Summer Character Workshop - Most High Ceoptra
polycounter lvl 8
Hey Polycount! I'm honored and lucky to be part of Lee Devonald's @almighty_gir Summer Character Workshop! A few of us are starting a thread on the forums so you guys can view/learn/rip apart our processes as we go along.
Check them out here:
Lee Devonald - Swordswoman
Tom Lishman - Nemesis Demon
Sanna Kempe - Swordmaster
Shana Vandercruysse - The Baker
Nathan Ramsey - Illaoi Fanart
Stevie Cole - Neko-mancer
It's going to be an awesome learning experience for us and hopefully for you guys as well.
So on to the nitty-gritty, I've decided on doing this one:
-Most High Ceoptra from the Pathfinder Card Game by Eric Belisle
The concept has everything I find enjoyable in a design: clean and elegant with the right amount of appeal. Something about it just feels solid and would look great taken into 3D.
That said, our first session was to take the concept and break it down into real world materials. I've decided to do a semi-stylized look with realistic rendering; It would probably suit the concept best.
Next is sketching up the ambiguous aspects in the design. I don't think it would be that difficult given that the concept does a great job at defining it's elements. The biggest thing here I guess is the ornamental designs on her accessories.
Some notes that I may have to address later on:
Check them out here:
Lee Devonald - Swordswoman
Tom Lishman - Nemesis Demon
Sanna Kempe - Swordmaster
Shana Vandercruysse - The Baker
Nathan Ramsey - Illaoi Fanart
Stevie Cole - Neko-mancer
It's going to be an awesome learning experience for us and hopefully for you guys as well.
So on to the nitty-gritty, I've decided on doing this one:
-Most High Ceoptra from the Pathfinder Card Game by Eric Belisle
The concept has everything I find enjoyable in a design: clean and elegant with the right amount of appeal. Something about it just feels solid and would look great taken into 3D.
That said, our first session was to take the concept and break it down into real world materials. I've decided to do a semi-stylized look with realistic rendering; It would probably suit the concept best.
Next is sketching up the ambiguous aspects in the design. I don't think it would be that difficult given that the concept does a great job at defining it's elements. The biggest thing here I guess is the ornamental designs on her accessories.
Some notes that I may have to address later on:
- The damn fur - The fur appears to be superficial so I'm not sure if I will be needing hair cards or just plain ol' normals to define the fur so I might need help on that. (Hi Lee! :P)
- Hair - I have a set plan on tackling the hair. A good example is on Overwatch's Symmetra, that hair has a nice blend of sculpted hair and poly cards that could really suit this character.
- The tail is absurdly long, I don't know if it will look that good in 3D but I've seen sculpts of this character with the same tail length so it should be fine.
Replies
I would expect textures being the only smart solution for this - probably even without a specific normalmap depending on how stylized you go. I mean if you sculpt parts of the long hair - why even bother with putting that much detail into short fur that even in real life you barely see at distance? -> as a reference: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Nagarhole_Kabini_Karnataka_India,_Leopard_September_2013.jpg
In any case I am looking forward what you are going to come up with
Thanks for the insight guys, I'll keep that in mind.
Alright, update! You guys might want to check the group's threads for more detailed stuff on methodology. I missed a session so I just followed along to catch up.
Just to recap the week, we started on our base sculpts. Our goal was to make a base that we could reuse in future work but I think I'll be reusing the top half for mine xD
I gathered additional reference for the anatomy and the general direction I want to take it. I always want the sculpt to depict the kind of environment/traits the character could have to add that extra layer of belief to it.
She has a very lean physique and I instantly thought of Victoria's Secret models. They tend to have very thin silhouette's but still have a good amount of muscle definition. Her concept just screams speed and agility and the body type should reflect that. As for her lower top, I naturally went for the cheetah. Despite the concept having a leopard-like skin, the body type looks more akin to a cheetah's than a leopard.
How to make the perfect Victoria's Secret model
Lee emphasized that at this stage we focus only on the rough proportions on the model. The important thing is that it should have all the elements (fingers, legs etc.) to create a base. Even if this is early in workshop, this advice was invaluable since I really do tend to overwork the model at this stage. I would usually get lost in overworking the anatomy and never really moving forward. It really helps if you're in this kind of environment to keep you disciplined. C&C Welcome!
Dat ass tho
After the base sculpt was done, we began to do a rough retopo. I don't usually mind retopology but it tends to get really monotonous and time consuming. Thank God for Lee 'cause he shared a really efficient way in approaching the retopo.
The hardest thing in retopo is getting everything to mesh together well. The best way to do that is by having a set number of edge loops for already defined for each area like the legs and arms via cylinders. For example, the legs/arms should have edge rings of 16, while the body 24 and it's only a matter filling-in the blanks. I'll update this with the ideal numbers for the loops in the future.
Lee did his on Max with the retopology tools and the conform brush. I use Maya so the quickest equivalent is using the Live Surface move the verts into place and fill-in with the Quad Draw tool. You guys may want to check Shana's Thread for a more detailed look on retopology.
It's almost therapeutic.
Unfortunately I messed up some numbers of the edge loops on the face and just winged it. I was till able to get an all quad mesh. From this point, you can separate each section of the mesh with either materials or dirty UV's so when you import them into Zbrush you get some nice polygroups!
That's it for today's post!
Started doing some tweaks to the face and adding in some secondary forms to the anatomy. I still have to work on her lower half. Finding decent reference for that is a challenge. Usually the angles are limited to the profile and frontal areas. If you guys know where I can find some decent reference, I'm all ears
Anyway, there's not much to say share for sculpting. It's just the good ol' clay/move brush around until you're happy with the anatomy. I'm sure there are lots good resources in here already so I won't dive in too deep into that.
One thing I've been incorporating into my sculpts lately is making the eyes smaller than you actually think it is, even for semi-stylized stuff. The reason behind this is that you still have to account for the make-up,eyelashes and what not and they make the eyes bigger than they usually are. Polypainting a rough texture at this stage will help you visualize the face better.
C&C Always welcome!
I did my best to catch up despite having missed the sessions.
Basically the week was about finalizing the high-poly sculpt. This is what I have for now. Biggest challenge for me right now is doing all the accessories. they have a ton of variety to them and most of it is really vague in the concept. It's easy to get carried away with details at this stage and most of it will never be seen that close anyway so I had to limit myself on how much I wanted to push it. There are still some elements that need figuring out in terms of design and that's what has me stuck.
Also, this week Lee did a sculptover for the group on our base meshes.
Lee pointed out that the face still felt too anime-ish and suggested I tweak the proportions to rectify that. He suggested I'd elongate the face and push it a bit forward to give her a more causcasian/arabian.
I took a closer look and decided to adjust the eyes too. Initially, I wanted her to have cat-like eyes so I slanted it more than I should have; this contributed to the anime-ish features too much. I've decided to let the make-up/texture suggest the cat-like features and give her more realistic eye proportions.
Cheers!
@SukottoYeah, the cat limbs are longer than their realistic counterparts. In reality, regular leopard limbs are very much shorter and I wanted to stay close to the concept. I'll try playing around with those proportions and see how it looks though.
@PyrZern I see what you mean xD I'll add in extra leopard patterns in the future, I think It's just the rough polypaint making it resemble a dog's limbs. I'm actually torn between keeping the original eyes vs the new ones. :S
I noticed a couple things that could maybe help so I made a quick Gif. I used the older sculpt image because it was easier to draw over.
Green = The scapula looks a bit too high. I think it could be lowered a bit to be more in line with her pelvis.
In fact I think the whole front part could be brought down a little. It will give her a bit more weight too. It would probably also fix the longer looking front limbs that Sukotto mentioned.
Red = The back could be arched a little more. You may have done this already but I couldn't tell in the new image you posted.
The rib cage could be expanded and pulled down to have more volume. Exaggerate this if you want it more stylized of course.
The front limbs could be moved out laterally which would make space for some of the rib cage and pectoral muscles from the front view (Blue)
The back side looks fine since you've worked on the glutes and thickened the legs.
Arching the back, pulling the ribs downwards and moving the legs sideways will together make it look like gravity is doing its thing. It will ground her.
As for the face, the original concept was for a monster in pathfinder so I think if you want to make her look more monster-ish give her the angular eyes. If you want her to be more human stick with what you have now.
Hope this helps man. You workshop people are killing it.
Her frontal part is a bit weird for me. Do quadrupeds have pectoral muscles? The only decent reference I could find for that area is this:
Unfortunately I don't have any reference for the underside and it doesn't seem to suggest that they do. It looks more like the bicep is connected directly to the throat? Of course I could be wrong. I'm not too worried though because that area will be covered up, but I'd love to hear what you think
There is kind of a divot (green) between the delts and the pecs that separates the two muscle groups.
I've also marked where the pecs connect to on the base of the neck and the rib cage.
As you say this will be hidden by the cloth so no need to get finicky with it but if she was to be animated the underside may show. Never hurts to be mindful of these things.
Can't wait to see the rest of the progress, it was looking so nice last time I saw it..
Here's an update. Pretty big jump from where I left off, wanted to catch up with the others
I agree with @lotet on the feline part that its lacking the subtle nuances in the anatomy of a cat/tiger/panther. I'm no expert in animal anatomy, but what people have suggested seem to be spot on. Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the feedback guys. I haven't done the maps on the lower body yet so stay tuned for that. It might be the most challenging element on this piece so I'll save it for last
Is the AO turned off? There seems to be a lack of contact shadows (especially noticeable with the necklace and neck strap)
Small update. Did some work on the eyes. I made 3 versions, I'm leaning towards 2, but I figured you guys here could help me decide
Humanoid cat eyes are tough, but I think 2 is a pretty good compromise to keep it reading well at a distance
I can't wait to see the rest come together, man! ^^
Keep up the great work though. I'm looking forward to where you go with this.
@praetus
I get what you mean, completely agree on that one. I sculpted dimples/creases on her skin to reflect the tightness of her top but somehow got lost in the final bake. I will try to get to that and make it better suggest that it's actually wrapped on her body. Thanks for that, definitely helps!
but since @praetus mentioned the floatiness of the "boob cloth" is really bugging me too now.
I see the top thingy too, tighten it around the breasts. Especially the bottom of the boob peeping out feels too loose, like it doesn't really have any pressure on it.
These, for me, look better. The top follows the shape of the squeezed boob nicely.
Also (like the others already said) some interaction of the straps with the cloth would be nice.
Apart from this, your character is coming along greatly. The face - one of the most important things I think - looks gorgeous. Keep it up!
@Makkon
@Shanana
Thanks guys, and thanks for the tip Shana! I'd better get to it. It's starting to bug me too. Hahaha
made a quick PO.
And I like what you did with the catty eyes! Good work Joe!
As for crits, I agree with lotet on the cloth. Also, the belt leather on the waist feels too clean.
@Denzule
I'll definitely get to that.
@Elithenia
Thanks Sanna!
@Sebeuroc
@PyrZern
Good point. I'll what see I can do.
@slosh
I get what you mean about the face. I'm not quite sure how to bring that back. I thought the features would transfer well from the high to the low poly but I think there are more things I have to consider if I want to keep the ethnicity, otherwise I'd have to stick to what I've got.
I did bake the normals for the cat body. I might have to reinforce the sculpt if that's the case. It also might be the specularity washing it out too much. I'll have an update soon though and you can better inspect from there.
These are all just beauty renders for now. I'll be uploading some more shots in the future but I think this is enough to show.
I can't express my gratitude enough to the awesome peeps in the workshop @almighty_gir
@Nathanramsey @Shanana @Elithenia @RuiShi @TLishman I will take all that I've learned and push on for the next piece! Thanks everyone!
And thank you to the polycount peeps for taking the time to comment and critique on our work. Stay awesome!