African Huntress
polycounter lvl 2
Final Update:
(Artstation link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QzxQ6l)
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Just in case anyone was following my progress on the chinese general I was working on, I've had to put that on hold to work on a character project at Gnomon (I'll get back to it eventually). For the benefit of anyone who's curious about how their classes work, I'll highlight each checkpoint that is covered in the Character Creation for Games course that I'm currently in. As I'm still demystifying certain parts of the workflow myself, CnC is welcome! Aite let's go!
Step 1: find an interesting concept and analyze the setting he/she would be in
I felt like this is a solid pick without question. Many cultural influences are immediately apparent and provoke intrigue as to the character's background. "Who is she, and where does she come from?" Her appearance suggests she's a girl from a small African village that practices shamanism and other spiritual magic, whose border with the modern world allows for contemporary garb to mix with native adornments.
This concept is by Loish. Despite how huge her following is, I've never heard of her or seen her work before stumbling upon this concept
. Her stuff rocks, and I'm glad I found this! All her pieces have a uniquely distinct stylized look, check her out: https://www.instagram.com/loisvb/?hl=en
(Artstation link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QzxQ6l)
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Just in case anyone was following my progress on the chinese general I was working on, I've had to put that on hold to work on a character project at Gnomon (I'll get back to it eventually). For the benefit of anyone who's curious about how their classes work, I'll highlight each checkpoint that is covered in the Character Creation for Games course that I'm currently in. As I'm still demystifying certain parts of the workflow myself, CnC is welcome! Aite let's go!
Step 1: find an interesting concept and analyze the setting he/she would be in
I felt like this is a solid pick without question. Many cultural influences are immediately apparent and provoke intrigue as to the character's background. "Who is she, and where does she come from?" Her appearance suggests she's a girl from a small African village that practices shamanism and other spiritual magic, whose border with the modern world allows for contemporary garb to mix with native adornments.
This concept is by Loish. Despite how huge her following is, I've never heard of her or seen her work before stumbling upon this concept
. Her stuff rocks, and I'm glad I found this! All her pieces have a uniquely distinct stylized look, check her out: https://www.instagram.com/loisvb/?hl=en
Replies
Ideally, concepts would be complete and presented from the front/side/back view to provide as much info as possible for the 3d artist, so when presented with only one perspective it becomes even more important to research at least a few reference images for each material to give an effective starting base.
Step 2b: face reference
I want to make this character with a realistic art style, yet still be able to capture the look in the concept so I chose a real-life actress who I thought looked similar as a starting base. (Disney channel actress Skai Jackson)
Primary, silhouette-defining shapes are the focus here. Especially when it comes to female characters, capturing the subtle, graceful lines are more important than detail in this step.
As the name implies, this is where the secondary, tertiary, and micro details come into play (micro details can be done in texturing as well).
This is one of the steps I still kinda struggle with in the pipeline. I'm more or less happy with how her face turned out, but it still feels stylized to me. If anyone has any pointers how to make her just a biiiiiit more realistic it would be greatly appreciated!
@ja000ha
Thanks for the input, I'll take em into account! For the jaw advice do you mean round it out more? In the concept she has a fairly strong jawline and I like how badass that makes her look.
updated the face. It does feel a little more "real", I think? I've been staring at this too long so I'll take another look with fresh eyes tmrw.
Yes that's correct, I'm trying to make her as real as possible while still making her recognizable compared to the concept. I'm not sure about my most recent change to her face so I'm gonna take a quick break from that area and get back to it later.
In the topmost image on the left, notice the volume of her cheek (she has slight expression there, but not too much)
Your model has a flatter face, which, to me at least, makes her feel more Caucasian.
I get that you want to make her have a badass warrior feel, but I don't think you should do that by making the face more gaunt. Probably making the neck more lean and muscular, in addition to the visible arms and legs (especially muscular calves), will be enough to make her feel like a badass without taking anything away from the face.
Step 5: retopology
Geometry edge flow should correlate with the angle of bending in order to deform/animate properly. For objects with a simple overall shape, oftentimes proper edge flow tends to be the cross-section of its thickness.
For complex objects like the character's face, edge loops should follow the direction of the underlying muscles, with 5-pointed stars in areas that make sense. Triangles should be limited to areas that aren't visible or don't have much potential to deform.
Gonna UV one straight dread and use the wire deformation tool to populate the head. When I get around to it, the ball on top of her head is gonna be retopo'd into one solid object.
The process of flattening out all objects into 2d space for texturing. UV sets are generally determined by grouping objects based on their position on the body (face, upper body, lower body, hair); more or less sets are used depending on how much detail needs to be in the final render. Seam lines should be hidden in areas of low visibility, and the number of UV islands should be kept as small as possible to reduce draw call times.
The last UV set is supposed to be the spear and the hair (still working on the hair). Should hair and props like weapons be given their own UV map, or is it alright if they're grouped into one to reduce the map count/save on UV space? Idk which is correct since the hair is part of the character and the weapon could possibly be used as a standalone prop.
Hair on one sheet.
Weapon on another
somehing tells me
yoire gonna need a lot of space for the hair.
Now to figure out how to make *real-time* dreads..
Artstation link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QzxQ6l