So, I have been working on increasing my skills lately, and I think I am moving in the right direction yet still my goal is below the horizon. I have simply been too inspired by next gen game art.
I am making this female character that I want to use as a model for good looking assets and environment, and thus she has to be good looking too. I work with the body first and then eyes, mouth, teeth, tongue, hair, and last clothes. I think I will go for modeled eyebrows and lashes too.
First I started with a face found on the internet, that I tried to recreate from images with an old 3d model I had. Then I simply painted on a normal map and started experimenting with rendering. The result was this. Not good enough. (click to enlarge)
I then restarted the character from the bottom by making a voxel sculpt in 3d Coat. This gave "her" much more character and detail from the get go, And I have settled on a good workflow. By modeling muscles from the start it is easier to "smooth" out the muscles to suggest a higher fat layer on the skin. This keeps the anatomy more correct than simply pulling bulges on a smooth model.
Notice that her face has much more flaws. These will not show as much when the texture is in place, but it gives more character to remove perfection. I am not sure if I will go for fine lines and pores on the scult or normal map.
I am making this female character that I want to use as a model for good looking assets and environment, and thus she has to be good looking too. I work with the body first and then eyes, mouth, teeth, tongue, hair, and last clothes. I think I will go for modeled eyebrows and lashes too.
First I started with a face found on the internet, that I tried to recreate from images with an old 3d model I had. Then I simply painted on a normal map and started experimenting with rendering. The result was this. Not good enough. (click to enlarge)
I then restarted the character from the bottom by making a voxel sculpt in 3d Coat. This gave "her" much more character and detail from the get go, And I have settled on a good workflow. By modeling muscles from the start it is easier to "smooth" out the muscles to suggest a higher fat layer on the skin. This keeps the anatomy more correct than simply pulling bulges on a smooth model.
Then starts the nightmare of Retopology. This is a manual process where I place all polygons indibidually by hand mostly one by one. I am not counting polygons, just placing a good amount to read well. I am not good at making the perfect loop holes, and I have a few triangles here and there, but it is not so important since the model will not be subdivided. Besides engines use triangles anyway.
The body is now done, and I will let it rest from my eyes for a day or two so that I can easier tweak details later. Then it is off for UV unwrapping!
