down quite a bit, and your topology should be somewhat even to get good deformations. There's also that diagonal cut down the side of the knee that worries me. I don't see much need for it. The topology between the breasts is also a bit funky (i.e. too heavy and too many 5 sided poles). Could I see a close up of the hands? Overall, this is pretty damn good for a first character. Keep it up!

Probable Muppet

Thanks a bunch for the advice!

I have a few concerns with character model creation that I would like to get solved.

1) Do people generally model the head before the body, I read once (in a really old book, I believe it was Quake 3 era) that it is best to model the head first to give the model character.

2) Is it okay to create triangles in order to model clothing (like belts, shoulder pads ect), I have looked into some character models here on this forum and others, and it seems that some really good character modelers cut in belts and clothing seams. Is this incorrect? That is the reason for the heavier edge loops around the waste.

for example, you stated that I have to many 5 sided poles in the breast area. Did you mean the "cleavage hole" (that just sounds dirty lol), or the nipple area topology? Is it best to create another object to create clothing on top of the base model?

3) I have little experience with Zbrush, I plan to go into working with that as soon as I get a decent topology in low poly. What I fear is I am creating more issues with a base model by adding things that could be worked on in Zbrush (such as triangles and 5 sided poly's). Should I focus more on creating a "Net" mesh of pure quads and then go into Zbrush for clothing creation? Also, am I wrong in thinking that Zbrush has the capability to "quad" a mesh that contains a few triangles? Is this bad practice, or are some triangles and other no no's unavoidable?

4) I find that in creating the head I am creating a bunch of transition triangles from the body to the head in order to compensate for the higher poly count needed to create a decent face base mesh. Is there a way around this?

I think that these are most likely very obvious questions for most character modelers, but I feel that for the most part, these issues I am having in developing my skill further might be as simple as getting these questions answered, and for that, thanks a ton for any advice you might give!

As for the hands. I modeled those separately in another file and attached them to the body model, again creating more triangles in the process to compensate for the higher poly count needed for the hands. Note, I am creating "street fighter"-ish gloves for the arms.

Here are some close up shots of some of the problem areas.

Probable Muppet

Another thing I tend to do is turn off the wire frame, and check against a high quality shader (currently using 3Point lite) to see if the form looks decent, when I find problem areas, I tend to fix them by adding extra loops and triangles. This is the reason for the strange topology at the knees.

For example: The form looks pretty good to me in these shots, but again; I think I am creating problems for myself by adding more loops to make it look better in this way.

leilei

You should destroy your hands and make new hands

Yeah, I can't make good hands either... but it's one of the hardest parts ever. Gwot had a really good hand extrusion series of images that helped me out. Practice dem hands

Also reconsider the way the model is posed. You might get bad deformation if you stick to the odd pose you have now.

Judging from the hole i'm guessing it's Hsien-Ko or Power Girl?

Probable Muppet

It's not Hsien-Ko or power girl. I was actually attempting to model a mock D3 Female Necro for fun. Of course such a class doesn't exist in Diablo 3, but that's why I thought I might attempt one. After I get the head finished, I was going to start on the body armor.

I think part of the issue is that I am not using reference in modeling, so when it comes to workflow I get a little lost. I figure instead of working from a 2d concept that I can instead, "sketch it out" in 3D, but then get the model all screwy by attempting to do so.

Does anyone else, just start modeling a character right out, or do most work from 2D reference?

As for the pose, I used the 3point studio character models for pose reference, They use a similar pose in their character models:

http://www.3pointstudios.com/portfolio_characters.shtml

Although, it looks as if my hands are angled the wrong way =(


Also, thanks for the advice on the hands, I agree in looking at them, they look pretty shabby. Also, I notice now, I am missing the "wrist bone" lol.


EDIT: what is "GWOT"?

Psyk0

Your pimpin' material is burning my retinas! i hope for your sake you're not modeling with that awful material, i would probably poke my eyes out =/

To answer your questions...

1.No, whatever works, if you feel you need to model the head first then do so, if not, it's perfectly fine. I'd think the reasoning behind this has to do with the fact the head is the main focal point of humanoids, so more attention to the head is natural.

2.Yes having triangles is fine, all your polygons are made of triangles (it's easier to work in quads and easier to read for humans, but the software sees triangles). Heavier edgeloops is to help deformation.

3.Your Zbrush basemesh mantra should be: evenly divided quads. No triangles (or well hidden), even with all quads, you'll have poles, those will create artifacts too.
evenly divided quads...evenly divided quads...evenly divided quads...

4.Poles or re-routing (send back the loop where it came from) i know this doesnt make any sense now, but it will over time.
http://www.blendernewbies.com/tools/subdivisionmodeling/subd_PRIMER/page2.html#3

Jungsik

why is she in such a weird pose?
even if your following the poses from the 3 point guys..your legs are still too close together spread them apart a bit, how many polys you hitting?

Probable Muppet

thanks Psyko for the advice and the link, that was very helpful. I checked out your Portfolio, pretty fancy stuff! I ventured into the link section of your site and was excited to see a head modeling tutorial, but the link is broken! That link would be very helpful right now.

@ Jungsik: Is it best I convert it to a conventional T-Pose? I thought emulating the 3Point guys would make it easier to skin eventually, I figured that was the reason for their posing the models in that way, specifically for making the shoulders and elbows easier to animate given the slightly more extreme angles.

Right now I am at 4100 tris with the face about half way done. It is taking a lot longer to model the head than I am comfortable with. The body took me about 3 hours, the head is like half way done at about 8 hours invested.

Right now it's reminding me a little too much of Moses from south park:

Der Hollander

Overall, I'd take a step back for a bit and revisit your proportions and topology. Add in as many polys as you need to get the form down first. Don't worry about modeled in detail until you've moved onto that step, adding in extra meshes is not a crime. When you're satisfied with the form, then you can think about reducing polygons.

You've got some strange topology happening in the abdomen area, I've found a good rule of thumb is to place polyflow along with the anatomy. Grab a good muscle chart and place your polys in line with the fibers of the muscles (within reason) I use the Frohse Muscle Chart, as it has a body in motion showing the relationships of the muscle groups.

I agree with leilei on the hands, but I'm going to try to be more helpful. You have some strange twisting happening in your fingers, which will turn around and bite you in the ass when you try to pose it. You also don't have enough information throughout, along with lots of unnecessary diamond cuts.
Follow the wrinkles of your hands. Where you see a major crease in the skin, add an edge loop.

Keep plugging away at it, try some new things, experiment, maybe blow up your mesh a few times along the way.

PS: that blue really is blinding.

Psyk0

Probable Muppet wrote: »

thanks Psyko for the advice and the link, that was very helpful. I checked out your Portfolio, pretty fancy stuff! I ventured into the link section of your site and was excited to see a head modeling tutorial, but the link is broken! That link would be very helpful right now.

Don't worry, the tutorial was kinda old and basic, more of a workflow demonstration rather than artistic approach, but i highly recommend doing the head portion of the Joan of Arc tut:
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/head1.php

Modeling heads is 10% technique and 90% anatomy knowledge. Do the Joan Of Arc head, once you get through you'll have gained some technical skills about edgeloops. Repeat this on a handful of characters or head studies and you should improve steadily, BUT at some point you'll have to sit down and study human anatomy if you want to reach higher quality work.

Probable Muppet

After about three restarts after the last couple of days I finally managed something descent. Going to start the ears after I add nostrils. Any tips would be awesome.

Probable Muppet

FYI: it looks much better if you squint and/or stand 7 feet from the screen!

Der Hollander

Your topology on the head is looking solid, you just need to push form. Try knocking out a few of those edgeloops and really nailing the facial proportions and shape.

Probable Muppet

Sounds good, I had to add a larger number of loops than i intended to get the mouth and eye areas to connect decently. I do this (I assume) because my knowledge of how I did it is lacking. I went from box modeling and cutting the thing up pretty messy, to edge pulling which allowed me to avoid ngons and triangles, but I do think the form suffered. I will go in and attempt to optimize.

On another note, she isn't as attractive as I would like, and is looking more like a middle aged woman than I would prefer. I think it may be the check bones, but I am unsure.

sheckee

The models are too dense too soon. Keep it as low polygon as you can and get the silhouettes right first. Then begin to add more resolution whilst still maintaining the silhouette.

For example, the head model has so much resolution, you'd be hard put to move each vert to get it right. Cut the poly count down, and you'll have an easier time making big changes.

DeeKei

Yeah all you need to do is remove out the unecessary loops and rebuilding her form around the basic loops, after a few practice you get a clearer idea on how the face is like. but yeah solid engle flow so far on the face.