Character sculpt: Tsukumogami
polycounter lvl 2
[Edit from August 2024, found a name for this project!]
Hey all! New project, following some advice from a mentor :]
I'm planning on sculpting this to make my portfolio feature more zbrush sculpts!
Concept is by me for once
The bulk of the sculpting will be the guts, and the hands.
The first few days, I got a basemesh going in Maya. I can't quite remember how long it took me, but I decided to take the time and make a hand basemesh which turned out better than I thought. I hope it will be useful!
I really wanted to run this basemesh through some critiques, but couldn't really find who to ask. So please, if you have anything to say, go ahead! I want the anatomy to be perfect perfect, besides stylised proportions. It's only a basemesh, but if there's anything already looking weird, I'd love to know
In the mean time, I'll start sculpting
Catch ya later, probably today!
-Blue
Hey all! New project, following some advice from a mentor :]
I'm planning on sculpting this to make my portfolio feature more zbrush sculpts!
Concept is by me for once
The bulk of the sculpting will be the guts, and the hands.The first few days, I got a basemesh going in Maya. I can't quite remember how long it took me, but I decided to take the time and make a hand basemesh which turned out better than I thought. I hope it will be useful!
I really wanted to run this basemesh through some critiques, but couldn't really find who to ask. So please, if you have anything to say, go ahead! I want the anatomy to be perfect perfect, besides stylised proportions. It's only a basemesh, but if there's anything already looking weird, I'd love to know
In the mean time, I'll start sculpting
Catch ya later, probably today!
-Blue
Replies
I'm somewhat happy with this already, but I'll try and look at more references to get these as accurate as possible. After correcting the anatomy and proportions, I'll add the very tiny details like wrinkles, as well as nails, and fuse the fingers to the hands finally, then make a clean cut at the wrist and decide to add bones or not.
Can anyone tell me if they spot anything weird/ wrong please 👉👈 I currently can't ask anyone for feedback so I only got this place, it would be very much appreciated.
Catch you later!
Blue
I'm a bit sad this does not communicate the feeling I wanted people to feel, they're not supposed to look miserable. I suppose I need some more practice!
The message I had posted above was supposed to showcase a sort of rough study, I suppose the quality is not there either then, do you suggest I just make 5 more of these before jumping in? Using my own hand as reference, or anatomy books?
To clarify, I've done all the hand poses present with my own hand to make sure they made sense (gesture wise, not proportion wise. I'll admit the proportions were rushed)
As for the big thigh gap, is it ok if I don't include it? I might be wrong but I feel like it makes the character too thin for my liking.
I'll take the time to study everything you included in your critique for sure, I can already see how it will help in improving this massively. :] Thank you again!
Next post will be focused on correcting everything.
If any other kind person has something to say, please go ahead! As said previously, I want to make the anatomy really accurate and pleasing to look at. Thank you in advance
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Edit: I sorted through the feedback and made a plan of attack. Putting it here so I don't forget
Due to some real life stuff I wasn't able to post for a while. I've been studying anatomy a lot on paper past month, and I really needed it!
I still don't have much to post concerning this project, besides the fact that I attempted to pose a skeleton inside, (Thank you Fabricio Works!) to see if things made sense.
I'm not quite sure if it looks believable, but there's definitely some underlying issues with the way I had my model originally.
When the skeleton is done, I'll start layering muscles :]
(The head is so huge!!)
Blue
I had completely stashed this project to the side, because it intimidated me a lot. Instead of leaving it in forever hiatus because I'm not at the level I want to be, I just decided to get into it, even if it's not perfect, and tweak it along the way!
I still tried to use past feedback of course, and it proved massively helpful. Thank you so much carvuliero!
Here are a few screenshots of the current state. I decided to start with a symmetrical model instead of asymmetrical, for reasons you can imagine.
I've already started working on the gears that will be present on the face, but I believe next step will be to merge the horn base with the facial pattern, either that or start working on the hollow in her body as to not get too lost into details.
Please let me know if you have any thought, whether it would be about bad design, anatomy, future ideas etc!! I love to hear it all :]
(Last thing I wanted to note for future reference, I read up on a technique called "primitive blocking" on Twitter the other day, it's the best!! I think I will use it forever. Have a good day!)
Here's a list of what i tackled!
>extended the things, following carvuliero's advice. I'll trim them later!
> detailing the horn base
This proved a bit harder than expected, I wanted to add additional sculpted on rings, but the result wasn't as satisfactory as the clean shapes I can get with primitive sculpting.
I went ahead and added the little tendrils coming out of the horn base, and don't know how I feel about them so far. They definitely add something to the silhouette, but also they feel out of place, as they don't have other elements to echo their shape currently.
> create clean hollows for the eye cavities
The future eyes are planned to be transparent, almost like frosted glass.
I achieved a clean hollow shape by duplicating the eyes, scaling them a little, and the using live booleans. It was easier than expected!
>create a clean hollow for the torso and heart
I had planned to do this later as this would break symmetry, but when playing around with live booleans, I thought it could be tackled now since it's a dynamic system!
I have yet to figure out how to create the metal wire border around it, in a way that looks good, convincing, and regular in width.
I also want to play around with this shape more before tackling what will be inside. I would like it to look like it has a beveled border.
I had a plan to add perpendicular shapes to merge the two together, but when I tried, it didn't turn out. So instead of this, I added rings to the face growth, to have the two objects merge together visually. I will leave the rest of the growth free of details, so things aren't too cramped.
With this I believe the face and horn are at the level of detail that I want. I will leave them alone for now
>fix up the anatomy
I had a friend help me with a critique, which was super nice of him!! Following his advice, I tweaked a few things. It may have been a bit late to work on such profound changes, but better late than never!
>>1 neck tilt, and whole body position in side view
One tip that really helped me during this, is that the collarbone and the start of the legs shouldn't be aligned! the collar bone starts far back, to the same point as the middle of the thigh.
The model I used also had the deltoid tiled back a little, and not flat the way I had it.
Pushing the torso back and the pelvis forward helped a lot in making everything else look better too, including the stomach and guts area that looked odd before.
(I later tweaked the legs to make them reach further back, which removed the feeling of lack of balance.)
>> 2 the shoulder blade area.
The top of it was too rounded and visible, it was not well connected to the deltoid. The area also looks better with the spine more apparent.
>>3 rework the clavicle area.
The "u" shape was very pronounced. I decided to change it for something more natural looking.
TO DO:
-add some bones sticking out from the wrists, arm and thighs.
-create a bevel on the torso cavity
-create the organs/bones in the hollow
-detail/figure out the hair strands more. positioning is good for now, but some don't look good.
-retouch the ear. It's not as refined as the face
-import gears, and place them on the face (currently the face has enough detail)
-create clean outlines for the torso and other pieces (i will probably try this in maya or blender
-think about making more hands, it might be cooler if they all had different poses.
(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)
I do agree that some of the nicer shapes got lost, at the moment I'm not sure how to retrieve them or what to do about it.
If l’m analysing things correctly, there's a balance to strike between an anatomically correct sculpt, and stylisation (and that's what I'll have to play with). I'll have to think about what to do for sure, thank you for pointing it out
Keep it up!
Thank you for taking the time to overpaint, the effect is really convincing. It would also bring things closer to the concept art, so double win!
As for the counterpoise, I'm still intending to work with symmetry for now so if that's alright, I will add it later when rigging
First of all I got a sketch going for the ribs, and what will be the heart. I honestly like the way the ribs look already, so I might leave them as is.
Next up I played around with how to do the bevel on the chest cavity for a long time before figuring things out with live booleans. On the chest cavity subtool I masked the area I wanted to be more deep than the cavity, and created a new subtool from this. It looks a bit more man-made now, which is what I was aiming for. I'm expecting it to look better with the future metallic border around the cavity as well.
Lastly I went ahead and tried detailing the hair a bit more. This was definitely a time sink which I regret quite a bit, but at least it's done! I spent a while fixing some intersections that were looking rough as well.
If anyone here has tips on how to make better stylised hair without the use of hair cards for now, I'd be really interested! Definitely the hardest part of the workflow for me so far.
Even if it doesn't look like a lot, that'll be it for today!
Next up, I still have to:
-Finish detailing the hair strands that need it, but shouldn't go overboard
-sketch up how I want the ears to actually look, they aren't satisfactory for now. (lacking some secondary and tertiary details)
-apply changes to the ears
-sketch up exactly how I want the future organs to look, as well as the heart. If I leave them as plain as in the concept, they will be bland.
-block out the organs
-add some bones sticking out from the wrists, arm and thighs. (I have to research how they look at the cutting angles I chose, even if I'm planning for things to be stylised like the ribs)
-import gears, and place them on the face
-make more hand poses
In maya later before I start the retopo:
-create clean outlines for the torso and other pieces (i will probably try this in maya or blender
( *︾▽︾) see you
Today, some paintover + concept art, to understand where I wanted to go in the future with this.
Included are ideas from the original concept art but a little more refined, some changes to previously modelled things, and some new elements I want to include.
Notably I want the metal bands around the hands, thighs and torso cavity to be a lot wider.
Currently unsure about the porcelain patterns, they're only temporary and will be done in texture anyway, but I wanted to get a general look of where things would be going! It was a very insightful decision.
(I also want to note that colour calibration is still an issue on the tablet I used and I did not think to do colour tests before calling it a day, so the following images are more desaturated than intended.)
If anyone has feedback or ideas about this design/the changes I'd be eager to hear it! I recognise that my choice are not to everybody's taste but still want to make this piece as appealing as possible, so don't hesitate to mention anything you don't like and why, even if it's subjective.
I don't plan on adding clothing so far, as it never came to mind when doing the concept or the sculpt.
As for jewellery, I plan on adding quite a bit of metal already. If some areas end up too plain I might revisit the idea, thank you so much for suggesting it!
The hands are part of the character itself yes, but stylistically the seem a little too different from the main body I'll talk about this at the end of this message
The idea behind multiple sets of hands is both borrowed from depictions of hindi deities, and inspired from the multiple sets of hands that often come with pose-able figurines, like Nendoroids, or even simply ball jointed dolls!
That's also the reason why the character is so disjointed, it's meant to remind the viewers of the joints some custom dolls might have.
I hope it makes more sense with some context!
Here's an update alongside this reply.
I've been quiet for the past few days as I wanted to be less spammy, but I think it's been long enough, so here is what I've been working on!
I modified the ears to fit the paint over, and finished detailing the hair, putting a focus on speed.
Less notably, I placed the cuts on the arms and thighs where I wanted them with booleans so I can move them around if they don't work out later.
I then placed rudimentary shapes for the sticky-out bones, one for the humerus, and each hand received two bone tips, one for the ulna and one for the radius.
I then was in a Maya mood, and created the missing gear pieces for the head, as well as the chains for the horn bauble, and the heart (low poly, high poly and base uvs.)
I'll assemble things in Maya as planned, after the retopology.
I also took some time to start on the organs! They were a little plain by only following the concept, so I added some more sprout like things, sourced directly from the horn growth for a feeling of unity. This might need some more tweaking, but I'll handle that a bit later if I notice problems.
That's it for today! Here's a list of what I still have to do next :]
-make the plants inside the cavity.. maybe in maya for the stem part? I feel like maya is better for tube-like stuff.
-figure out what to do about the chest cavity booleans. They are making my computer lag, so applying them might be good, i feel happy with their shape.
-make more hand poses, maybe
Tangent: I need to think of what to do about the hand stylisation. Currently I think it's interesting that they're more detailed than the body, it gives creepy vibes which I personally appreciate, but I don't want it to be too off-putting.
Solution: so far the porcelain body is simple, while the blue growth is detailed, so the hands could be blue. I thought about this for a few days and think it might be a good
-retopology
-place the horn jewelry
-place the gears on the face
-place the heart, tweak it if it doesnt fit
-create clean outlines for the torso and other pieces. Not with an even thickness like originally intended (like a string), but more like a ribbon.
Catch you next time! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ We're getting there!!
Did a whole bunch of work on this during the past few days, so here is an update (that's a little further along than I'd have liked).
All the sculpting, retopo and uvs are done, as well as the textures!
(Some useful context: my main aim was to create a realistic porcelain texture, and to make the rest of the materials believable using PBR as well.
I'm usually used to working with stylized textures and wanted to hone my realistic texturing skills.)
After this, I'm planning on rigging and animating her in order to practice, and also to make a beautiful Artstation post.
Catch you then! :] And thanks again to all of you for the wonderful feedback from before! I hope I was able to somewhat honor it.
Cheers!
Hope that helps, good luck
Are you familiar with the japanese art (and i guess philosophy) of Kintsugi (mending broken pottery with gold)?
It's just an idea, not a criticism. But it feels like it could be fitting from a narrative perspective.
As for crit, it looks like the geometry on her main forms are a little low poly. The breaking curvature of the neck through the shoulders for example. And around the gold trim along her hips. The distortion, I feel detracts from the nicer texture work you have going on.
Speaking of textures, since your goal is to have realistic looking materials, it remains a bit unclear what the matte blue material is supposed to be. I also wonder if it would be better to have the hands the same material as her body to better unify the look, especially since they are literally disconnected from her body to begin with? Just a thought. Keep up the great work!
As for polycount I fully agree, I might have a try at adding more resolution, even though I have no clue how well it will go so far down the line. This gave me the push to try though!
Regarding the hair, I absolutely need more practice. Might be a good idea to do some studies, in order to see what looks best before my next project
Pxgeek, I had given some thought to giving her kintsugi detailing! I ultimately decided not to go with it as the textures already feel a little bit too detail oriented. I'm unsure if it's just me, but I feel like I have a lot of big and small, but not a lot of medium. Thank you for the idea though, it could have worked!
I absolutely agree about the unspecified blue material, I was not able to figure out a logical solution to what it could be. I settled for something that looked like it was painted on, but I wonder if that's the right idea.
If you have any idea on this material could become, I'd be all ears!
For now I'll try and play with the poly resolution, see if I can do anything about it. I'll also give some more thought to what to do with the blue material, but I already feel pretty stumped.
Catch you with the next update! :]
Hey all!
Fast update. Decided I'd give upping the body resolution a try today, just to see if it would work out.
After fiddling around a bit, I subdivided the model in Maya once (using creases where necessary) and got a pretty satisfactory result!
It needed some elbow grease afterwards, mostly fixing some reluctant topo around poles (there's one on the arm cuts and leg cuts, and inside the eye socket),
And moving UV points around to smooth out some lines that didn't transfer well.
After all of this, the body went from 6k tris to 24k tris, and the overall tris count jumped to 60k. It feels acceptable to me for now, especially considering the quality it brings.
(Basically I keep my hair UV perfectly straight so I ca apply a "straight line" texture on it. The wavy shapes are baked brush strokes from when I sculpted in Zbrush)
It seems to fail when it comes to hair that has any semblance of shape.
I tried adding some more resolution to the hair which seemed to fix some of the jaggedness at first in Maya, but the results did not carry over to Blender and it looks like there's absolutely no changes.
As for the hair, I'm still really unsure as to what to do.
Do any of you have a technique to offer that could help fix the hair a little? It's really a huge deal breaker right now and I'd really like for things to look better
Thank you so much for reading! ヾ(￣▽￣)
Edit: fixed images
I made some fine line textures to showcase where i need to up the poly res in maya.
Used it as a guide, fixed things up in maya by moving UV shell points, and added res. It didn't look perfect, but it was a little better.
I tentatively made a separate substance file for the hair, then baked it.
...
...
...
I'll cut you the extra useless tests I did.
Nothing worked right. I think I could have banged my head on this for a while, at some point, I even considered starting the hair from scratch, but it wasn't advisable.
Out of frustration, I tried triangulating the hair mesh, importing it in Blender, and applying the problematic textures
Well.
It seems like it was just a matter of Blender and Maya triangulating things differently.
I think I'll have to settle for now, seeing how unreasonable the other path was.
Perhaps I should also pre-triangulate everything else, following this logic.
Alright, after this enlightening day, I'll do some texture correcting, then I'll have a try at trying to rig things in Blender for the first time, as I'd like to make a pretty animated loop in Blender after this.
Do you think that rigging and animating a triangulated mesh would even be viable?
It's going to be a brand new journey, and I'd like to do it right.
For some reason, I feel like rigging and animating should be done on a quad mesh, but maybe I'm wrong!
If you know, feel free to let me know! It'd help out a ton.
For today, I'll wish you all good night (￣▽￣) . z Z byebye
Edi: fixed images
Keep it up
I decided to take the plunge and re-make the hair from scratch, as I really started disliking it the more time went on.
I decided to get roughly inspired by a technique found here (used in Final Fantasy if I recall correctly), and tried making it work with my skill level.
I didn't just stick to the hair, but I also did some texturing tweaks here and there, more noticeably retouching the made-up blue material.
The veins are mostly noticeable when the light hits them just right, thanks to the roughness difference.
Before leaving, I of course tried Fabi's tip, and it gave a satisfactory result for those interested! The options that looked the best were "beauty", and "keep normals". Thank you so much for being so helpful, I'll definitely incorporate it into my workflow in the future. (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
With that, I'll finally move onto rigging and animating this little beast.
Feel free to drop any feedback even if I'm too far along the process to address it, I'm always eager to know how to improve for the next project!
Catch you later _(*￣▽￣*)ブ
Edit: Whoops. I finally figured out why images in this thread have been disappearing! I had temporarily been using discord to host my screenshots, and it turns out that when you copy paste images from there it embeds a link. Meaning that when the images get deleted from discord, they stop displaying after a bit. Gonna try fetch the images again to restore the thread!