Sketchbook: Tim Smith
polycounter lvl 6
Hi. Welcome to my digital sketchbook. I hope I go about this right. I specialise in characters and I'm aiming to focus on real-time for my portfolio. I'll be using this to log my progress with a new project I'll be starting. I'm planning on making my first ever mech/robot. Due to the time-frame I have, I'm not planning on anything crazy complex, so I've decided to pick the Death Egg Robot from Sonic 2. :) I plan on making a real-time version of it, so apart from my usual breakdowns and research, I need to find similar projects of anime-styled mechs that have been made real-time.
Any feedback or suggestions throughout this would be super welcome! :)
Replies
For the skull, I've blocked it out:
And for the Witcher character I've been focusing on secondary forms around the forehead and eyelids:
And my current progress with my skull project... Currently working on the secondary forms:
You can use Ryan's skeleton mesh for reference, it comes with Zbrush by default.
The next one I aim to push further and add more secondary forms.
Also, current progress with Witcher character. Changed a lot thanks to some helpful feedback and emphasised a lot of the forms. Also corrected the eyelids. Just need to do some refinements and re-add some creases/folds.
He's got... interesting proportions. Like his head is a bit too big? Or maybe he's just short of height?
He's about 7 heads tall in latest full body screenshots... for 180cm feels like he's missing at least half a head, so to speak.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong.
There are a few other things that could be revised, but the most important is a structural mistake in the head which immediately stands out, specially in profile: Ear placement.
Unfortunately the skull you're using is missing the ear hole, a vital landmark for the head. When it's not being actively considered when placing features and your ref lacks it it's very likely the ear will drift. When it drifts other features tend to also drift, with jaw and sternocleidomastoid and hairline usually being the worst victims.
In this case because the ear is so high the sternocleidomastoid is attaching to the side of the skull instead of to roughly the underside of the protuberance in the temporal bone. He'd also have odd sideburns and beard as it is, and a vast expanse of empty back rim of the jaw below the ear.
But yes, I see what you mean. Thanks. I've moved the skull slightly since adjusting the proportions of the head a little, so the misalignment isn't as great as it was, but the jawline and ear definitely need moving a bit.
Progress with the second scanned head... I haven't overlayed the meshes yet to check if everything matches up, but will do that soon. Just want to see how much of it I can get through observation.
Also, this is a nose exercise I did a couple of weeks ago:
Also, this is the progress made with my Witcher character's clothing in Marvelous Designer. Just fixing up some issues with the leather chainmail and all that's left are the boots.
By this point I was getting a bit frustrated as it just felt I kept making the same mistakes over and over and over. :-\
So it was recommended to me to put what I have learnt to the test and sculpt an anatomy head instead. One that includes muscle and fat pads etc. So after that I'll probably attempt a few of those from memory and eventually do some more skulls. But going forward, I'll write some notes of the areas that I've painted over to check as I work.