{SeanL}'s Sketchbook

[{SeanL}]

So I see everyone's sketchbooks and I see how awesome their work is, and it makes me want to one day be as good at modelling as some of the people here. The best way for me to do this is probably to make my own sketchbook and keep updating it.

So here we are. The first model I'm uploading images of is a character called Damien. I am more of a cartoonist when it comes to drawing, and so this character is indeed a cartoon.

As of yet it's still a WIP, but I'll be up for another six hours or so, so I will probably try and complete the rest of it or at least most by midnight.

Here is the base mesh I created in Maya before importing into ZBrush:


Front:


Side:


On second though I should probably have made his kneepads subtools, but oh well.

I'll be updating my sketchbook all the time, as I model every day as much as I can.

I would absolutely love critiques, it'll be the only way I can get better.

Cheers,

{SeanL}

[Aumakua]

Hey, welcome aboard I would suggest you gather some photo reference
concerning anatomy and clothes issues, they will help you tremendously in shaping your volumes and detailing nicely, even though your character is toony
Keep us updated with your progress
Nick

[{SeanL}]

Thanks for the advice and being so nice, this community is absolutely awesome.

I've basically just been detailing the clothing at the moment, I haven't even begun on doing subtools for his equipment yet.

Anyway, next pictures of Damien is right here:




Just had a question; How do you guys recommend I sculpt his hands because personally at the moment I think they look terrible. What tools do you recommend I use to pull his fingers out and make them look better?

Cheers,

{SeanL}

[greenmachine]

I think the best way to sculpt the hands is to hide the rest of the mesh and start sculpting on the hands alone. There's no specific way to do it, however I like using claytubes to add volume and then cut away with the same brush where there is excess (much like in real sculpting).

Also It might be a good idea to take seperate parts of your model and focus on them for a while. It can be hard to take in account all issues when working on the whole character at once.

[{SeanL}]

I did the one thing I hadn't done yet and masked everything except the hands.

They now look like this:


This is far too minor an update so the next one will be big, I'm starting work on his head now.

Hmm, considering I want to animate this in Maya what kind of hair do you guys think I should do? Awesome looking hair from Maya or sculpted hair from ZBrush?

Cheers,

{SeanL}

[TheGreenMachine]

In case you didn't know.
you can not only mask everything but the hand, you can also hold ctrl+shift and drag over the part you want to work on. This'll hide the rest of the model and you now have your hand nice and centered in the workscreen and it becomes alot easier to work on.

ctrl+shift+click reveals the whole model again

[{SeanL}]

Ok so it's midnight now where I live so time for bed, but before I go I'm going to update this with what Damien now looks like. I have now created subtools for different parts of his equipment, such as his goggles and knife and gun holsters. He now has a mouth and a somewhat ridiculous looking haircut.



Let me know what you guys think. Tomorrow I am going to model his gun and knife subtools and then I will be starting the texture process.

Any critiques for this stage of the model?

Cheers,

{SeanL}

[bassbucket]

Since you been working in maya I think you should re-model the hands, that would be pretty easy, they dont look so good. Also feels like you sculpt on high levels too early. You should also try to model directly from z-spheres. I think the result will come out a bit better
Other than that, keep it up!

[{SeanL}]

I am still a complete newbie with ZBrush, so I don't understand how to work ZSphere's just yet, I tried but it ended up looking ridiculous and not what I wanted.

Also with the hands I am going to restructure them in Maya when I get home from my course this afternoon

This is just a first model that I want to get over and done with so I'm going to finish him tonight and texture him and I think I will probably completely remake him again now that I understand more about ZBrush, for example the majority of what he's wearing or his equipment will be subtools in the remake.

Thanks for the crit though man, they're always welcome in my book.

Cheers,

{SeanL}

[Piggy]

personally I would strongly suggest you to learn to box modelign in Maya first just to understand how things works fundamentally... it will serve you better in a long run if you really want to make a career out of it.

if you really want to learn Zbrush, you should take a step back and work on each part of the body first. It is extrmely easy to go overboard and add alot of wrinkles and detail on zbrush before you nail down the basic porportion. This is what is happening to your model.

Before you can add cloths on your model, you have to understand how does a basic human body works first so you know how the cloths will fit on the body. Do you understand the overall shape of a human arm? Do you know how does a human arm connect to his shoulder? Do you understnad how to give your character a good porportion before you work on the detail? What is the relationship of a human head to the body? how does the mucles and line flows work on a human face? How do you model the human eyes? lips? nose? How does a human hand look like?

These are all the things you have to understand first before you move on to a more complex things such as giving him the details on his cloths and give him accessories...

If you are just trying to have fun with experiencing the program, by all mean, go ahead and have fun nothing is better than creating your own model that you dream about. BUT if you are going to be serious on becoming a good modeler, a good understand on the fundamental rules/techni on modeling is strongly recommend before you develop a bad habit on your model style.

Go to google, and look at as much cg models as you can. Dont start with something complex like those Hulk or aliens model you see in cgtalk. Start with something easy first, such as your favor cartoon character. Learn to nail down your model's porportion before you go for the detail. Look at as much tutorials as you can online and try to mimic how thsoe artist model..

make sure when you model your character, you will have a reference picture of what you are modeling. You aren't experience enough to do it out of your head yet... In fact, even the most experience modelers out there will require a hell lot of reference picture for their models, and you should be no exception.



good luck in the future man. It's a good start, but I am always a fundamental kinda of guy when it comes to 3d. If you don't have a good foundation in 3d, your work will not look good, be that modeling, animation, or anything else.

[{SeanL}]

One, this character is not meant to resemble complete human proportions and two, it's just a test to see if I can model an entire human body. When I get home from my course tonight I am going back into Maya to completely redo the base mesh and then I am going into ZBrush to completely remake the model. Trust me, I made many mistakes yesterday afternoon when it comes to making this model and I've learned from every one of them.

Cheers for the input though, that post of yours was definately far nicer than the ones on other peoples threads. You need to make a thread and post some of your work, that way when you critique people like me we can look at your work to see how you model.

Cheers,

{SeanL}

[Piggy]

whether I post my works in here has nothing to do with my right to critic others. If you think I am wrong when I critic other's work, feel free to come and point them out.

this is how teh cg world works. If you think it's offensive when people point out the flaws of your works, then I am not sure how far you can go in this industry. Instead of bugging people about their work, why don't you save the time to determine whether those critics are correct and work on your modeling?

btw, I can't post most of my works because I am under NDA.

[{SeanL}]

One thing that completely makes me lose my creative drive is when I box model a new base character for an hour or so and then it errors when I try importing into ZBrush. Sigh . . .

What should I do? I really want to get started with remaking this model but it just isn't working properly for me for some unknown reason D:

[{SeanL}]

Jeez, a triple post. That's exceedingly bad for me. . . Oh well. I have an update for you all.

I lost interest in modelling Damien, although I did start doing a sloppy/terrible poly painted texture on him before deciding that I really needed to practise sculpting more.

So I'm working on a bust



I've been working on it for about 15 minutes, will have another update in a couple of hours when I've finished it.

[TheGreenMachine]

Hi Sean, let me first say, piggy is SO right, basic antomical knowledge of bodyparts is a must, even/particularly when sculpting toony characters (why do toony characters still look believable? because they have the right antomy! )
What you do in toony stuff is just overproportion some parts compared to others (like very thin legs, oversized head etc). However this does not mean that those bodyparts are antomically incorrect.

Another way to think about it is very functional. I mean toony characters have to be able to walk, grab a glass, crouch, run, jump......for that they need exactly the same muscles as a realistic human has.

As for crits on the bust, what I usually do when modeling faces/bustes is really start at the structure, I start with the eye sockets, the the zygomatic, basic mouth, nose. I really find that this gives great results because after a while you can start adding muscles/fat over that structure and that will automatically give the head a realistic feel