Character:femaleWIP

[allenatl]

Sorry about blurriness in 1st post. Need to work on jpeg settings.

[FallenSwordsman]

box modelling - brrrrr! I've never been a fan of it myself but I do respect people who can do it properly - it gets you a nice low number of polygons while still looking great.

Looks a good model though but can I make one or two suggestions? First off, the bridge of the nose may want to be moved more toward the eyes so you get that dip right at the top - the dip should be at eye level. The other thing that I might suggest is to curve the mouth around more. Think of the lips curving around the teeth then you'll get the idea of what I mean.

Kudos to you for using box modelling! I've never had the patience with it to get the results I've wanted but you seem to have stuck it out! :thumbsup:

[allenatl]

Thanks for the suggestions, FallenSwordsman. I'll work on them and try to post an update later. The box modeling was based on Userdelta's videos on newtek's ftp site.

ftp://ftp.newtek.com/pub/LightWave/Tutorials/modeling

I've tried several other approaches but seem to have better results with this
technique.

[allenatl]

Update. Still having trouble with indentation between eyes. Working on it.

[allenatl]

Update with beginnings of textures.
For higher rez version, go here:
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip_uv1hi.jpg

[allenatl]

Another update at slightly different view.
For higher rez version, go here:
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip_uv2hi.jpg

[FallenSwordsman]

Heh heh - I tried Userdelta's box modelling video myself - didn't get very far with it. Something about box modelling and me just don't get on too well. One of these days I'll crack it. If you have been keeping an eye on the finished works gallery, you might have seen Terry Ford's Uhura model from Star Trek - that was done using box modelling and very impressive it is too.

Anyway, back to your model:
Its looking pretty good. The ear needs a little bit of tweaking but that shouldn't be too difficult. I am a bit concerned with how much the jawline juts out from the neck although from the views we've got its difficult to see exactly what's going on there. Any chance of a profile view to check this properly?

[allenatl]

Yeah, FallenSwordsman, the jawline and neck area is a problem. Part of my problem is the ear placement. In profile view, the ear falls behind the halfway point on the head. But after tweaking other parts of the head, it now appears too far back. In 3/4 and profile views, the jawline is excessively long. So I'll probably move the ear forward and tweak the jawline/neck area. Can't post the profile right now, but will try to post a before and after profile later. Also saving detail work on the ear for later.

[allenatl]

Profile view before and after editing.
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/profile_edits.jpg

3-quarter view update
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip3qt.jpg

Thanks for all your previous comments, FallenSwordsman.

[FallenSwordsman]

Hi Allenatl:

Yeh, the jawline thing is definitely an improvement over the previous version. I think you've got a better grasp of the shape of the head too - by the looks of the thing, the previous version had the back of the head sticking out too much.

May I make a suggestion for if you ever do another head? I find that a lot of people don't have much of a plan as to what they're doing before they start, they just go "Oh boy, gonna make a head" and off they go, have great fun doing it and get some pretty good results. Now if you planned it out a bit first; stuck in a profile line to start with so you know exactly what the head was looking like first, then you may get better results because then you've got a template to work too. I know for box modelling this is not so easy because a lot of box modellers feel their way around the model like shaping clay but for me, I find that having a background profile line first is pretty much essential so I don't fall into the trap of having a funny shaped head.

The ear is looking a wee bit big, and you might want to just take a look at that little divot you've got mid-jawline but apart from that, this is an excellent improvement.

[allenatl]

Still got a lot of modeling details and tweaking to do but
in the meantime, here's a texture mapping test.

http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip12.jpg

[FallenSwordsman]

Yep, still needs a bit of touching up on the modelling as you say, but I think you need to make the skin a lot less pasty looking. She looks like she's put on a whole load of foundation make-up making her look white. Would be nice to see some eyelashes too!

[allenatl]

Latest updates.
Been doing a lot of re-reading of uv mapping tutorials. Finally able to wrap
my mind around the Menithings technique of using endomorphs to layout
the unwrapped mesh. Max Glick's tutorial on Newtek's site gave the most detailed description of the technique.Tried it on parts of the hair in the 2nd link.
Just basic for now but I'm still experimenting.
Comments welcome.

http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip21.jpg
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip26c.jpg

[allenatl]

Trying the img tag thing. Hope this works.
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip26c.jpg

[FallenSwordsman]

You're making good progress here. I would rethink the skin texture though - she seems to have a certain bumpiness to her skin that's making her look a bit ill. I think the rosiness of her cheeks needs to be spread out a bit more too. Ever thought of using saslite for the hair? Nice addition of the eyelashes!

[allenatl]

Latest update.
Still working on the hair. Later I'll try using the Saslite plugin but
for now I want to create the hair using no plugins.
Still got to do some work on the facial textures also.

http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip36.jpg

[allenatl]

2nd view.
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip37.jpg

[allenatl]

More hair tests.
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip38.jpg
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip39.jpg

[FallenSwordsman]

Hair is looking a lot nicer now - less like a bunch of drawn lines that you had in the first texture outing - but its all a learning process. This is coming along very well, allenatl

[allenatl]

Thanks for the comments, FallenSwordsman.
I'll do some more work on the hair and try to settle on an actual hairstyle. Then I've got to go back and tweak the face some more. Still not satisfied with the shape of the eyelid. At certain angles it looks weird, maybe too flat.

[FallenSwordsman]

Well the outer corners of the eyelids seem a little low to me and the upper eyelid crease seems a bit high above the eyelid and seems to extend almost to the nose - once you've got those two things sorted out, it may look a lot better.

[allenatl]

Yeah, you're right about the upper eyelid. Originally, I was going for the
"half-closed, sleepy-eyed look" and that's what got me into trouble. I
need to go back to the fully opened eye and maybe use morphs later for
eyelid movement.

[allenatl]

Latest updates.
Need to get rid of the highlight inside nostril and
still working on hair and eyes.

http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip40r.jpg
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip40.jpg

[FallenSwordsman]

This is coming along great - its looking a lot better now that you've touched up the eyes and she's no longer got them half closed. The hair - well take your time with that - its going to take a bit of time before it looks right without a plug-in to help you along but its nice to see how your model has been improving over time - plus its nice to see that you're still plugging away at it.

[allenatl]

Thanks again, FallenSwordsman. Your previous comments about the eyelid
crease helped a lot.
I'm trying to get comfortable with the ins-and-outs of texture mapping
so I'll keep plugging away at the hair and facial textures for a while.

[allenatl]

Recent progress on the hair.
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip43b.jpg

[allenatl]

Rough model sheet for the body. Ignore the head for now (girl from
Volcano High, my next model maybe.).
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/figuremodelsheet1.jpg

[allenatl]

How do I avoid the light glow in the nostrils? What are some
possible causes and solutions? Found some suggestions in
another thread but none worked so far.
http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip43d2.jpg

[arpeggioator]

hey a very nice modell here:)
but i think you should add some more "female looking" things.
speciell on the eyes and the nose.

//arpeggio

[allenatl]

Yep, I've got to do some more tweaking to soften her up. While moving
points to fix some of the smaller details, I lost some of the softness in the
overall look. I'll work on it.

[allenatl]

Started on the body.
This is an early screenshot. No detail added yet to
arms and legs.

http://allenatl.home.mindspring.com/wip_body1.jpg

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