Started working on my next character to show progress in class today for both.
Next character is a druid dude:
and this is my progress so far:
I made some minor tweaks on this character, but I'm getting muddy areas around the boobs, and I need to mess around with the butt again. If anyone knows what's the best way to smooth out the muddiness around the boobs please let me know.
your anatomy needs some work.
apart from life studies, which I recommend doing several of daily, try this when sculpting:
Give your model a flat material ala the flat color mat. compare the outline aka silhouette of your model with a real life reff from 3d.sk.
do this from every angle and to as much detail as you can until you start to develop an idea of the what creates form rather than your symbolic idea of what muscles go where and how a human works.
This is a process every artist goes through. most on a daily basis. battling with the preconceptions of a thing rather than the observations of that thing.
all that while studying anatomy.
keep at it your heading in the right direction
Thank you very much!
Dylan: This kind of feedback is exactly what I need. I'm working on comparing to all the reference I have + that sites reference.
The bicep muscles definitely need shaping and scaling. I'll keep comparing/observing and of course keep working on my anatomy studies. I really appreciate the quality of your feedback.
Pretty much only worked on the wooden armor, taking a bit longer than I anticipated probably because I took the long and tedious way to make the bark texture at the seems.
The wooden armor is pretty much complete, just have some small straps here and there.
I tried to smooth out the pants a bit so it didn't look like a huge *. I also touched up his muscles and pushed the face around a bit more.
My first speed sculpt which wasn't very speedy (2-2.5 hours)
I'm going to try and push this into a full character at some point after I finish my druid character and after I go back to the female I was working on.
A couple of things I think you could consider before you start retopoing. It looks like you forgot to give him shoes and it's very obvious considering you've got all of this refined sculpting and then mushiness at the feet. You are losing a lot of the natural curves in the leg due to the large leather pieces, for the body type the legs also feel like they need just a bit more mass. Are you planning on having the legs mirrored? If not then you should put some more asymmetry into the folds. I like how on the right arm you broke up the leather piece, if it's not too late it could help the leg pieces if you separated them up a bit, here is a paintover to help
Still version
One last small thing is that you may want to consider making the shoulder fur have a little less bulk for retopoing purposes and then use opacity planes to get more volume.
I hope this helps! He is looking interesting so far.
You brought up a lot of points I didn't think about, I've been hearing a lot about the feet and I'm going to give a seam across the side very loosely looking like this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XDOsgBhCbuA/TOLijVug3MI/AAAAAAAAAMA/xXvkvfZ3Dy4/s1600/medieval_shoes.jpg
I'll also add a little bit of mass to the armor. I know it's not very apparent , but the armor is wooden so the overall shape I want to have is going to have that in bent curve.
The shoulder fur is going to a bit more adjusting and mass is something I didn't think about either, so I'll make it less massive, and I'll try handling the fur with planes but I may stick with the solidness.
Thanks a lot! getting a critique has been very difficult, and I really appreciate it.
your character has serious case of inverted channels
I know it's driving me nuts =(
I've been playing around with it trying different things, but I'm not sure what I did wrong.
I exported all of my subtools out of Zbrush and imported them into Xnormal to bake them, that's pretty much it.
Any guidance to how I could fix this would be huge help, I know the problem I just don't know the process I guess to fixing it.
Normal mapping is UV direction dependent. When it makes a map, it's setting the direction from top-down on the green channel, and left-right on the red.
If your UV's don't line up with the rest of the model, you need to flip the channels of the shells by hand until they line up. It's a huge pain in the ass, but that's how it works. Also, the direction of the green channel can also vary depending on which engine you're using (i.e. 3DS Max reads regular top/down green, Unreal defaults to bottom/up). I wrote up a quick tutorial for work one day, it might help:
This isn't super helpful on exactly what you need to do, but it should be a handy visual aid on how normal maps interact.
EDIT: also, upon closer inspection of your model, it just looks like you need to invert the Green channel and present it in a viewport that isn't zBrush, that should clear up your issues. If you're feeling frisky, you might try setting your swizzle coordinates in xNormal to +X -Y +Z, but the effect would be the same as if you did it in Photoshop, I think.
You can do it in more ways than one. Simplest id reckon would be to just open photoshop>channels>greenchannel>invert
Not sure but i think shaders also have an option to flip your green (if im not wrong, the standard fx in max has that option)
Heres a very small update, but I wanted to show progress and also mention that Im halting on this model to work on another character that needs to take priority.
I have some minor tweaks like the belt and scarf before calling the sculpt finished.
I'll have some of the other character's progress soon.
I just want to say, I read the title and I was a little disappointed by what I saw, because I immediately thought of Lavitz from legend of dragoon, but I am not disappointed by the art. I do like what I see, keep up the good work.
The next character I'm working on is for Potemkin and Hailstorm Games. I'm working from Ionen's concept.
Here's my progress so far, any comments or critique would be awesome.
Still been pretty slow working on this character, but here's a gif of all the pieces, I have a lot of detailing to do. Let me know if the gif is showing up, and C&C welcome and appreciated.
Hey Luther, she is coming along, the hair is looking good and the cloth folds are working really well, just a bit of sharpening in some areas and they will be perfect. Her face is bothering me quite a bit, it's a bit too soft a little blobby. The proportions are a bit off too, I did some paintovers that I hope will help.
Animated:
Still
The matcap made it a little hard to get the colors in the right place but the biggest thing is her head is too wide from front to back. There needs to be a bit more definition under the cheekbones on the side of the face and her lower lip is is missing that smooth transition downward, near the corners, forgetting that gives the "pursed lips" looks. Her eyelid needs a little more work, what can really help get that right is if you polypaint or sculpt the iris and pupil.
This next image is from the animated gif, blown up a bit. I highlighted some areas from different views that need a little more attention. The mouth could also come out a little wider, the tip of the nose could be a little narrower, the jaw can be defined a bit more, ear could be a little smaller maybe.
Thanks a lot Alex, seems a bit difficult to get feedback. Especially with a paintover and redlining,very appreciated. I agree with everything you said, but I may dial it down a bit to stay close with Ionen's concept.
almighty_gir, I finished my Druid model, and with the archer "Im halting on this model to work on another character that needs to take priority." due to the latest character being an art test.
I am very slow, and busy between school and work. Though, it's no excuse.
I am going to finish them ASAP.
Replies
Next character is a druid dude:
and this is my progress so far:
I made some minor tweaks on this character, but I'm getting muddy areas around the boobs, and I need to mess around with the butt again. If anyone knows what's the best way to smooth out the muddiness around the boobs please let me know.
Was able to use a lot more reference and starting to move onto hair.
Can't wait to see the dude finished!
Here's some more progress:
apart from life studies, which I recommend doing several of daily, try this when sculpting:
Give your model a flat material ala the flat color mat. compare the outline aka silhouette of your model with a real life reff from 3d.sk.
do this from every angle and to as much detail as you can until you start to develop an idea of the what creates form rather than your symbolic idea of what muscles go where and how a human works.
This is a process every artist goes through. most on a daily basis. battling with the preconceptions of a thing rather than the observations of that thing.
all that while studying anatomy.
keep at it your heading in the right direction
Dylan: This kind of feedback is exactly what I need. I'm working on comparing to all the reference I have + that sites reference.
The bicep muscles definitely need shaping and scaling. I'll keep comparing/observing and of course keep working on my anatomy studies. I really appreciate the quality of your feedback.
In between anatomy studies I thought of starting an elementalist or dryad:
Should have a lot more progress on Feralin (druid character) since I'm on break in 7 days.
Pretty much only worked on the wooden armor, taking a bit longer than I anticipated probably because I took the long and tedious way to make the bark texture at the seems.
The wooden armor is pretty much complete, just have some small straps here and there.
I tried to smooth out the pants a bit so it didn't look like a huge *. I also touched up his muscles and pushed the face around a bit more.
I'm going to try and push this into a full character at some point after I finish my druid character and after I go back to the female I was working on.
First time posting a GIF hopefully it shows correctly.
GIF link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9771047/Feralin_Turntable3.gif
Not sure if that's working either.
Still version
One last small thing is that you may want to consider making the shoulder fur have a little less bulk for retopoing purposes and then use opacity planes to get more volume.
I hope this helps! He is looking interesting so far.
I'll also add a little bit of mass to the armor. I know it's not very apparent , but the armor is wooden so the overall shape I want to have is going to have that in bent curve.
The shoulder fur is going to a bit more adjusting and mass is something I didn't think about either, so I'll make it less massive, and I'll try handling the fur with planes but I may stick with the solidness.
Thanks a lot! getting a critique has been very difficult, and I really appreciate it.
Here's the final sculpt with the small tweaks:
I know it's driving me nuts =(
I've been playing around with it trying different things, but I'm not sure what I did wrong.
I exported all of my subtools out of Zbrush and imported them into Xnormal to bake them, that's pretty much it.
Any guidance to how I could fix this would be huge help, I know the problem I just don't know the process I guess to fixing it.
If your UV's don't line up with the rest of the model, you need to flip the channels of the shells by hand until they line up. It's a huge pain in the ass, but that's how it works. Also, the direction of the green channel can also vary depending on which engine you're using (i.e. 3DS Max reads regular top/down green, Unreal defaults to bottom/up). I wrote up a quick tutorial for work one day, it might help:
This isn't super helpful on exactly what you need to do, but it should be a handy visual aid on how normal maps interact.
EDIT: also, upon closer inspection of your model, it just looks like you need to invert the Green channel and present it in a viewport that isn't zBrush, that should clear up your issues. If you're feeling frisky, you might try setting your swizzle coordinates in xNormal to +X -Y +Z, but the effect would be the same as if you did it in Photoshop, I think.
Not sure but i think shaders also have an option to flip your green (if im not wrong, the standard fx in max has that option)
Some base colors.
Designed by Alex Allen: www.alexallendesign.com
My adjusted base mesh so far:
and here's some progress on the elf archer
I have some minor tweaks like the belt and scarf before calling the sculpt finished.
I'll have some of the other character's progress soon.
The next character I'm working on is for Potemkin and Hailstorm Games. I'm working from Ionen's concept.
Here's my progress so far, any comments or critique would be awesome.
Some more progress.
Ive been super busy, but shes coming along.
Coming along nicely. I think the cheak bones are a little more soft in the concept. You'rs are fairly pronounced.
Thanks alot, I definitely agree and was aiming for a softer face.
Getting to more clothing, but I'm terrified to detail this jacket haha.
I tried to soften up the cheeks, I also made the nose closer to the concept.
Been progressing very slow lately, but heres some progress.
Animated:
Still
The matcap made it a little hard to get the colors in the right place but the biggest thing is her head is too wide from front to back. There needs to be a bit more definition under the cheekbones on the side of the face and her lower lip is is missing that smooth transition downward, near the corners, forgetting that gives the "pursed lips" looks. Her eyelid needs a little more work, what can really help get that right is if you polypaint or sculpt the iris and pupil.
This next image is from the animated gif, blown up a bit. I highlighted some areas from different views that need a little more attention. The mouth could also come out a little wider, the tip of the nose could be a little narrower, the jaw can be defined a bit more, ear could be a little smaller maybe.
I hope this helps you out!
almighty_gir, I finished my Druid model, and with the archer "Im halting on this model to work on another character that needs to take priority." due to the latest character being an art test.
I am very slow, and busy between school and work. Though, it's no excuse.
I am going to finish them ASAP.