Introduction
After seeing the other characters that people are making, I decided that I will make a character that I have been designing in my head for over a year now. After seeing SB's amusing Steiner McKeg and Inglis? promising little beastie, I will be making a hot bad girl. I have wanted make her for quite some time, but she has constantly been shelved for one reason or another.
This thread will serve as a place where I can get both criticisms from other members here and show you the process that I will use in making her. One last word of note, a few of my friends have difficulties with the pronunciation for names that I make. Because of this I will provide the phonetic pronunciation next to more difficult words.
Off we go then.
Next > Design and Conception
Design and Conception
The character?s name is Valentina [Va-len-tee-na]. Special thanks go to my friend Eion [Ian] for telling me that name. I really liked this name as soon as I heard it, as it just conjured images of this really dark, sexy woman in my head.
As I said earlier, she was shelved for various reasons. However, this did give me plenty of time to plan exactly how she would look, and how I could make various aspects of her in 3D.
When originally designing her, I wanted her to look one way. Sexy, damn sexy. When I think of a bad girl, I think that they should have a curvier, more voluptuous figure. I think that this comes from the attitude a lot of women with figures like that have. Heroine type females always bring the image of a more petite girl to mind. I wanted to make Valentina Japanese as there have only been two decently made Asian 3D characters made and both were from Square.
I have always loved Victorian era clothing, and that is the sort of style I wanted to capture with her clothes. Most female characters that I design are dressed in long skirts/dresses. This is because any woman can look good in a flowing full length skirt/dress. To top it all off I decided to give her a corset for her top. Coming out from the top of the corset is a transparent lace that runs the entire length of her right arm to her right wrist.
She doesn?t really have need for a lot of useless accessories (like traditional weapons), so her accessories list is rather short. Her main accessory is her two Elementalist spheres that she carries in her right hand. It?s just a pity that spheres aren?t slightly more difficult to model (sigh). She will also have on jewellery (two bracelets and a necklace). And to hold up the back of her hair will be a curved hair clip. As I said, not a great deal of accessories, but I hope this will suffice.
Now for some concept art of her. Unfortunately I was unable to post it yesterday as I had problems with my scanner drivers. It is all good now though, and here she is.
[img]http://www.boomspeed.com/sorcerorbob/aven.gif[/img]
Her skirt will flow more out the back than what it does here, it?s just that I ran out of paper to draw it. Also, I am still unsure as to whether her skirt should have a slit in it or not. I guess I will make the final decision later on.
Next > Character History
Character History
Why is Valentina a villain (or just evil)? Read on.
Valentina is an Elementalist (a type of sorceress), who is rather evil. The way elementalism works is that a person channels their inner power through their body and projects it in the form of an element. What element(s) a person can use depends on their personality and feelings.
Valentina?s two main elements are Shadow and Chaos. Shadow is one of the highest level elements and come from a lifetime of misery and hurting. Chaos is also a higher level element, and it is caused by a person being very chaotic and rather insane. From this, it is easy to understand that she is not a person of which should be screwed over.
When she gave birth to her daughter, Valentina wanted her to be the strongest Elementalist in the world. To achieve this, she played constant mind games and tortured her daughter. This act also caused her to become more powerful and slip her into the realm of Shadow and Chaos. Finally, on her daughter?s 14 birthday, she bought her daughter?s father out, and killed him in front of her. This did cause her daughter to sprout higher level elemental abilities, but she also ran away and the two have not seen each other since. Valentina now roams the planet trying to find her long lost daughter and see how she has progressed. If her daughter is not up to her standards, than she will die.
Her bio is much more in depth than this, but I have probably already bored enough people.
Next > Modelling time.
Modelling
I would have had this post up a few days ago, but I was waiting for my ISP to open up some space for me.
Since the last post, I have decided to get rid of the slit in the front of her skirt and just have it as one whole garment. I did this as I remembered a little problem with cloth calculations when exterior edges collide. I don?t want to run the risk, so I decided to change it.
Here is a pic of here body model up until a few days ago.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Valentina_body.jpg[/img]
This will sound really odd, but ignore most of it. The lower three quarters of her body is really rough as it will not bee seen. In fact I will actually kill more detail (knees) later on. I only need her legs as collision objects for the cloth seeing as they won?t even be seen now. I haven?t made feet for her; as she will have on a nice pair of? er? make love to me boots.
Her chest (above her nipples) is the only part of her body that will actually be seen. At the moment, not a lot of work has been done to that area. I was waiting to make her corset before I started putting detail into that whole area. I am currently working on that now. The body was only made to help me get proportions correct so that I could make her clothing around it.
Here is a pic of her corset. I have changed the design for it from the concept art. I wanted to make it a little more detailed.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Valentina_corset.jpg[/img]
It is about 80-90% complete. I just need to fix up the seams around the cup areas so that there aren?t any gaps. Once the rest of her has been modelled, I will also add in a few more creases and make the creases slightly different on each side. I am still unsure as to whether the straps at the front will be there or not. It just depends on how well the cloth dynamics work.
Please let me know what you think so far.
Next > Upper body modelling.
Souri - Yes i do plan to animate her. My plan from the beginning (over a year ago :p) was to completely make a human character. Model, texture, animate and lip-synch. I have plenty of experience modelling characters and a fair bit of experience with Blend Shapes (facial expressions. lip-synching), but my organic texturing and character animation skills are not that great. I would definitely like to make them better. Thanks for the kind words as well.
Jacobt - I am hoping that i can keep this level of detail up across her entire form. to tell the truth i would actually like to have more detail in there. i would have loved to have modelled in the actual stiching along the seams of the corset, but i think that this will be difficult enough to rig and skin at the moment (i just hope that a Wrap deformer will work).
That's all for now.
Dude,.. that corset is wicked!! i really like the detail on the front panels!! although i dont think ive ever seen a corset that is done up at the front ?? dont quote me on that. Adds some originality anyways i think.
I have to agree with nealb4me about the hips - im just a fan of curvy woman figures ... what can i say.. hopefully once the gown is modelled it will bring out her curves more.. and once that corset is on,.. ...
Thanks for the crits Nealb4me and HazarD. I do have to admit that my biggest problem with making females (3D or 2D) has always been the hip/arse area. I have been working on her tonight, and her hips and arse are now a bit larger. I am currently hacking the crap out of her shoulder blades and back. i was really unhappy with how that whole area had turned out. At least she now actually has shoulder blades :p
As for the corset being done up at the front, there are wuite a few corsets that are done up that way. I have to admit that the majority of corsets with lace at the front, just have it there for decoration. there is a little row of clips that run down the spine of it (lazy bastards). My original idea was to have three sets of lace. The one at the front and then one on each side (running down her ribs). I decided against this as the dynamic calculations for the lace may start to become a little too hectic.
HazarD, you may be interested in the site that i used for some reference. I heard about it in college on Foxtell. They had a special showcasing the companies original Halloween desisgned lingerie (mmmm. snow white). I always loved the idea of making colthing out of lingerie, so here we are now. the site is [url]www.trashy.com[/url]. I haven't found any nudity there, so it should be clean. There are lots of different corset designs in - Collections > Lingerie. The two that i like the most are Starlet Corset (Saitn) (www.trashy.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/cgi/item.html&item=CRSS… Link), and the 1850's Corset with Ruffle Stretch Velvet Leopard)(www.trashy.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/cgi/item.html&item=CRS1… Link). I have also used... other... types of photographic reference (unfortunately i had better not post those pics :p).
I should hopefully have a newer pic up sometime tomorrow.
Nice corset!! Looking forward to seeing it attatched to the body.
Are you sure it's going to hold her breast though, they seem quite big (not that it's a bad thing!!) What would be real nice is if she's kinda spilling out if it. I'm sure you've thought of all that though.
Good work, looking forward to an update.
Ionized, I tried to actually make the cups larger, but it just looked weird. They actually look better smaller. i just needed them large enough to cover her nipples anyway (no way in hell i'm modelling those as well :p).
I have been working on her a fair bit over the course of last night and this morning. here is the current update of her corset.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Valentina_corset_02.jpg[/img]
Things that have changed on it since last are that i have let it out at the hips like a few have suggested, and i have also bought it in around the ribs. I hope that narrowing it around the top will also give the illusion that her hips are larger. The seaming around the cups has also been fixed, and the actual cups now pinch together to meet at the body of it. I also decided to have a go at adding in the lace. I wanted to lace it up a different way, but it didn't quite work.
And just so that you have an idea what the corset looks like with the body in it...
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Valentina_body_02.jpg[/img]
The dress is of course very rough, and it doesn't have any dynamics on it. Dynamics will be the very last thing that i do. I am currently working on her shoulders and arms. I'm not too sure when my next update will be as i have to work over the weekend.
And Souri, i have started work on her head as well, so i should have a pic of that up by Monday/Tuesday. I have to admit that i like to swap what i am doing, otherwise i will get stuck on one thing and sit there for hours without achieving a whole lot.
Later.
Yay. I can finally post again. While at work today, i was thinking about this model. I am still unsure as to whether i like the lace that ties up the corset. To me it looks a little odd, so i am thinking of making a flat shaped lace instead of the round that is currently being used. Although this will most definitely be more difficult to model, i hope that it will look much better (i may even be able to thread it the way i want). Although i know it is difficult to picture how it may look, i would appreciate any feedback and thoughts.
Also, thanks to smeg for the kind words.
Later for now.
Kicks arse Matt. Not a fan of the boobs though.. No really. :)
They kinda stick out at right angles at the moment, looks kinda like implants, thats probably the effect of the corset.. But I'd personally like it better if the top of them flowed into the top of the chest more. Thats just my personal opinion however. :)
Woah!!!! yeah that looks wicked man, but i have to agree with bob about her boobies - they kinda look like they were REALLY squashed into that corset, and pushed up some as well,... if that makes any sense at all.
The other thing is theres something up with the scapula, deltoid and trapezius formation, just looks quite flat to me still even tho there is some definition there, and the whole shoulder "blade" part looks maybe a little too rounded ?? But that cud be just the angle of the shot.
Cant wait to see this finished man,.. im supposed to be entering in this comp myself,.. but ive got a few things to get outta the way first!!!
okay. updates for all. worked all weekend so i haven't done anything to her. have to work today, but i then have a few days off. i will try to pick up on her again tonight.
thanks all for the crits.
HazarD, thats the ways a corset works man. it squashes the crap out of a woman to make her body into that 'perfect' hourglass shape. her stomach is pushed through her back and her breasts are pushed up to her neck somewhere. one of my friends has told me that her corset cups should be just a little higher/larger, as it looks like her nipples would be showing. i will try to make them a little larger, but it did look quite odd the last time i tried it. i will push the cups and her breasts out a little more infront so that they will look a little larger and more natural. this also brings me to Bobs comment. i guess that i was aiming for that fake look as i knew that her breasts would be pushed up so much. if i tried to make them natural, they would end up looking very flat on top, and i really didnt want that. i will try to make the crease on the top of her breasts a little softer though. i posted some links to reference earlier, but i will actually post the pic here so that people dont have to go looking around. yeah i know she probably has implants, but so 90% of the models on that site.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/p10fm.jpg[/img]
ignore the whole neck, colar bone and shoulder area. they are only there to help me start the arms. once the arms are in proportion, i then go back and start fixing that area. i genereally work one to two joints ahead, then go back and fix up past areas. i kow that people will think this to be a rather odd way of working, but it works really well for me. the shoulder blades are just crap at the moment.
i will try to post some more in a few days.
Those cups seems to make much more sense when they are actually holding some boobs in them. It's looking great man!
I agree with some of the comments about the breasts though it's kind of hard to pick. Her right one looks slightly more siliconated than her left. It think it's because your looking side on to it. I think it's just a matter of softening the curve of where the top of the breast joins on to the body.
Nice work anyway[:D]
Okay. Update time. Sorry I haven't updated much in the last 1/2 weeks. I have had work and have been busy. Becasue of this, working on Valentina has been somewhat slow. I have been doing a little bit to her though. Her head is about 90-95% complete now (excluding accessories like hair and so forth). I am pretty much happy with it, but I will still have to have a look at the following areas,
. I think that I still need to smooth the top of her head a little more.
. I need to soften her bottom eyelid crease on the outside edge of her eye.
. There are a few 'warped' areas at the back of her ears, i may leave those though as the hair should cover it.
Here is a pic of her.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_head.jpg[/img]
Please let me know what you think on either any areas i have mentioned, or anything that I have missed.
I still haven't done more work on her upper torso area, so her breasts still look a little funny.
Happy Camper, thanks for that comic. Made me laugh. the only problem was that i had just finished reading a post on another forum that had pics of extreme corseting. Oh, thats wrong.
I will hopefully have som more posts later on in the week.
For some reason it kind of looks like a childs face - perhaps because it takes up a lot of detail in the middle of the face, whereas an adults facial features get more spreadout along the length of a face? Also a childs face is quite rounded whereas an adults is a little more 'chiselled.' It's early days yet tho'.
Kinda hard to tell but are the eyes halfway down the face?
Thank you for the crits Makk and Mr. Kerr.
Here are two photos of the model that i am using for reference. Her name is Hisae Ukita.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_reference_01.jpg[/img][im…]
![http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_reference_01.jpg[/img][im…](http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_reference_01.jpg[/img][img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_reference_02.jpg[/img){kind=link}
Unfortunately i have scoured the web and only been able to find a hell a lot of front on photos and a couple of 3/4 photos. I am still yet to find a side on view. It is a pity as i really want to know how far back her ears sit, as asian womens faces tend to be more 'squashed' then their western counter parts.
As i mentioned before, the top of her head still needs work, and that does mean lengthening it so that her eyes will sit mid way down her face.
Thanks for the width comment. I checked it up with a ruler, and found that her head is just a little too wide. I will fix that up.
her eyes are the right size (I have checked that more times than you could imagine), and I am still unsure as to whether I should make her face more chisled or not. As you can see by the reference photos, her face is very smooth (like most Japanese women), but then again, she is meant to be in her 30s or so. I may lift her cheeks up a little though.
More crits are very much welcome. As I have said, I am unsure about a lot of things, so I would appreciate any comments.
Thanks for all your help Mr. Kerr (and to everyone else for that matter). I am sorry that I didn't post the reference photos in the original head post, I probably should have.
I decided to use her as I first saw a photo of her a while ago now, and thought that her facial expressions were PERFECT for how I wanted Valentina to look. Head slightly tilted back and always looking down towards her subject (character/camera). She is also hot, so that doesn't hurt :D The major problem as I said is that I have been unsecessful in finding side on photos of her. That is the same for most Japanese models though. There is another Japanese AV idol that looks rather similar to Hisae though, so I will have a look at all of her photos after I finish posting this (the model's name is Akira Fabuki).
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_head_02.jpg[/img]
After having a look at this pic with fresh eyes (I love a good nights sleep), I can see some areas that do need improvement. Her forehead curves back out too much. I will smooth that out so that her head slopes towards the back of her skull. Her chin still needs to be smoothed out a little. There is just a bit too much odd definition there. I will probably smooth the area around her eye socket a bit as well. it looks a bit too harsh. Please ignore the whole neck and back of her head area. I am yet to actually touch that as it isn't attached to her body yet. Looking at her, her ears are probably in a fairly good horizontal position, seeing as though I will make the crown of her head a higher. this will help to give the illusion that her face is more squashed. Plus her hair will be added in, so that will extend out the back of her head as it will be bunched up at the back of her head.
Another note. Those photos of Hisae are also the style that I am trying to achieve. A photo-realistic look that has been airbrished to varying degrees. So she will have a 'frozen' beauty to her. This is not a sexist thing either. It is a style that I would like to achieve with all my characters.
Any comments are of course welcome ones.
Just did a quick browse through all my Japanese photos (thank the nerd who invented directory trees :) ), and found a couple of pics of Akira Fabuki. These are the two closest pics to being side on of her that I could find.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_reference_03.jpg[/img]
Not overly side on I know, but it is a good quality pic.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_reference_04.jpg[/img]
Side on pic at 100% original size and a compression quality of 12. Unfortunately the quality isn't fantastic.
Also, I have done a little work to her corset. I was not really happy with how the lacing system at the fron worked. I went scouring of the net, looking at pics of corsets and boots, to see how they laced up. I cam across a pair of fuck me boots that used little hooks instead of eyes to hold the lace. I decided to give it a try, and here is how it looks now.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_corset_03.jpg[/img]
The lace doesn't actually bend around itself yet, but so far i like it a lot more than the old version. Unfortunately I had to lose the creases from around the eyes as there are a lot more hooks, so it looked funny with that many creases. I may give it a try later on, but tone down the creasing a lot.
Please give me your feedback on which you think looks better (I have an older copy of the file with the old corset).
Have you got an email address in your profile? I added some lines to that side view to check a couple of proportion issues if you want to see it. Email me at jonnykerr79@hotmail.com
I have changed my profile so that members can now see my email address. I will post it here as well though.
Here is a new pic of her that I have been working on this morning. I would still appreciate those pics of yours though.
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/valentina_head_03.jpg[/img]
It's looking very close Aven. I like it a lot.
From what I can see at a glance the cheekbones and as a result the temple are a bit too low. The result is that she looks a bit too chubby I think. She has a lot of fat on her face, but also some very high cheeckbones to offset this.
Also some of the creases in the face might need more smoothing out too, although it's hard to say without a decent skin shader on it. I find it very useful to apply a skin shader at this You might want to re-check the proportions of the ear also, I think it might be too big.
I just did a quick sketch over with what I mean...
*twiddles thumbs eagerly*