Work in progress

Looks sweet man, how bout a wire ?

Also just personal preference but it looks like he doesnt have much of a top lip, if he were in a relaxed pose id say the lip would stick out a bit more, maybe tweak the shadow inside the nostril, make it a bit darker. [:)]

Other than that, dig the double eyebrow piercing. cool head - keep going, give him a body, he looks like a bank robber. [:)]

cheers HazarD. here's the wire and a small update.

[IMG]http://www.jacobleetai.com/forums/headwip4.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.jacobleetai.com/forums/headwip5.jpg[/IMG]

The texture is looking pretty nice at the moment, but the mesh looks a little odd in places. It looks like his bottom lip is sticking out more than his top lip. It makes him look more yokel like. Also, the wrinkle on his eyes looks very large and prominent. With a wrinkle that deep, you may want to have a think about making another wrinkle that forms into a bottom eyelid bag. It will help to make him look a little tougher as well :)

Looks like a good start, the eyes need some serious work, very "puppy dog" at the moment. The dip through the brow to the crows feet is very odd, looks like a loose scar. Skin tones need some attention, bright spotting isn't quite a white powdered look, but it's nearly there - saturate those areas a tad more, and perhaps consider giving thinner areas more a plump red to push that fleshy tone further. Last thing is the cheek bone seems oddly turned - like there's a mass of muscle wrapped through and along the ridge instead of along the "smile line"

Good stuff, keep it up!

thanks, great help. Joel I think some of the problem is that I've been using a ref photo of a very old and droopy ethiopian man, and his stronger features don't match a guy this young. Anyways another small update, gotta rush out to do some other work. Yes he's going to have an annoying flickey hair-do. Ear and hair very wip. [:D]

[IMG]http://www.jacobleetai.com/forums/headwip6.jpg[/IMG]

Apologies if my frequent updates are buggin you [;)]

That looks cool, i love the tatt, it reminds me of a character in a game called Fable. The sidies look good as well. just one thing the lips look kinda like a frown or he's tensing his lips or something. But it looks good.

That tat is cool man - he looks abit like "prince" now with that hairdo tho man [;)]

Looks good, but like others have said the lips are in a strange shape, like he is frowning or something.
Nice colour varition and texture :)

Looking good, however, one of the downsides to a mirrored unwrap is the eyes.

The highlight is mirrored, and that looks a bit dodgy.. The other problem.. When you animate the eye, the highlight will move too.. A bad thing.

The best way around this, is to add a poly over each eye - just sitting above it, where you'd like each highlight to be.. Texture the highlight onto it, and then give it some opacity via an alpha layer. (assuming you removed the highlight from the eye texture) Now, it'll look like theres a singular light source, and the highlight won't move with the eye when or if you animate it.

Hey SB, I'm aware of the problem of the highlighted eye...I can't remember where but I have read your tip in the floating poly before, it's a great idea and one I'll use when I get closer to completion. Although wouldn't the highlight flicker in game due to z-buffering?

Makk, bullet21 tweaking the lips verts and refining the texture has helped, thanks for that.

HazarD, Prince was cool. A purple vinyl outfit is on it's way.

No updates, maybe tonight. Knackered [:(] Anyone got some good tips for painting hair? The only tute I've seen is [URL]http://www.adobe.com/print/tips/phsdigitalhair/main.html[/URL]

try 3dtotal.com, they have tones of tutes on photosop and digital painting.

I never played the original bomberman, but good idea.

oooh bomberman was fun!!

will the explosions also have light effects?

Bomerman was great (well ever version before the N64 one :/). You may want to have a mode like on the PC version. They had the ability to have 10 people playing on the one comp. Eight people would use the microsoft gamepads that just daisy-chained, and two people were on keyboard. You would have to zoom out and have the whole map visible at one time though.

Looking cool so far. Can't wait for the download :D

Hey Ben, think ive met you before a couple times [:D]

Nice bomberMan!! - is this for dead puppy ?

And if you want some models done, ill gladly help :)

original bomberman:
[img]http://users.tpg.com.au/adsl0gc0/bombrman.gif[/img]

mmm lighting effects on the explosions good idea, i'll add that to my todo list, after make camera shake based on distance from explosions.

haha 10 people on one pc, haha split screen 10 ways.
its 3d scrolling, so u cant all fit on the same view at once like the original bomberman, so i need to split it up.
but making it scroll adds game play to it, its not a fast paced, but there?s larger maps so my people can play.

nah this isn?t for anyone, just something quick im doing for fun.
i just felt like playing bomberman networked, cause im getting tried of armagetron [:P]

Cool, Bomberman on the SNES (Number 5, i think) was kickass :)

Just did this quickly in just over an hour. Was it what you were looking for?

http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/sumea/Bomberman3d.html

Oh yeah. His 738 Polies. I can kill those polies in the front as you probably won't see that close. but its up to you.

holy crap, yeh thats just what i need.
looks great.
but yeh less polys probably, seeing the view distance it wouldnt need to be too many.
looks even better than my white block [:P]

I knocked him down to 584,
If you want it lower I'm going to have to get
pretty burtal with him.

Will you need a walk animation for him as well?

yeh 584 sounds fine.
not like theres too many polys been drawn atm anyway [:P]
yeh the only animation i really need is walk.
you cant really see him die or anything because of the explosions.
thanks for that.

One more thing,

Can you either send me the White Box or tell me the high you want him to be so he will fit inside your level thanks :)

ah yeh...
well the dimensions are 5x5 base and 16 high,
so anything with that ratio is cool.
just scale it down to size in the game

Also to do with the Animation.
and getting my model into your engine.
what file format are they and will I need
Exporters. I'm using Max 6 at the moment but can install
Max 5 if need be.

Looking good. I played Bomberman Generation on GC recently. Heaps of fun.

BTW, Glad to see a programmer WIP. We (programmers) should use it more often.

exporter/file format: XFile, DirectX.
I?ve got a 3dsmax6 exporter (Panda) for it that works fine.

TheBigJ: yeah thanks man, I was hoping to start a trend of programmers putting work up, I?ve also got a bunch of other stuff I?m going to start posting soon too, like a bunch of DirectX tutorials I made for people and a bunch of c# work.

Surprised this has a such a big turn-out so fast i really appreciate it, hopefully I should get the 1st download up within a day or two, the AI is almost done now, all its missing is the ability to corner the target with bombs, and kick bombs then its done, that?s all half written now anyway just needs a bit of bug fixing.
Then I'll release the 1st download with the code open source too. (not overly neat code but still not so bad, as you can see from the screenshot)

Back to work.

ohh.. textures done, but if a mix of cartoon and shaded so its.. different.

Here's the mob ready to start some major trouble!
http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/sumea/Bomberman3d_tex.html

Lava_Monkey: Something I have to ask.
A. Can you send me the Exporter to mr_peterw@dangerous-minds.com
B. the textures on those guys are 512x512. is that ok or do you want it smaller?
C. does the Exporter Save the animation file inside the file it makes or are they something different?

Thanks. USF

That's really nice work snowflake, i don't think the transfer from 2d to 3d could have been done any better, good on ya.

Yeah, actually I have a couple "nearly finished" projects of my own I could post. I Might whip up some screenies on the weekend.

ok im almost ready to put the link up, i got a build where the AI is almost done,
its really close to completion it just has a little problem where the AI doesnt drop more than 1 bomb at a time. should be easy fixed and be up by tomorrow.
so everyone hang in, it should be up soon.
im going to have the whole game done b4 the 48hr coder comp.
including multiplayer.

Ok I said that I would have the whole game done before the 48hr coding comp, but due to unseen problems with the AI this is not a multiplayer version.
But with up to 4 players and 6 AI players its not a bad little game, put in a quick menu too so you can configure the game and controls.
This build runs nice and stable, I?m surprised how fast it actually runs considering its not a final build and there?s actually no culling system at all.
The source code is included, use as you wish, it was once neat but do to me rushing to get this build out its pretty messy now, but I?ll clean it up for the next release.
If anyone finds any errors feel free to report them and I?ll fix them up for the next release. If anyone makes their own map (bmps) please share too.

BIG Thanks to UniqueSnowFlake for doing the cool bomberman models too.

[img]http://users.tpg.com.au/adsl0gc0/bomberman6.jpg[/img]

Download: http://users.tpg.com.au/adsl0gc0/bomberman_v1_00.zip
Size: 1.9MB

Next Build:
---------------
Multiplayer Mode.
Neat Source Code
Sound / Music Volume Control.
Extra pickups and levels
Extra bomb types.
More Effects.
AI can kick.

I've updated this version, same download.
There was a problem where the depth stencil format I was using wasnt supported by all video cards, so now it tests to see what type of format you can run.
It should work on everyones computer now.
I've also added a second level, its smaller and it makes it alot faster and more fun to play.

the program dosent work for me, im currently using a onboard SiS video card (yeh yeh i know, im getting something soon) which has recently popped up errors of "out of video memory" so it could be the SiS card or it could be its current situation or something totally differnt, dunno

Started working on bomberman again, working on the next version and putting in all the multiplayer code now. Got the game running even better than before and added support for more peoples video card settings.
Should be a good little multiplayer game.
The whole thing is open source if anyone wants to use some of the code or learn from it btw.

looks great, can't really give any crit cos I can't really see anything wrong. How long was your PC defragginf for or i guess i should be asking how long it took to draw :)

Is it me, or if you put your hand covering the bottom of it, it looks fenimine at the top, but when you cover the top half, it looks kind a masculine. This is just what I think. On whole, excellent work, good use of your memory skills, keep it up.

i wouldnt agree at all, the lips are far too feminine for that. Nice sketch man :)

Bullet21 - defrag took about 45 minutes!! damn slow puter [:(] but drawing took about 10-15 minutes at the most.

Cody- i can kinda see what your getting at, an interesting perception man [;)]

Thanks guys - i feel my drawing skills are way behind my modelling skills, but im determined to be better at both.

I think it is the jaw, not long enough for a woman, well i think, but as i said it looks kind of musuculine at the bottom, i think my mind says, facial hair, as there is a alot lins in the jaw, chin area.

Pretty good dude.. things to be aware of.. the gap between the eyes is a little to large.. given the size of the actual nose.. make that a little bigger.. and also shift the lips and nose up a bit... the area between the top of the lips and the nose is too extended... also your shading is filling in the gaps works quite nicely, maybe darken the areas around the eyes to give the illusion of how sunken eye acutally... just remember there is a eye socket.. but man I would be pretty happy with that..
to improve your skill more.. when you do a portrait have a crack at the profile!

looks good on the whole. She looks all girl to me, although the sketchy line work(esp. on her chin) doesn't say 'feminine' as clearly as smoother treatment could have. Me109 is right about small proportion changes and I would suggest doing a 3/4 view too. Once you have done the three views you will have a good mental idea of the form in 3D.

Thanks for the comments guys ME109 - yeah i see what your getting at, thanks for the pointers [:D]
JohnN - thats a good idea about doing a 3/4 view as well - next time i defrag my computer, ill give it another shot.

It was supposed to be an excersise for myself just to see how quickly i could knock out a female face. As im still pretty noob with a pencil [:)]

Looks good :)
I reconized(sp?) her, but Im a bit of a buffy fan (!!)heh.
Some of the tones on her chest could be smoother, buts its just a speed paint.

Heh , my ex looked like buffy, but she looks more like the picture youve painted !!!
I think its wicked man, i really like your art pantmonger, sweet pastelly colours.

Buffy season seven, 14th April, can't wait...

Thanks guys for the nice comments, its appreciated.

Pantmonger

HAH! your first character ? man you should be proud, i think my first character still looked like a box, with too many polys.

Thats honestly sweet as, the body is taking shape, looks like its coming along nicely bullet21.

Textures make or break a low poly character, ive always found, but still having a good, well deforming model underneath it - also plays a part.

How many Tri's are you thinking hes going to be when your done ?
What kinda character is he going to be ? warrior or something like that ?

Looks awesome so far

bullet21 man you got me heaps jealous, my first character... well i think a few people might remember i tried to give him abs and it looked like he had a grill lodge in his stomach or something :P Yours is awesome man, thats a fair first effort. What have you been using to learn max?

oh and i suppose you want some construct crit, ehhh.... curve the shoulders a bit but really for a first model, dont worry that much :D

well done again, keep it up!

You said you made him from everything you knew so far. So I thought there might be something important I might be able to tech you. Not so much about how to model but the effects of how your model is set out.. anywhoo.... have a look at this:

http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/Sumea/deform.html

HazarD - Thanx for the encouragement. I started him of with a box as well. I agree that textures make the character. I'm aiming for under 800 poly's and also i don't know what i want him to be just a basic human. i'm jus trying to apply what i know to make a character so nothing to specific.

Moonunit - I've taken your crit and i curved the shoulders more and it does make a whole lot of differance. As for what i've been using to learn. I strongly suggest the 3d buzz video tutorials. They go through every edit geomatry button and tell you what it does. they are free. but now they have some sort of system where only the people who go on it heaps can download anything passed issue one :(. i've got some video tutes on cd if you want i can send them to you.
also i can't stress this enough be patient and just muck around in max. creat a box and do stuff aimlessly.

Snowflake - wow, that is awesome i expectted help but not that much :), i did the shoulders with edgedivide and i am about to do the legs. thanx.

wow, great for a first character, keep it up :)

How can i view every single poly. I'm using edit poly and i'm pretty sure it isnt showing some edges. For example when i divide an edge it should creat a poly shouldn't it but it doesn't show it. There a also places where the slope of a poly changes but there isn't any edge where the slope does change. plz help

and also, ho do you do the renders with the thick lines, i know how to turn the edges to shapes but how do you make the edges renderable. Sorry about the double post.

Bullet21 - Go into Edge sub-object level, select all your edges ( make sure ignore backfacing is is turned off ), scroll down until you find the create shape from selection button. Click that then make sure linear is checked in the box.

Now press 'h' and select the new spline shape you just created.
Click on 'renderable' and adjust the thickness which is just above (?) or below - from memory.
Now hit the render button and view your new thick and clean wired goodness [;)]

Also you can change the colour of the wire just like you would any other mesh object.

For viewing every poly - you can right click on the mesh object goto properties, then uncheck the box that says 'cull backfacing'.

Hope that helps man [:)]

Also, just a note - im using max 6.0 - i hope those directions work for you [:D]

good work man! my first character probably looked a bit like 'hazards' except my box had wings haha. I am ashamed ...

What's a good lighting to use

Oh man - now thats a pretty broad question [:D] - depends on what your trying to achieve i spose!!

the best way to learn about lighting is to just keep mucking around with some lights and rendering until you like it. Or if your going to try and capture a specific mood or lighting, try some of the max tutorials and user reference, perhaps some tutorials on lighting somewhere might also help.

If you've got $90 spare go and purchase Jeremy Birn's book 'Digital Lighting and Rendering' published by New Riders, great book. Should be easy enough to purchase online.

$90 bucks no chance, i'm starting to question your sexuality, i mean 90 bucks do i look like a fucken ATM up in here.

quote:$90 bucks no chance, i'm starting to question your sexuality, i mean 90 bucks do i look like a fucken ATM up in here.

Righto then, just a suggestion, no need to get so hostile. Also, how does my sexuality weigh into the equation?

Just joken wizendoldman please dont get offended [:)]
it's just that i'm on KFC wages, so money is always a big issue seeing as it is so scarce [:)]

HAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!! thats classic - sorry for the spammy post, bullet21 you just cracked me up with that ATM comment.

[img]http://img7.photobucket.com/albums/v18/bullet21/cwip.gif[/img][img]http…]

On the right is a screen grab and on the left is a render. I have done the hands and i am quite happy with it. I have started the head but i am having great dificulty. I need to shape it more, do the nose, ears and eyes. Can someone tell me how they would do these, i've tried and had no success. I am also wondering if the lips are made from polys or textures. If polys how do you do them.

Oh an yeah it's sitting at 956 tris a bit over the 800 i set for my self but i don't care to much, i'm just trying to make a character with out to much worry over polycount.

All help is appreciated. Thanks.

Man that looks heaps better than my first go -

If you want some good reference - try and find yourself some anatomy pics - i can see just from a glance that his forarms are heaps long and quite fat at the wrists, his head is a tad big and looks like its sticking out more than it should due to the longish neck. also i reckon youve got a whole lot of tris sitting in those fingers you made - if you check out how i made the hands on my cyber punk guy - he only has thumbs the other 4 fingers are grouped in one big chunk [:)]

have a look at some reference anatomy and all sorts of stuff from here :

www.fineart.sk

if you wanna create noses and lips and things like that - usually for a low poly character below 1000 tri's id only have maybe a couple of tris like sticking out from the actual mesh - - same for the nose as well - just make it really simple, dont worry too much about nostrils and shit like that.

I hope that helps a little man - overall though thats honestly pretty good for a first attempt at a human proportioned character [:)]

I did some of the mods you told me Hazard, shorten forarm, resize head ansd neck. and i could not believe how much of a differance such little details make. Thanks mate. But i'll work on the head tommorow. Oh and the fingers are grouped but for some reason there are edges where on it, i don't know how to get rid of them with out deleting the polys.

Edit: don't worry i just worked it out, select edge and hit delete. but when you press delete on the keyboard it deletes the polygon as well Y.

No worries man, glad to help. the length of the arm was ok as it was - just the forearm was a bit long. hope you didnt shorten the length of his arm [;)]

[img]http://img7.photobucket.com/albums/v18/bullet21/Cwipf.gif[/img][img]htt…]

well it's slowly comin along. I've made the ears, the nose and resized the forearm, head and neck. I just need to do the eyes and lips nad i think i'll be finished. But the hardest part is shapin the head i just can't get it right. also how do you make the eyes, do you make a whole and chuck a sphere in or what.

And you've probably noticed that they are elf ears, i've decided to make an elf :)

I hope that this isn't taken the wrong way: your model look like a 60's robot! (I think the uniform gray might be contributing to some extent) have you thought about how you will do the surface finish? An old style robot could be a cool theme for finishing it off.

ps- I like 60's robots, retroCool! so it is a compliment :)

boy wouldnt that be hard to texture. *scan in some alfoil*. lol

Thats looking heaps better than it was before bullet21.

If i could suggest one more thing and that is the chest part of him looks a tad long, ie from the base of his neck down to where his hips would be, if you shortened that distance it would fit in nicely with the length of arms and legs he has now [;)] - in saying that, im being pretty picky man, its not too shabby at all, but i think youll notice a difference if you tighten that area up a wee bit.

He looks heaps cool tho man - i wonder if i could fnid you a pic of my first ever max human model... ull laugh for days. [:D]

Does anyone know a good tutorial for making low poly hair. and clothes.

at this stage you could just texture them on, short hair (or bald if you like) etc. itd satisfy for you first model :P

yeah but i'm havin a lot of dificulty unwraping it i can't find any tutorials or nothing.

LOL! alfoil!!, could do a nice crinkly finish! (sorry bullet21, I'm probably not sounding very serious about your project at the moment) That could look kind of cool in a funny/naff way.

has anyone else noticed that the bullet21's image at the top looks like a child/adolecent and the one further down like an adult in proportion?

If you are still doing minor changes to the form, could I suggest making the torso get a little wider at the side of the hips? So the torso would taper down over the chest, then slightly widen to the hip line, this would allow the tops of the legs to be a little wider too

... I don't think you can scan alfoil; too shiney! you would have to take a photo I reckon... Hey, bullet21, If I made an crinkly alfoil texture would you do a 60's robot version of you model?

ah I don't know if it's been said already...
The post seems to have radicaly changed when I clicked post reply.
Everything is everywhere. I'm confused. ! :P

Anyway,

Editable Poly does not produce all edges like edit mesh does, it dynamicaly calculates where the edges 'might' go...
Which means you have to manualy put the edges in your self or max will create and edge where it thinks one should go. (which generaly isn't a very good spot :)
Poly edit is awesome !!! =)

Also because of this the polycounter does not work correctly.
Convert the model to an Editable Mesh and then check the polycount to get a correct number. (then just undo and continue working)

(handy tip - turn the 'undo levels' upto a higher level, like 100-200 and set up your 'auto back up')

once you are done with the model, convert to a edit mesh and turn/touch up and edges that need it.

[img]http://img7.photobucket.com/albums/v18/bullet21/Cwip_Hair.jpg[/img]

Well i haven't given up, i have been lazy for a while but since it's the holidays i'll be gettin back into it. I've added the hair and some much needed tweaking to the neck and head. I just want to slap some shorts on him and i'll be ready for texturing. The main reason i did it was to test the Vray Global Illumination. It seems pretty nice. I'll post him with his 3/4 shorts on soon. [8D]

Edit: note the differance in the neck and chin areas

Woah!!

Ive got to practise my freehand art more :)

Really nice, i like how youve left the pencil(?) lines still in the shadows on the skin.

Love the big hat too! very Vivi - from final fantasy 9

aww, she's a happy witch! [:D]

I like it pants - some reason I really enjoy the mixed media look too, that does something for me.

I think I like the layered hair the most - that looks good. One crit I can offer is try studying metals in different lighting conditions - metal isn't shiny blue, it's a base and reflectance of the light which hits it from it's environment. so the buckle would have purples bleeding in from the bottom of the pants, a hint of red from the top, and a mix of the environment she's in.

looks good! Keep it up [:)]

Fancy.

Cool costume. The similar buckels and material colours are cool.

I think you'd have to shadow her hair and possibly shoulders more with that enormous hat, but thats no biggie.

cheers

Thanks for the comments guys

JI: There is purple in the silver bits, but obviously not enough, will keep it in mind for future works.
smeg: It's true I was lax with the shadows from the hat :(, oh well whoops

Pantmonger

nice work.. like it.... cept to say that her arms look like a blokes.. maybe she does alot of sweeping with that broom!
but hey overall its fine

that came up as a red X for me but if i copied: http://www.freewebs.com/actionquake2maps/images/character%20hair.jpg to a browser window that was all good

just incase anyone else is havin the same prob

Looking good, especially for a first model, keep at it

hey cody, not bad for a first starter man - do you plan on building the whole Calisto from that book ? or perhaps modding her a bit to your own design ?

I think maybe the head is a tad too long at the mo - ie distance from top of head, to chin.
either that or the mouth and nose are a wee bit too small and close together :)

have a bit of a play around with those.

Great start tho man, keep it up :)

Yes, i do plan to model the whole character from the book. but i may change things around to make the polys less so i can get it into Quake 2 hopefully.

Yeah, it is a bit long, but it think it has to many polys around the chin area, so i have to weld some together,also, i need to give the nose more definition, so it will look like a nose. So i will keep you notified on my progress guys and gals. Thankaz.

Thats pretty decent for a first model, I remember mine, it was terrible, the skin was even worse :)

Don't worry to much about the little details yet. first use the book to get hang of the tools and then go back later and refine it.

I have a problem with modeling the torso, chest area. It says to create a circle which I have, and to move and rotate to match up with the reference pictures. Than it says to clone another 4 circles to make 5, which I did. Than it says to make the circles one object, I done that alright. Than you have to make a cross section by hitting the more button, then the cross section button. Now tihs is where I am stuck, it doesn't have the cross section button. Is this because of my version of max, or did I do something wrong. Anything would be appriciated. Thankaz in advanced.

ok, first of all is your object a spline object still? if so, then cross section will be hidden away under the modifier list.

I have done more to my model. Instead of doing the cross section thing for the body, I just done a cylinder, move verts around to match up with the reference pictures, the same with the leg thing. Anything comments or critisism.

[img]http://img6.photobucket.com/albums/v19/codyalday/character4.jpg[/img]

PS: Could someone that has the book C.D send me the arm and boot model in 3DS form, as I need it in the tutorial. I wouldn't ask, but my brother snapped the C.D which had all the models, pics, etc. Thankaz in advanced.

nice to see the big breasts are comin along are you nearly up to the big boots :P

ok, although it's great you're learning to model, I would really like to just give the advice of getting an anatomy book. Honestly, just got out there, and grab a $25 anatomy for the artist book and look at it [:)]

"Paul Steed Antatomy" at its best is ridiculous looking cartoony proportions of women with balloons taped to their chest and spines broken in 3 places. Think of the poor women and their suffering to look like this! Yes, it's 13 year old wet dream material, but it's also fictional and next to useless knowledge. Here's the real life equivelant of 13 year old wet dream material:

[img]http://www.fineart.sk/photos/anything_3d/006.JPG[/img]

so the biggest bit of advice I can give is please try not to be "poisoned" by this stuff - the amount of people I've known which have gone this route and still to this day can't break away from it even when they try is sad. They're some of the first portfolios to be binned when we get them. Anyways, enough ranting. It's great to see you improving your modelling knowledge, but I do stress please keep the above in mind later.

I see what you mean, so I think I will model the character from the book how it is, than, I will edit it to make it look more woman, example, not having the stomach area so small nothing can fit in there. I have added more to my model, as you can seen in the picture.
[img]http://img6.photobucket.com/albums/v19/codyalday/character13.jpg[/img] .

those are some frigging huge jugs!!

and thats an understatement!!! [:p]

lol poor girls spine, thats gotta weigh you down.

Yeah, I think the reference pictures went a bit over board with the breats, so I may scale them down a little.

cant wait to see the boots...

Those things are weapons of mass destruction.

Look out or Bush will invade

Good to see that she came standard with driver and passenger side airbags :D

With all the breast comments aside, she is starting to take a fairly decent shape (shut up). Would you be able to post some pics with your smoothing groups disabled at all? I prefer to look at models that are more faceted :)

quote:Originally posted by Aven
she is starting to take a fairly decent shape (shut up).

lol!!!
but seriously though its a fair effort for a first model :)

Yeah, thankaz moonunit, though it is my first model in Max, not my first model as such, well only one person model I have done, a zombie, very dogy. Aven, what you said about disabling smoothing groups, could you tell me how to do that please, as I do not know.

Ooo. you may want to check your help file or get a Max user to help you out with that one. Last I used Max was good ol' version 3.1 :) Telling you how to do it with Maya would probably be a little pointless :p

edit mesh/poly > face/poly/object selection > surface properties > smoothing Groups

Clear all will kill all the smoothing groups.

Ok, here it is, I mirroed and the leg / thigh, and torso area, I didn't weld verties on the seem as i couldn't for some reason. Also, back of the head was stuffed up as I didn't extruded properly.

[img]http://img6.photobucket.com/albums/v19/codyalday/character15.jpg[/img]

nice to see it coming together, disproportionate as it is your atleast getting somewhere :D

Could you rephrase that please.

ummmm, it appears this female has a groin bulge. maybe she's hiding something.

what i ment was that allthough there is a certain problem with oversized portions of the characters body (being lovely and politically correct here :P) your still managing to build a character.

That's easier to see now :)

There are a few edges that need to be flipped on her. One under her left breast. Some on her knees, and so forth.

As bullet said, her groin is little bulgy. Although her groin should have a bit of a bulge, it shouldn't be quite that intense :)

She needs an arse crack :) And her calves should be thickened up a little so it looks like she could support all that weight :)

You're doing well so far.

actually come to think of it, she needs an arse period :P, theres no... cheeks (sound really weird now) infact the bulge is in the centre :|

Looks cool. Nice and close to the concept.

It's a difficult style to pull off, and you're certainly headed in the right direction.

cheers

Lookin' goood - the model looks better than the sketch! I don't know much (anything) about modelling but the basic forms look like they have been neatly captured.

Looking good, although the amount of tris in the shoes is pretty high compared to the rest of the model.
Even though youv'e got another 1350 tris I would keep an eye on that and maybe cull a few.

Watch the shoulders/elbows for deformation also.

Overall its looking nice and clean.

Awesome concept, i love the knuckle spikes, please keep us posted.

Smeg: Thanks for the confidence :)

JohnN: Ditto :)

Malus: yeah the boots are a bit tri heavy at the mo :) ill leave all the cleaning up till the end, which shouldnt be too far off.

Heres a bit of an update,.. didnt have much time to spend on it tonight - should be finished him 2morow nite hopefully. looking to have him textured by thursday. Will keep posted. Once again the armour and belts etc look a tad messy - but ill kill the extra tris and tidy him up a bit when i give him a head :)

Some orthagraphics...

[img]http://sumea.com.au/simages2/219_runnershots.jpg[/img]

A current render...

[img]http://sumea.com.au/simages2/219_runner7.jpg[/img]

Heres a pic of what he looks like with a head, i decided to post this just to show you what it looks like before i tidy him up.

I think ill post a before and after shot.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/219_Runner11Hours.jpg[/img]

Im over budget by 18 tri's but im going to cull a whole bunch form the feet - also tidy up the hair / face, and add a bit more detail to the arms.

That looks great, a lot like the concept. You shouldn't have any probs getting rid of 18 tris. Just out of curiosity are you using edge map to render that thick wire. looks cool.

very well done, youve created the model of your concept quite expertly.

Hey bullet21 - edge map ?? ( is curious )[?]

The way ive done it is by creating a shape from the edges - making the shape rendereable etc etc - if thats what you mean - then YUP! [:D]

Moonunit - thanks [:)] Just curious, your name, Didnt Frank Zappa name his daughter MoonUnit ?? [;)]

Will post finished shot of tidied model with some more orthagraphics tonight [^]

Nah, i mean a plugin called edgemap. It does the same thing more easy. Just curious who's frank zappa.

whos frank zappa you ask??? why this is him!
[img]http://www.pure.cc/~hine/rock-2/zappa-photo.jpg[/img]

such a lovely photo dont you think? [:D]

anyway well done, most people dont pick up on the zappa thing, story goes my friend heard about it and thought the name moon unit was a great laugh and started callin me moon unit, it suck :P

As promised heres the final character before i start uvw-mapping him.

Crap its taken me a while, but this is my first character model for a while now. im pretty pleased with how he came out [:)]

ive spotted a couple of edges in the mesh that need to be turned since taking these renders also :)

Thanks for the comments so far everyone [:D]

MoonUnit : Nice pic of Zappa - Hey at least your mate didnt call you Dweezle [;)]

Bullet21 : The method i use is pretty quick for rendering the wire - takes about 15 sec to set up - wouldnt mind seeing that plugin tho!

Orthagraphics...

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/219_shots.jpg[/img]

Render...

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/219_runner15.jpg[/img]

time to start giving him some colour....

That's sickeningly awesome. 15 hours is pretty damn good as well good on ya hazard. Now hurry up and get it textured

He turned out really well HazarD. The fixxed up version loooks a lot better :) Are you going for darker colours or more bright colours?

Bullet21 - Thanks man [:)] i thought that was pretty slow, im used to seeing guys post stuff like, " yeah it toook me 8 hours to model, unwrap & texture " either theyre kidding themselves, or im slow [;)]

But!... ill try " Hurry up and get it textured " [:D]

Aven - Its for a techno-apocalyptic world, so overall it will be brightly coloured, but still i want to try get across that this guy comes from a pretty doomy / gloomy world. Having good quality clothing / armour either means youve killed someone to get it - or your a damn good thief.

This will be my first attempt at painting a character with a tablet also, so looking forward to that!

damn well done man, specially if u havent done anything in a while

oh and that "techno-apocalyptic world" most people call that whole deal "cyber-punk"

good translation from concept to 3D - a hard thing for many to master. good job hazard! [:)]

One thing - flip and clean up those edges and chuck on an stl check! I can spot several glitches you've overlooked from dealing in quads. Most obvious is the middle edge of the shoulder. Try going into faceted view and temporarily unhiding your edges.

THanks J.I - yeah i noticed these (paticularly that shoulder one) and fixed em up after i did a render ( 20 minutes later on my old P3 700 ) [:(]

Its taken me about 6 hours to unwrap so far - just got the torso and head left to do, ill post a uvw wire when its up, im looking forward to painting as its by far my weakest point, but ill give it a good crack [:)]

Good to see you progressing with the model, dude.

I love the whole concept, Though like everyone cant wait to see ya texture the dude.

As for Cyber Punk, It deffinitely has that feel.

Nice work, I've said it before and i'll say it again..

Thanks badfood, nice of you to comment [:D]

Just an update - im just starting to paint him today, so hopefully should have him up in the next day or 2.

Be warned - painting isnt my strength, so its probably going to look horrid! [:(]

Have faith in your own ability, Hazard. If you dont who will ??
I am Sure it will look sweet. Let us know f he's gonna be animated :D
I'd like to see him globber somebody :D

Yup Am going to do a couple af animations, a Run cycle and a Throw / Pass Animation [8)]

I have faith, just...........its hidden and needs to be redicovered ... YEAH thats IT!!

Heres an update on the texture so far, im about to spend another 4-5 hours on him as soon as i finish this post - that should see from his waist down near completion i think.

Oh the white glow around the bottom of his boots is cos i havent textured the base of his boots yet [;)]

Just started working on the stiching and whacked the base colour of his pants down as well.

still have to clean up some parts - but overall comments and crits so far ??

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/219_texture1.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/219_texture2.jpg[/img]

It doesn't look horrid to me at all, in fact it looks really cool so far. The footwear has a really cool design, might be good to shift the colour of the sole a little to help differentiate between the two different materials (that is if they are different.) Keep going man!

Good start there Hazard.
As for crits, the top of the boot has a harsh highlight around it that could be softer.
Also maybe some more lighting on the metal parts, at the moment there is only light on the edges (Maybe experiement with putting some browns into the metal, as this colour from the boots would reflect onto the metal as well).
A small highlight around the tip of the boot/sole would look good too.

Nice design hazarD, U might need to tidy up your unwrap around the boot area. it seems a little stretched in some areas. cant wait to see it finished though!

Thanks guys [:)]

Jacobt - thanks man, im still trying to get the hang of this painting stuff. i gotta start somewhere tho right ?

Makk - the top of his boot has a strip of that lighter material running around it - its nota highlight - but now that you pointed it out - i migt put a bit of a shadow underneath the material strip to make it looke like its stiched over the top of the darker stuff. Also thanks for the note on the metal - ill try a few things [:)] and the highlight at the front of the boot is also a good idea, ill jimmy something up [:D]

Idaho - Yeah thanks man, i knida realised that when i started texturing. this is only the 4th model ive ever done - and only the 2nd ive ever unwrapped, its been quite a mission seen as how he is pretty complex. Unwrapping him gave me the shits, so i got a bit slack around some areas [:P] , i think if its THAT noticeable ill fix him up.

Overall though his boots and appearance is going to be quite rugged and dirty so a few stretches in the uvw might really fit in .... no ? .... ahhh alright [;)]

yeah ive got a crit, dont say that your not good with textures, your doing fine mate :D

Thanks Moonunit - i really appreciate everyones comments, ive only just recently decided to go hard with the whole concept/modelling/texturing deal as of late, so im still new, but if you guys say im doing ok, then i must have made a decent start !!

Thanks again guys - posting an update soon - iove got his pants and the stitching all done.

"painting isn't my strength" well i think for some one who doesn't have much confidance in their ability you are kicking arse, just, you got to believe in your self, man that sounds so corny. but it's true.

preety cool, the car doesn't collide with most of the stuff in the scenery though :(

~420 fps
Athlon 1.1Ghz
Radeon 9600xt

Wow, that is so cool i love the clothes, they look great.

first of all very well done, looks allmost like its come right out of cool boarders or one of those types of games.

Now for crit, first of all he looks a bit too short and wide, realising this might be an intended look due to him wearing snow gear ive had a thought. Snow pants in two peice suits would have an elastic or belt or something arouind the waist, so the waist of the pants shouldnt have the same diameter as the bottom of the jacket, it should be hugging his body. Take it from me, ive been donning something similar for years (well in winter :P ).

Other then that great :)

Well i though that his pants look very comfy where can i get me a pair?

Looks like a good fit for Amped, not quite colourful enough for SXX.

I agree with moonunit. Beyond just how the pants meet the jacket the tickness of it at the neck, wrists and seams suggest the jacket is quite thin, from which you would conclude the guy's chest looks like a mail box.

Thanks guys, im not sure whos advice to take...

All this talk of tight fitting pants and mailboxes is making me a little thirsty :P

Thanks for your time anyway!

Any more crits guys?

I think the face could use some more work, stubble wrinkles, colour varition, etc.
Maybe add more design to the pants as well.
Looks really good, btw

Could be a stupid question, as i wouldnt know, but here goes,... are snowboard jackets longer at the front than on the sides like your model shows ?

Not saying it looks bad, i think the model is sweet, better than what i could do for sure,...

Hazard i think it was part of the design i think the jacket looks good.

Man thats wicked. It might be just me, but the snowboard looks really long and thin; but seeing as I havent snowboarded I might be completely wrong. N E way u've done an awesome job.

Hi Guys! thanks for all your critz and ideas. Much appreciated. As for the jacket being long in the centre shorter at sides, this is purely a design i favour (i actually have a similar jacket). I used reference from the burton snowboard website for the jacket (and other eqiptment) styles and some of the elements of designs.

Oh! by the way, the all important poly count... i cant give an exaclt one at present... but from memory it was slightly under 4300 last time i checked.

oh yeah didnt realise the wrists either, probably should point out why it needs to be bodyhuggin at certain points, you dont want snow down your pants do you? ;)

i think his waist is too thick.. it's out of proportion with his shoulders.. look at a picture of a skeleton
http://topcondition.com/skeleton.gif note the width in relation to the shoulders.

He also looks a little stumpy too, a rough estimate shows that hes roughly 5 heads tall, generally, you should be aiming at about 6.5 to 7 heads in height for a standard male. Would also be interesting to see a wireframe, to see where all the polies went - with over 4000 there should be some more noticeable definitions in the cloth

Eyes, your guy is suffering from the blank eye that most computer game characters own. A quick solution, it to place an extra poly over each eye, and use it for a highlight, the idea being, that when or if the eyes move, the highlight will stay in the same place - this helps give the character a more believable and life like feel. Another solution would be to put the goggles on.. Give them a nice environment map and they'll kick ass.

I'd also have to say that the model lacks weight.. Sure there are baggy clothes, but they could really use the more defined cloth deformations to help give it gravity. On the same note, wheres the hood on his jacket! It's something that would look cool, and help define the silhoutte a bit better.

The texture job has been well done, but looks a little too clean. I'd expect there to be a little snow on the pants, maybe scratches on the paintjob of the board. And whats a snowboarder without some crazy facial hair :)

Err.. hope this is some help, I realise it's a bit rambly.. Anyhow, it's a nice job as is, but I think you could put some more time into it, and it would be awesome.

Body wire
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/104_snowboarder_wire.jpg[/img]
Head wire
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/104_snowhead_wire.jpg[/img]

Poly count :: 2800

I like the model man - its cool , cept i have to agree with Bob about the waist, its definately too thick.

There are a couple of edges that could be turned as well near his armpit.

Ive also thought - depending on how the model is going to be seen - that you would use poly's based on that.

Ie - if theres going to be lots of close up's of the face - youd spend a fair bit, defining and shaping the facial features - however if its like a 3rd person , that barely gets seen from very close - i would tend to think that the polys would be distributed more evenly over the whole body.

Just a thought thats all [:)]

I agree with the statements of the jacket - needs more feedback that it is thick, and not a thin piece of clothing over a oddly shaped chest. Bunching up at the shoulders, giving it more flow from the armpits to the hips, and increasing the bulk at the sleeves. I think the sleeves are the biggest offender here - jackets or coats aren't made to bulb up like that, but are either pulled taut by some other element or left loose and flowingly bulky. I think it's just a thing of the eye being mislead by some contradicting parts (eg, it's thick at some points, thin at others).

Hahaha, it's funny because you like Paul Steed, most sumeans will see where you get your steed influance from. Big bOObs and look big boots to. hahah.

But it looks good man, nice work.

i like it doord, good stuff, as for the big boots - boobs thing,.. i dont reckon thats too bad, ive seen plenty bigger booted and plenty bigger boobed models, that look kinda stupid really, but i reckon what youve done here is just right.

;)

Agreed. If you think those boots are big then you don't look at enough other 2d/3D art. On the other hand she is going to have a real problem if those buckles break. So I should just give a bit of friendly advise and tell you not to make her do any sirous jumping around. (Star jumps are out of the question!)

Quote: keep up the Groovy work [;)]

It is for a video tutorial for video game characters and like it or not this is what people think video game character are like, and in most of the classic game this is the kind of character you see. And that is the reason that my character is kind of old school game art, so when people see the DVD they will know that the character is for a computer game, and if they are interested in this kind of thing they are more likely to pick up the DVD and look at buying it.

But with that said, I'm not happy with with any of my art right now (besides the little normal version of the comp, but that is for reason other then art.) I have good digit art but not good art. The thing that I have worked out over the last 6 months is that the main reason game art is not normally seen by most of the artist committy as good art in the true sense of the word it isn't good ART. Because of the lack of felling you get from most of the characters/art in-games. That is the different between technically good art and real good art.

The character I have here can be turned into good art by posing and lighting her in a way which makes people feel something about the character. Yes you can look at the character now and any artist and most people can tell the kind of personally she may have, and this is something we do every day (no matter how much people say it is a bad thing to do, you know the "book by it's cover" thing.) But I'm talking about making people feel something, this is what the difference between art and amazing art is. This is what I have to work on.

But the bottom line here is that this character needs to be technically good.

oh and big boots?? she has one boot and it is not big, in fact I seen three people today with boots that size or bigger and they had two on. But yeah she has nice cans, but is that a problem boys??

I also like to point out that a nice Physique on a female character is not a bad thing, this has been done now for 1000's of years. Any well known female painting had been based on what the people of that area wanted in a woman, this is because the artist get to draw on a feeling in the people which see there work easier and in a more profound way then they would without it.

Thats a nice model Doord.

I for one have never been a great fan of the busty, big boot girl thing but for what you are aiming for, an accessible model that isn't to complex and has a "game feel" I think its a great choice, theres a reason Steed chose it. [:)]

My only major critique is that I don't really like how you modelled the breasts or the flow of the face.
Technically I think it could be cleaner and since you said techique is the important underlying factor in this exercise I think you may want to have another look at it.

Good luck on the project though, look forward to seeing the end product. [:)]

I have a question that's going to make me sound like a total amateur, but I don't mind. How do you render out your model with the thick black edge lines like that? It's not a wireframe setting I know that much, is it simply a case of unwrapping the UV's, using texporter to draw the black lines, then assigning the bmp as it's material? Something simpler?

I'm guessing that info will all be on the DVD, Doord can't give away all his secrets for free.... lol[:P]

looks good Doord :)
Although, and this is quite small, I think the breasts arent quite at the right shape, they sorta look too "cylinderie"
Good work :)

Malus, the poly flow is not important in low-res mesh it is a waste of polys. I do go into this in the tutorial, poly flow (edge loops) are important in hi-res character modelling to keep the character smooth when using the mesh smoothing tool of what ever way you model hi-res meshes, but look at the smooth version of the this character can you tell that the edge loops are not right, NO I don't think so.

I use poly flow in my model to get the weight which helps a lot (which is in the tutorial also) but they are not needed in the final model.

Wizenedoldman: this is not in my tutorial because it has nothing to do with modelling game characters. So what I do it select all the edge in you character click the make shape button which will make a spline cage (you what liner not smooth) and then select the spline and make it renderable. Many poeple have problem working this out, I don't know many poeple which to it this way but I find it the best.

Personal opinion I guess, I think flow in a face isn't a waste of polies, guess its how you go about it.

It has always seemed important to me and helped actually keep the polycount down as I only put in the polies that,
(A)define the silhoutte and (B)help deform the mesh during animation, I just think like everything its knowing when and where to use it.

But in the end its your project on how you do things not how I do. [:P]

Like I said before, good luck with it.

Sorry Doord, but I've got to agree with Malus. Poly flow in low poly faces is equally important as in hi-poly faces. As Malus said bad flow around the mouth and eyes will result in poor silhoutte's and deformation during expression.
If your having trouble finding poly's how about removing some from the bra ( as they don't help in the silhoutte.) and puting them back in to the face.

Toasty
Animator/Modeller

hey there

My name is Daniel Keating and I sit across from Doord here at Irrational. I have been working in the low poly modeling industry for 7+ years. Brendan brought your comments to my attention and basically I think you are wrong. I did all the morph targets for our last game and am currently doing the expressions for the current game.

In a 3000 poly character you're not going to get much in the way of facial expression without massively sacrificing the body. So unless your game is focused around that sort of thing you may as well just accept that you're going to get maybe a happy, sad, and angry. So sacrificing polys from the rest of the body is a waste of time and a sign of mismatched priorities. You can always use a separate model for cutscenes.

As for the idea of 'edge loops' for game models it's a learning tool and that's it. It's not a goal - it's what you do when you are trying to understand the relationship between polygons and faces. It does have some use in arranging quads on a subdivisional surface model for rendered output but in games is a totally redundant concept.

The knees look a bit screwy though. Is she half goat Brendan?

maybe I should get an account here...

If your worried about sacrificing tris in the body for the face, which I never believe I said should be done, just a bit of reorganising from what I can see, maybe take from the belts that do little for the silhoutte and add those to the face.

I'm glad you've been in the industry for 7+ years, I've been in it for around 8 months but how does that affect your argument? Experience doesn't necesarilly establish ability, I'm sure you are great but its a defunct point.

Like I said before its personal taste I guess, Toasty and I believe its important you and Doord don't, it was only a personal observation.

But if he is going to post his "new standard of in-depth tutorials for 3D art for games " then he needs to be able to take some form of opinion, when it ships he'll get alot more than ours. [:)]

Daniel, maybe you should get an account, nothing better for the industry than active discussion on techniques.

This is Doord. Dan just wanted to put his two cents in. I think you should note that Dan has talked to a lot of artist in his time about this (and many other things) and there is no one I have talked to about it that thinks poly flow is important for low res meshes.

I think the bottom line is that for low-res you should remove anything that doesn't add to the mass of the character that includes polys added for flow.

The belt will be animated and jump and flap around, so it will end up adding more to the silhouette at times. If you are looking for polys that could be remove by just looking at the shots I have given then look at the legs and arms there are a few which look not to be needed.

Yes and the knee do look bad in the render. But that could very well added in the animation tutroial because that kind of thing happens a lot were character have to me made on a deadline.

Thats fair enough, I myself have talked to many artist over the last few years regarding poly flow and most of them agreed that it was important.

Now just to clarify, like many techniques, its not something you should stick strictly too, its a tool, like other ways of modelling it is a technique that helps the mesh work as a whole.

I myself tend to work in quads but you will never see one of my models made up completely of squares, it just wouldn't be effiicient, same thing goes with polyflow so my argument is more that its not the be all and end all of modelling, its an important addition, mainly for accurate muscle structure deformation during animation and in my history it has helped lower my polycounts not increase them.

As for the face of your model, there are literally 3-4 edges that if turned would create a nice flow for animation purposes, no adding of geometry etc, how is that unefficent in your opinion? your mouth has no crease from the edge of the nose to the edge of the mouth where it will deform during animation (I think the muscle is called the maxilla, correct me if I'm wrong, I probably am.)

Now if you don't intend to animate this character with lipsyncing then fair enough but if that is the case then I would actually decrease some potriangles from the cheek, nose, eye area since they are not needed for silhouette.

Anyway, my comments weren't meant to offend, quite the opposite, if you release something that is meant to be the new standard then its a good idea to listen to other peoples techniques.

Good luck again.

quote:Originally posted by Malus


Now just to clarify, like many techniques, its not something you should stick strictly too, its a tool, like other ways of modelling it is a technique that helps the mesh work as a whole.

[:)] One of the main points of my tutorial.

Face is not going to animated, I have try to remove the faces you have talk about and found that they do damage the mass of the character face so I have left them in.

looks good.. I'd add a few more polys around the shoulder, elbow and wrists to aid in deformation.. as for the face It'll probably work just fine unless you want to put extra bones in it and have it fold up like an elbow, at least with morphers you'll have fine control over the mesh.. which will let you work around most problems...

modeller until ones death!!!!

cheerssss!

Thats really awesome...I love the way hes done the trees, looks just like a water rippling effect from photoshop or something.

Instead of pointing out things on your drawing, I'd like to give you some more general bits of advice I hope help you

First bit of advice I'd like to give you, is start looking at things - study things, gather referance material of photos, drawings, other pieces of art, videos etc on your subject matter. For this, it's people, and you've got the best damn piece of referance if you just look down, or go look in a mirror [:)]

Next thing I'd reccommend is learning a few basic proportions rules - simple stuff like shoulders are around 3 heads wide apart, pupils should be around in line with the vertical position of the corners of the mouth, etc etc.

go look at some photos and in the mirror and study them - compare it to your drawings and apply what you learn in them. Can your thumb bend into the position you've drawn? Yes/No? what can it do? Is the outline of your face a single sweeping arc? Where is the cheekbones curve? What's it in relation to? Ask yourself these questions and apply it all in what you draw [:)]

Keep it up!

Im with J.I. Styles on the proportion thing, perhaps you could ask your art teacher or something to teach you little things like how big certain parts are in relation to others and such. You might even find some proportion tips on the net but its allways good to have someone you can actually talk to.

Really styles has covered what needs to be said :P though i might add when doing something like drawing a hand just hold up your own hand and have a look, if you need poses ask a friend of family for help or use a mirror :)

Dont stop drawing :D

Aight, thankaz for that guys and gals, ill study a bit harder on proportion and so forth, so thankaz again.

Another one i have done, eyes arn't right, but i think the legs and shoulders are kinda in the right area. http://www.freewebs.com/actionquake2maps/images/cloud2.jpg

The legs are looking pretty good, but the arms need just a little work. They feel a little rubbery as they don't change thickness very much. Remember that Cloud's Buster Sword is a big arsed piece of metal. Don't be afraid to give him the muscle structure he deserves :)

Another thing you may want to have a look at with your drawing, is your use of lines. All of your lines are very smooth and curved. You may want to try adding in some more pointy and straight lines. This will help to add some variation to your work.

Something that helped me out when I was re-learning to draw in college, was just to draw one part of the human body. Get a sketch book, and just start drawing hands. From muscle structure, to bones, to outlines, to completely shaded pieces. This will really help you to get the base knowledge of anatomy down, as you are only concentrating on one part at a time. Also, if you have reference for it, do as much life drawing as possible. It really helps.

Good luck, and I hope that you keep on posting new pics as you draw them. It will be a great way to keep track of you personal progress :)

Aight, thankaz for that Aven.

blah, Lost my previous post to the great "page cannot be displayed" void [:)] To paraphrase myself:

I like him! [:D]
I'd say maybe do a little work to define the curvature of his head, and do an extra pass to add in subtle colour bleeding and reflection to the metals

Very nice paint job. I actually like the odd angles of his head. It doesn't stand out too much since his helmet and tubed arms are not 'perfect' either.

wowzers thats very good stuff, my PS colouring so far is just three layers of colour with a bit of blurring and blending so i suppose im not too hard to impress :P

none the less i like the pic, well done

Cool :)

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_c.jpg[/img]

I've tried making some changes...

Have I got the head at the right angle? Is it looking better or worse? Argh, I've been spending too long in front of this image.

Thanks for the feedback! It's always appreciated.

Head angle is fine !? ...I think you have been looking at it toooo long. The extra detail/modelling on the second one's head works well in defining the eyes- gives a bit more expression to the face.

Wow you don't need to know how to model when u can use photshop like that. Look great.

JohnN:
Thanks. It's true I had been looking at it for too long. I needed a break and fresh eyes to look at it. It's great to hear everyones first impressions on it.

The new shape for the head does work better. It also helps to define the profile of his head. I might work a little more on the eyes and see if I can express his emotions, personality etc.

bullet21:
Thanks! I can't model very well... but I like to draw :).

Everyone:
I need a little help with the eyes.
My Alien is a weak and innocent creature. His only physical strength is in his suit. He uses the suit for self defence and only uses it for attack when he really needs to.

What sort of elements in his eyes would best represent his weak and innocent nature? Cold colours? Would reflective eyes work better as well?

I'll try figuring that one out for myself but if anyone has any suggestions then I'd love to hear them :).

Thanks!

I think tears in his eyes would give him a look of innocence which sounds like what u are kinda after. The whole weak with out the suit thing reminds me of earthworm jim.

It's looking good [:)]

Tooner Fish: the simple "wet puppy dog look" would work wonders if you wanted to go that way - at the moment it looks like a thin membrane of the same sort of skin stretched over the eyeballs.

Oh, and the other thing that I couldn't quite place my finger, but I finally thought what it was, is the glass bubble doesn't seem to have the shine or reflectivity of the opposite interior surface.

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_d.jpg[/img]

bullet21:
Tears huh? Good idea, I didn't think of that one. I tried not to go overboard on the tears. Don't want to make him to emotionally weak. Did I do an alright job?

Yeah, it does sound like EWJ. It was in no way intentional. I made this character back in 1998/99. I was having fun drawing characters with tech suits and decided to make a creature that really needed a suit to survive. I've drawn him here and there and have only developed him a little in the last 6 - 7 years. I'll just have to be careful that I don't get too close to the worm in the suit.

J.I. Styles:
How are the eyes looking now?
The glass bubble (helmet) has been a bit of an issue for me. It has so much potential to colour and I've been stuck as to how it should look. It makes me wish I had an empty glass fish bowl lying around somewhere for me to source from. Is what I've done so far convincing enough? Thanks for the pointing out what it was missing! I've added reflections from the lights above and the floor below.

Everyone:
I've tried adding eye lids to change the emotion of the alien. Here are a few trials:

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_a.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_b.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_c.jpg[/img]

the third looks either like hes a bit sleepy or hes giving off a bored expression, personally i like the second best.

Too true MoonUnit. I've decided to stick with the second one.

Update time:

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_e.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_d.jpg[/img]

I'll go and have a break, keep quiet for a good while and get back to you all with a finished pic.

Thanks for everyone's help! I'ts greatly appreciated!

man thats awesome. I love the style (reminds me of..me!)

just a note, for your high poly normal target mesh, I really recommend bevelling those edges. A normal map is angle based, not depth, so sharp perpindicular details usually don't come out at all.

Looking really good so far keep it up!
Looking forward to seeing more :)

wowzers, good work so far :D

*samurai*

J.I. Styles: Thanks for that Joel but I was aware of that. I have a different Meterial Set ID on the edges off all the bits. So just have to go though later and fix those up but no realy problems there.

Makk/MoonUnit: Thanks, but along way to go yet. Should be going pretty hard on it so I'll keep throwing up bits now and then.

Sorceror Bob: Oh DAMN! [:(] you mean I was ment to make the Island Samui.. damn the boss is going to be pissed! Anywhoo.. thanks for that, lucky you can spell [:D]

lol, yeh 'samui' has an 'r' in it.

Just an update,

http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/sumea/Samui/samurai.html

Another Update, Made his head. Took a few hours.
please C&C haven't had anyone realy look at it since it was in very early stages:

http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/sumea/Samui/SamuraiHead.html

Ok Snowflake, here's my two cents on your head. The first thing I noticed about it is how pinched in the mesh is around his nose and inner eye, should be a smooth transition. The nose seems too wide and the nostrils a little too thick, the mouth not wide enough, cheeks a little flat. I'd pull the outer edge of his eye back too, looks too flat. No eyelids yet? it's amazing how much better things look when you model these in. One last thing, and this is picky, it looks odd that I can see a large part of his neck from behind his ear, looks as though you could scale that part down a bit. Other than that it's coming along well, I like his jaw, nice and strong, and good to see you don't have the pinched lip syndrome.

By the way the armour looks great, just curious as to why you modeled this before his body? Wasn't it more difficult?

While we are picking on the poor guy I'll throw in something you missed, his nose is way to long. I opened it up and had a look and when "WOOOO NEALY!" [:D]

Well for a starts I should mention that its a asian dude, so that explains a few things what you said. Either way that nose was just insame. When on a picture run and alot of the asian pics had a more round/flate nose so I have fixed that up. (as well as making it not so long).

Like I said asian dude, so with the eyes he does have those eye lids they are just hiden right under the skin (hence the other common thing about asian faces).

Apart from that thanks, I'll tweaks it up.

[NOTE2]: once I fixed the nose (just the nose) I did a render of the head with the armour. So you can check that at the last link... with... the head... asian head.

Oh yeah I forgot. About the whole armour thing well its like this.
the thing about amour is it doesn't change.. just armour just sits there looking.. like armour. Hence forth like the head.. around the neck anyways which is the part that matters with this. So when they are made you can the model the clothing around the areas of the armour getting the folds where it hits the armour and all that kinda stuff.
I guess a better example is you wouldn't model the neck of a T-skirt first if you didn't know how big the neck is.
Sorry babbled on a bit but its late. Hope that explains it a little.

I think it looks great the only beef i have is that i can't see any top lip.

It looks pretty good USF, but there are a few things about it being an 'Asian' head. I guess by Asian, you mean Japanese? If so, then you will want to have a look at the profile of his nose. Japanese people (unless they have mixed blood), tend to have flatter 'hooking' noses. I am with Wizenedoldman with smoothing the sides of the nose as well, and fattening his cheeks up. His eyelids should be somewhat visible still. Although he has the double eye lid, Japanese people's main eye lid is still fairly easy to see. If he were Korean, then things would start to change (even my Indonesian gf's eyelid is pretty much invisible), but he is Japanese :)

It would probably be a great idea to find some photos of Japanese guys or find some Japanese DVDs and then go from there. The armour looks cool, and it should be cool to see him all come together :)

Antoher update,

Things added:

Back amour, flag, hands, lower arms and top of the shirt around the neck (not sure what the dress wear is called I'm sure you can help me out with the name Aven [;)])

The update is in the last URL I posted.

Should have him finshed at the end of the week. If not before hand.

I'm going to be adding his mask/Helmet and a few other details.
Heres the update:

http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/sumea/Samui/SamuraiWIP.html

His hands and arms look atrophied. Remember that years of training will have given him some pretty well muscled arms.
Also, Remember that the distance from the tip of the fingers to the knee should be about one hand length. It looks fine now, but he's in a squatting pose, as soon as he straightens up, I think you'll start to see some problems.

Anyhow, it's looking cool, looking forward to seeing more at the end of the week.

Yeah, USF looks really cool I've been quietly following this one and liked how it's come together! Oh did you catch that Japan thing on SBS sunday? really cool abit about Samaui's Samurais. ;D I'd have to agree with SBob though, big hands is a sign of alot of testosterone(no idea on the spelling). Altough I am biased because I draw my dudes with big hands, so take my op' with a grain o salt!
Cheers

Would you look at the time.. ohh time for another post.
Not very impressed with Soc Bob because his been hiding under a rock and hasn't posted anything!!

Anywhooooo.... made them arms bigger so he doesn't look as much of a pansy now. On that note: don't post about the arm going though the armour because its already fixed! Apart from that I'm sure you can pick out whats new.

http://uniquesnowflake.web1000.com/sumea/Samui/SamuraiWIP02.html

Apart from anything else realy wrong with him (and please tell if there is) I'm almost done. Currently going though the armour and fixing it up so when I normal map him it will pick up those edges. As well as that I'm dinting in the armour and stuff...

Anywhooo.. off to B'ball Cya laters! [:D]

looks fantastic snowflake, well done!

i think if anything id say that the feet look a bit small, maybe they're just dwarfed by the armour but they seem to be a bit tiny. I know there is a part of their culture where they punish there feet into little shoes but i thought that was just the women, do samurais do that aswell?

anyway great work :D cant wait to see some texture

Woah, nice work man, The mask is cool, and I can't wait to see it with the dints, I reckon they'd really set it off! I'm a big fan of dints!

Hey!! Not my fault

I've been lazy... LAZZYYYY

Well not so much lazy as working, and I've been uncommonly busy during the day.. I'll have some stuff to show off soon.

Is he floating, or actually in contact with another surface? Why not get a friend or yourself to lie down and then watch what is happening? Take photos if you need to. Cloth is something that is easier to draw from reference.

At the moment, it doesn't look too bad. I think that is just needs to hang a little looser under his arm (if he is floating free), or bunch up (if he is lying against another surface).

nah, he's on a small office chair, it's not showing much.
Ok, so bunch up a bit more, I'll have to give sitting down a shot, I don't know anyone here in Brissie yet so I have to do it myself. Thanks Aven!

The muscle under his arm that wraps around onto his back the ?Latissismus dorsi? should be protruding in a broad arc eliminating most of the visible indentation present. It is hard to describe so you will probably need a reference shot to get it right.

Pantmonger

The ?Latissismus dorsi? huh? I'll have to check out that loomis one thats cool, Thank you Sumea! :P

Should come along to life drawing with the Queensland Animators. At least then you'll know someone who can pose for ya @:-) http://www.qa.org.au/

To stay slightly on topic, it's lookin' goodly. Gotta love Max on his shirt @:-D

commonly called the lats. the large side back muscles that give you the v taper.
i do bodybuilding so i could pose for you but i dont want my picture on the forum :)

should be able to google up pently of reference pictures.
if you want insane lat reference look for pictures of ronnie coleman :)

The whole upper arm is a bit long. I disagree with Pantmonger, the outside of the shoulder and back/'lat' area okay I reckon... the arm pit area is what look most out to me.

The ?Pec? (muscle across the chest) should create a straighter line from the chest to shoulder, and should go behind the bicep. The Bicep should be clearly defined in that pose too with the bulk of it sitting further toward the shoulder. There is little/no indication of an armpit- space bewteen the Pec and Lat? on the whole though the pose is great, full of character.

Thanks Brain, I'm checking it out as we speak, I have a high opinon of life drawing, through Uni I did it for a couple a weeks in 2nd year and it really improved my work dramatically, unfortunatly it didn't continue. Thanks Inglis, I'm also thinking google might be the way.
To JohnN, I think I have to redraw that whole area again, but sometimes you gotta do it like that, huh.
Cheers

Sometimes! I find that as soon as I've finished something I am ready to revisit a good proportion of it. At least you have the good sense to do this before you finish.

If you are looking for reference for redrawing that spot you could try body building mags too. I suspect you might find poses showing off the armpit area (!) Otherwise spend 30+ min in front of the mirror sketching yourself (that is what I would do)...or put more pressure on Inglis to post a photo of his armpit/shoulder ;)

Yeah come on Inglis! I bowed to peer presure and posted two full pics of my head (without a shirt no less), the least you could do is post one of your body, at least then you'll remain anonymous.;)

Ok, some digging, but I thought it would be better than starting a new topic. Through periods of inactivity and being busy still trying to find work the piece has had little time from me aside from and hour here and there. I'm still not 100% happy with his problem shoulder but if I didn't move on it would just take forever! So here is the guy, I'm pretty happy with it overall, the background is a bit quick and the vids a bit cartoony, but yeah I'll throw it out there anyways. C&C welcome!
[img]http://home.austarnet.com.au/esjakku/link%20art/DeckerSmall.jpg[/img]
Thats a small pic so you could get an idea, if you want to see a jpeg the size I worked on it the here is a link...
[url]http://home.austarnet.com.au/esjakku/link%20art/DeckerLarge.jpg[/url]
Ok cheers
Matias

that looks sweet as man - way better than anything i could do thats for real.... he looks some mad hacker outta the matrix - cept ,, his clothes are orange and purple,.. SO UNLIKE the matrix..but anyways,.. what does the rest of the cup say ?? I LOVE HAG??????

I hope my face doesnt look like his after many a year staring at the screen [:D]

thats really nice matias, great work

man bob i beat you by 1 second getting my message in [:)] - sorry bout the spam post ... COOL art tho matias, there we go its not spam anymore [:D]

thanks guys, the cup says 'I love hacking', except I got 'I love H-A and half a C', I decided not to test my luck!

Looks great over all. The shoulder area is fairly minor technical detail to the overall scheme. Certainly not worth getting neurotic over! Very good hand too, I bet you are proud of that one :D

haha, yeah, its always nice to get a hand right, they often can make something look realer.. um yeah you get what I'm saying!

awesome, very well done. Youve taken a lot of detail to clothes folds and such, good work :)

That is Max right? on the tshirt.. from sam and max - hit the road??

cool concept too dude!

that is one sweet sketch (dynamic seems to be a fitting word), its amazing because i designed a character a lot like him a while ago.

Also well done at blending the real with a kinda cartoony look

Very cool.

Nice pose.
Good indication of different materials too. Dig the mask.

Good work :)

Awesome dude, the size of the gun is cool could blow some wholes in faces with that thing.

Thanks guys, I'm glad the mask was recognizable somewhat I was worried about that, and yeah to bullet21, I wanted to go overboard with the gun a bit, I love the HUGE pistol look so I sneak that in sometimes.

dw man, i love that stuff to, having things like large guns, hands, feet can look really cool i find (if used well :P )

oh and sorry to say i didnt notice the mask first off :P

haha, don't worry it wasn't meant to be an overt feature, I agree with you about the big hands and stuff, but it is all in the application.

now that i think about it if u wanna have a mask on a character like that it probably helps to have the mask more stale and not so well put for the picture.

What i mean by that is that ur mask is looking where the guy would be looking and displaying the appropriate expression. Really if its a mask it would be looking forward without the pensive like expression aswell.

Just a thought when i read ur reply :P

Yeah, looking at it it seems unclear, I was thinking of making it more like face paint if I do it in colour, I don't know if you know spawn, I used collect the comics and there was a pretty cool guy his name was Chapel I think and he had awesome facepaint. So thats kinda what it might turn into. I totally get what your saying about the mask thing too!

i know spawn but im not familliar with that character, but i get you about face paint ofcourse, i was trying to work out a method for creating good looking face paint in PS (ended up just painting it with brush and such :P ). The most famous painted face would probably be darth maul or KISS or something :P

Yeah i loved spawn as well, he is still by far my favourite comic character. If I recall correctly Chapel was a big muscular bold guy with the white face paint. It would suit him perfect.

Hey Lee - if I say bad stuff does that mean you'll tell Steve never to hire me? ;)

I like the texture of the scales on the dragon - very cool :) Very much reminds me of how a true D&D style dragon should look.

My only real pick is on the fighter. I look at him and just feel there is something a bit... off?... on his torso and ab's. I wish I knew more technical terms or artistic style to describe what I am a unsure of. It may be that they seem quite large to me in comparsion with his arms and that they are a bit too perfect. He's a fighter not wearing any armour. I guess maybe a few more scars would make me feel a bit better about the look.

The only other thing I look at is his chest and think the shadows below the pec's give him a bit of a "man boob" look. Mind you it's not as over exaggerated as that but wonder if the shading lines may not be a bit too thick or pronounced.

*crawls back into her programming cave*

Strongest point I think is the composition of the piece - feels nicely centered to draw attention to the important bits.
The arms feel quite short to me for how stocky they are - kinda looks like "dwarf arms" [:)] The placement of the elbow and the way the front most arm is bent is a bit lost in the image too - less a bend, more a curve.

Yeah, his waist/abs area is quite large compared to his biceps and arms.
I gotta say that I dont really like the composition. The reason being that the focal point is too high on the shot, leaving too much space below that doesnt really do much. Maybe chopping a small bit off near the bottom, or adding some more to the top (say, to the tip of the blade) to unify the composition.
I dunno, Im probably talking out my ass.
Overall though, its very nice, I like the way you rendered it.
Painter or PS?

Hey Hobonation, if this is your style then you should enter the current Sumea challenge, you'd fit right in.

The Problem is I Can't do 3D models, I can do basic ones; but none to compare to the rest.[xx(]

heh heh welcome to my world :D
my style isnt quite as cartoony but i still work better in the 2D world. If your interested in heading for the games industry dont forget theres allways concept artists :D

lol thats wot i'm aiming at.

theres a few cartoony games still hanging around, like midways freaky flyers and sega soccer slam

quote:theres a few cartoony games still hanging around, like midways freaky flyers and sega soccer slam

you forgot XIII, this game is cell shaded and looks very comic like.

I definately like the second pic, your style is kool.

I like these, especailly the second guys head :)

well XIII isnt really cartoony in style, it may be cell shaded (btw i also reckon its a good game) but that character design and such is still more like real

I havent played XIII but i think it looks wiked. cell shading is cool.

Well i officially have a new favourite. Have you guys played icy tower, it is a cartoony game as well but free and addictive.

I have it on my comp!!!! My 12 yr old sister plays it. I really dispise the jumping sound that now rings in my ears for all eternity, but wot the diggins I'll say I like it for your sake.

lol is icy tower the next phonemonon? its going around our school heaps, i could never get the hang of it :P my girlfriend is addicted to it and shes gotten amazingly high scores!

the art does seem a little like that dosent it.. keep up the good work, i draw characters all the time too, annoys the hell out of my art teacher :D

"are still doing little concept drawings"
"yeah im thinking about what to put in the peice"
"turn them into something now!!!"
:P

quote:Originally posted by MoonUnit

"are still doing little concept drawings"
"yeah im thinking about what to put in the peice"
"turn them into something now!!!"
:P

I think we have the same teacher.[:D]

Wow the second one is excellant it looks like a pastelized photo. Good work. The proportions and everything are looking good.

They are both nicely done Pants. The only thing is that her head looks a little small, and her neck looks a little large. The model may actually look like that though, I don't know. The colours are really good :)

good work man, never been into the speed paint realm myself.

I really like the trees andwater in that first one, good stuff.
I agree with Aven on the neck with second one, but regardless it does look good. Maybe the shoulder area is a little large, I dunno, check your ref.

bullet21: Thanks, I am often surprised at the different materials a speed paint can seem to mimic just due to the techniques that have to be used to stay within the time frame.

Aven: Thanks. No you are correct the head is a bit small. These things creep in more then usual when I speed paint. Part ?n parcel of the whole drawing without construction lines thing I suppose.

MoonUnit: Thanks, speed paints are well worth the doing, the time limit forces you to place brush strokes quick like, less time to be anal, more abstraction. You pay more attention to tone and colour then to form. Its all very educational.

Makk: Thanks, yeah the mistake in proportion is known, but being a speed paint, whats done is done.

Pantmonger

Looks great....

It looks like the pantmonger photoshop filte. [:P]

Scott.

That?s the Pantafy filter, but I use it rarely as it takes an hour and a half to process on my computer.

Pantmonger

very nice, I have yet to see ROTK but i think vikings r kool as well
Good Work.

Can we see it with out edgefaces

Looks cool :) Cant wait to see the horse.
The hands could use some more work and I think his head/helmet is a bit small.

Looking good so far, but if my memory serves me correctly, shouldn't the top of the helmet be just a little higher?

It should look pretty sweet once it is done.

bullet - go see it!! satan commands you!!

makk - hands are what I'm currently working on, the head is actually proportionally correct.. remember that these guys have the armour that really inflates their upper body.

matt - yup and no. There are different kinds of helmets that team rohan wears, the conical appears to be the one that most are familiar with, so I think I may have to adjust things. Cheers.

Thanks for the feedback! Will have more tomorrow.. Maybe.

*updated*
He's sitting at about 3350 polies.. Which is a no no.. Gotta try cut that down.. Shouldn't be too hard, I'll soon triangulate the bastard a bit more.

wicked. god i will i could model. :P

Well, wishing won't make it happen.. Go download yourself a copy of Gmax and practice practice practice!! :D
Taken me about 3 years to get to this level (with probably a year of slackness thrown in for measure), and I've got a LONG way to go in terms of learning and stuff.
So yeah.. you gotta start somewhere!

I spose I spose.....God I wish I wasnt Lazy...:P

aye, motivation can be an issue. Just gotta find a project that'll get you motivated, and then stick with it..

This guy, is something that is very 'out' of my box. In the past I've tended to avoid fan-art, sticking to sometimes overly original ideas. But this is something I'm passionate, and very motivated about getting done.

problem with fanart is that you cant just change as you please, youve got specific guidlines

away from that looks very nice atm, coming along well.

quote:Originally posted by Sorceror Bob


Brief is him and a horse, 6k polies.. Normal map love + how ever much texture space I decide to dedicate to it.

Did you say that your going to be making a normal map off this?
If so, you may want to add loads more detial to the geomatry, as 3k doesnt seem to be alot for a normal map base.

Well, in doom3, I believe the base meshes are about 2 - 3k polies.. Probably less because by looking at the silhoutte, they look pretty crappy.

Unless you're talking about the mesh the normal map is sourced from.. In which case, this isn't it. Plan is to do the base - low poly mesh, then build a high poly one over the top..

Yeah, I was talking about the mesh the normal map is sourced from.
Gotcha now :)

Cool :) Yeah you're the second person to mention that, I think I should have been a little clearer with that at the start. :)

*update above*

'Finished' the model. Sitting at 3394 tri's. Thats a little bit more than what I wanted to spend :), but I'm fairly happy with it.
I went through and cleaned him up a fair bit since the last render, got rid of some of the detail that wasn't really adding to the silhoutte, but leaving enough to keep the shape. I'll still go through and clean up, so who knows, I may get that under 3k triangles.

Going to do a few tests soon, see how parts will work with the normal mapping. Then it's onto the horse, and the rest of the weapons. Going to give him a spear, and bow and arrow.. Should be a challenge to animate.

can we see it now! PLZ

see what now?

*update on first post*

The model is at a 'finished' point.
Probably a few things I've forgotten about, but will add.. Going to start unwrapping him.

looks pretty cool, I'm supposedly starting to learn 3d, but I get bogged down real easy, I have a hard time thinking in those terms. So yeah, after you give it a go you really respect those who can! Look forward to seeing the final product!

10 minutes ey. Multiply that by ten and you'll get the time it would take me to draw just the nostrils for that picture. Very Nice

Very nicely made JI. The nostrils look a little odd, but you may want them to be that narrow.

I love your wording for stylus ;) Not Wacom.

nice work with that one, i just did a scribble before of a sort of militia character in 10 minutes and mine looks not half as good!

probably intented and inspired by but it has a very gollum... atmosphere. The whole sort of cold clammy looking and pale skin and so on.

10 minutes? are your serious? man, thats great :)
looks cool, I know its just a sketch but his chin is a bit too pronounced i think.

Nice colours... Skin looks really good.

Are there many layers in there or are you just painting over the same layer?

It's one layer I believe

Love the colour!

I agree with Avens comment on the nose. I think it looks odd because it should be pointing to the right rather than towards us.

hot work for a 10min sketch though.

hehe, yeah the nose is umm... broken in several places? [:D] It was originally going to be thinner vertical slits more closely conforming to the skull, but screwed the bridge and then everything around it up [:)]

JonathanKerr: Stuff like this I just use a flat canvas, 1600x1200. Layed the base brown down then a desaturated green to pull some form out of it (kinda like a sketch using lighting instead of linework - can't remember what that's called? Anyone?), layed down a few more colours for shadows and skin colours, and then it's just a matter of changing brush size and alt+sampling the colours I've got down already.

It's like the nose is following me...

...creepy

oh and yeah

that better be a 10 minute break that went for 3 hours.. you bastard!!!!

quote:Originally posted by jwalduck

It's like the nose is following me...

lol

next one [:)]

[img]http://server5.uploadit.org/files/jistyles-oldbot.jpg[/img]

Don't like it as much as the goblin thingy, but I have a lot of fun with these - hopefully have some more up soon [B)]

Your colour and tone is phenomenal. The head however, just looks like it's sitting there - the body in the suit looks kinda disembodied.

aye, that does look weird.

i think the face should be getting some of the colour from that thar suit.. maybe the head could sit lower, and face the same direction the suit is.

I agree it's hard to read with the guy there - the dude's within the suit, so his arms only go around half way into the suits arms, and the same with the legs - it's an extension more than a suit.

hehe, think I just didn't choose the face and hair tones very well :)

I think it looks great especially the exagerated features such as huge feet.

Cool, nice rendering, fireworks!! How much time was this one?
The side of his torso has caved in way too much, yet on the other side there its pretty straight. And one arm looks bigger then the other.
Keep it up :)

that one was a bit longer than the other, two short sittings, I'd say around 40 minutes all up.

This one was an attempt at trying a block+refine method - pretty much lay down your mass and volume with your base colours in a quick couple brush strokes (I'm talking really dodgey stuff here), and the sampling the colours you've just put down, go over it again and refine it a little, then repeat as many more times as you want until it's "done". Since it never started with any sketch or clear idea I think that's why it got so heavily skewed :) think I'll try the same approach but start with a loose lined sketch next time.

got some more time recently to do another - also remembered to do some work in progress shots. I've found these are great to just practice something I feel weak at, and they're a great way to stop thinking too [:)]

[img]http://server6.uploadit.org/files/jistyles-ork_wip5.jpg[/img]

I may end up taking this one a little further and finishing it off.

You have got skill, that's all that needs to be said, it reminds me of grunt from quake 3

Very nice :)
He has a funny shaped head though.
Good lighting.
Really like the clouds

is cool, but the pose makes me go ouchie.

that is, until I realised that this guy is a ladies man, and at the pub!
[img]http://www.boomspeed.com/sorcerorbob/joelsorc.jpg[/img]
On a more meaningful note - this guys center of mass is pushing leftwards from his hip.. Without an effective counter balance (the bar :D) it looks like he's going to fall over.

Oh, and apply some perspective to the right arm and leg.. The right knee should be slightly higher and smaller - look at the way the hip is, theres no way they'd be parralell.

Anyways! good job for a quickie. I want your skills!!

matt: lol love the improvements [:D]
and in answer to the comments, I could do that... or I could spend more than 2 minutes doodling in a quick shitty sketch to base the rest off of [;)]

honestly, it's got a heap of problems if you want to get into it - main thing I was aiming for in this one was atmospherics - matching surface properties and elements to other things. since these start off as blobs of colour, they only end up as refined blobs of colour, which is the reason why they're all quite... "off" [:)] but hey, that's what I get for spending a real limited time in the design stage I guess [:D]

Yeah, I was just being picky... You know.. Prove you are still human and all.

Now.. Back to the salt mines with you.. and don't come out until you have a gift wrapped copy of Rome total war for me.. Theres a good bloke!!

Very nice. The perspective is looking excellant and best of all u had fun doing it.

awesome, absolutely awesome, im not much of an architectural critic but nothing stands out to me.

if you cleaned up the line work and put some more detail in I'd be a big fan.

good work.

These make for a good start :)
Althoug the perspective one the left one, the building with the red appears to be clashing with that of blueish one in the middle.

thanks guys.

Ah! the critical eye of Makk (now his the avitar makes sense)

I assume 'clashing' means that they sort of appear to occupy the same space? (and not 'damn city council approved a red building next to a blue building!')I think I see what you mean though. I suspect that it might be caused predominantily but the shadows on the blue buildings roof being too dark.. oh! i've just relised the the vertical lines on the blue roof are evenly spaced apart! They should be getting closer together as the roof receides into the distance, the lines of the roof aren't all converging onto a vanishing point either... hmmm, I might revisit that sketch and see if I can't remedy the situation. If anyone else has a theory on about that detail let me know.

I've also got 2 more sketches under way that I plan to post to this thread. One will be more refined (so Inglis, keep an eye out [:)])

heh you allready know im a fan of sketchy line work. do what you do best :)

okay Makk, i have addressed the building issues- neatened up the vanishing points, altered the lines on the roof, reduced the intensity of colours in the distance and softened some of the line work. I think the new version (right hand side below) does depict the space between the two buildings much better. You agree?

[img]http://home.iprimus.com.au/johnnewall/extras/architecture-1_1.jpg[/img]

Yeah I think that looks better now. :)
The old one kinda looked like the actual building was built on an angle and was sloping downwards to one side.
Have you had a look at doing a sketch for the Sumea Draw Club activity? quick link for ya-
http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=28
Its interior architecture but you might still like it. Makes for good practive anyway :)

funny enough I initially registered on this site to participate in that activity! but the thread seemed to die before I got around to posting anything[:(]

may be I should do a sketch that fulfills the criteria of that activity- see if I can get some enthusiasm going on that thread again?

...oh! beated to the punch- Sumeatown

Wow, these are awesome, I love the colouring

here are a couple more. I was quite pleased with the temple sketch. The other one is an attempt at a neater technique. Technically it works okay (I think) but it looks a bit sterile over all, also is not helped by poor composition.

[img]http://home.iprimus.com.au/johnnewall/extras/church.jpg[/img]
[img]http://home.iprimus.com.au/johnnewall/extras/1point-perspective.jpg[/img]

I definitely like the last one the most. Nice and clean :)

there both great man!

im guessing the temple was done with 1pt perspective? if i were to offer some crit it all looks maybe a bit to much... perhaps if you moved the pt further away

The second ones good but i love the first one looks very greek.

Youre getting better and better man :)
Was that first one a one or two point perspective? Its a bit hard to tell. Is that grass a photo or what?!?! (thats a good sign!) Like the cool blue shadows though.
Second is really good, your best, but like you said its a bit sterile. I reckon that technique/style would work well for a car design.

All except the sterile park are sort of 2 point perspective. I say sort of be cause they are all rough sketches (about A5) in size > hence the dodgy vanishing points. Moonunit, if you draw a line along the tops of the pillars down the right that is one point, and do the same with the top of the building on the left hand side for the other. the front of the building is a bit wonky > those lines should be going to the right hand Vanishing point.

The grass Unfortunately is just a preset brush that came with photoshop, so not really much skill involved. Just made the grass bigger in the foreground, and increased the colour contrast for the foreground too. So I guess there was a little skill required :)

yeah ur VP dots are all right just they seem a bit close to the object to me giving it a sort of overly slanted look, but that could just be my personal preference.

if your curious to what i mean do a cube like this:
VP.---------.---------VP
and like this
VP.--------.VP

and have a look at the difference

edit: dosent like long spaces... fixed :P

Yeah I know what you mean with the V.points being too close. If I were to do a more finished version I would be addressing details like that more closely.

On a related point, I know an industrial designer who used slightly exaggarated 3 point perspective to give his product sketches some extra 'pop' value. The result sort of mimicked a wide angle lens photo with exaggerated depth. A technique that I think would work best on isolated objects rather than cityscapes though.

yeah im not saying its wrong its just a something i noticed :)

Yet another painting in my Architecture series, possibly the last one for this batch. Definitely the most finished one so far, although technically still a WIP (I've glossed over the ocean for starters.)

Probably needless to say, but I am pretty happy with this one!

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/258_ocean_platformL.jpg[/img]

Not that its a fault in the rendering per se, but what is the scale of the platform. When I look at the "rocket launcher" and the simplicity of the forms it suggests the whole thing is the size of a truck, but when I look at the building perched on the edge the whole thing has to be the size of a city block.

yeah that kinda gets me, like compared to that multi story base on the side there, i mean the missles for that thing must be like.... the size of some buildings themselves :P

other then that nice work, a well acheived glossy metal look too

I pity the Mothership that comes to invade us :D

Nicely rendered John.

Excellent :D
I agree, the propertions between the rocket launcher and the building is a little extreme. Also, you should have continued the ocean ripples towards the right, but that is pretty minor ;)
I have to say that each one is an improvement on the other, good job, you should very happy :)
What are you planning to do next?

thanks for the feedback on the last one. I suspect the uncertainty of scale might be due to the lack of smaller details. I added a few smaller detail to the version on my website, could do with some major detailing though.

Anyway onwards- I had no plan for what to do next, so I have finally got around to doing more of the same- this time an interior! The concept for the room is a puzzle room. Remotely located levers control the ropes holding the lens. Manipulation of each rope is required to aim the lens on the pedestal and get the correct height to focus the beam of light, thus triggering... maybe a cup of cold coffee could be placed on the pedestal resulting in rewarding hot coffee [;)]

critical feedback welcome as I might do a more refined version.

[img]http://home.iprimus.com.au/johnnewall/extras/architecture_lens-roomL.jp…]

Cool :)
Heh, Im actaully planning to do a few interior concepts as well, I got the idea from you architect series :)
How do they manipulate the ropes? by pulling or something else? If you want, you may want to give an indication on the drawing as to how this is achieved. Anyway, if you are going to go over it, you will probably straighten some of the lines, yes?
The barrier around the ledge area doesnt look the same length. The left side looks as if it is longer in width.
Also the angle of the right one seems abit off.
Heh, I hope you understand what I mean, a pic would probably have been easier to understand, :D
Looking forward to seeing more.

[Sorry for not keeping the previous sketch posted - was easier for me to replace it as it was linked to my website.]

The first thing that i did was to break out the ruler and do the basic perspective properly. Comments make sense, thanks Makk. I think the barrier is still an issue in the latest version- I will address it in due course.

Was thinking of a ratchet and handle that rotates for winding the ropes in/out, each one located in a seperate room. I might do a side sketch of the device to go with the final conpect sketch- could make nice supporting material.

I look forward to seeing some architectural sketching from someone else. (I assume that you will be posting them)

For the few people following this thread, you will notice another update to the last image- removal of all the origional line work! and neating up of basic forms, colours etc. It's starting to look like a finished image me thinks... crits still welcome for the finishing stages.

Cool, I like the contrast of the blue and red in there.
Some noise/texture in the light from above might work. At the moment the air is very "clean" (if its an older place, the more dust, etc would be in the air) You could try something similiar with the fire, like fumes or something.
Looking really nice :)

Thanks for the suggestion, I was wondering what sort of finishing touches to do. I will attempt to banish that clean finish- I think lots of the surfaces in the image look too clean/textureless now you mention it... seems to be a side effect of my digital painting technique.

Hey nice start :D The muscles look well defined and there's some cool detail bits in there... keep going!