Character: Student WIP

[Blighto]

Good topology is key to getting a natural looking face (and body). You can subdivide all you want, but youll never get it looking right without getting those polygons to flow along the contours of the face. There are plenty of face modelling tutorials out there (but if i had to recommend one it would be the organic modelling series over at the ego-farms forum).

I can see you are pretty confident with editing the polys, so you should have no trouble, just get stuck in to a good face tutorial, and look at other people's meshes and see how they construct faces and bodies.

[ninjastickman]

Thanks so much for your reply Blighto, the tutorial you mentioned was extremely helpful in creating a new head. For anyone else interested, this is the link for the topology modeling tutorials I used:

http://www.veoh.com/channels/egofarms-oms

Updated model :)

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9012/kaswip4om1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[ninjastickman]

Another update; just a little modeling to do and then it's on to unwrap and texturing :)
Any comments or critiques welcome.

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/1995/kasrenderwipbp9.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/kasrenderwipbp9.png/1/w1000.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img133/kasrenderwipbp9.png/1/)

[Psyk0]

The new head version is a big improvement, i still have a few pointers for you, i hope you dont mind.

Anatomy
While this character is wearing clothes, its basic structure is lacking. Establish proportions first, you will save a lot of time by nailing the proportions in the early stages.

The upper arm is huge compared to the forearm (the ratio between the two shouldnt be that big, same goes for the wrist). There's no hint of muscles underneath the skin, sure the arm is cylindrical if you break it down into its basic form, but anatomy is made of OPPOSITE curves, if you have an extended bicep, its opposite muscle (the tricep) would be contracted, simply because muscles act as levers pulling on the bones. So anatomy is made of curves not straight edges!

If we follow that same line of thought, the shoes you created suffer from the same problem.

Topology
While the new head is a big improvement, there's a few loops that dont quite work for me. You have way too many edges for the mouth and eyes. Adding too many edges will cause problems when subdividing (pinching or wobbles) and you'll waste a lot of time trying to fix it. It's better to average the shape first, it's quicker to manipulate fewer verts.

When you have edges that run too close together you should collapse them or spread them to give better silhouette (the roundness of the model's outline if you prefer).

The ears look rather high poly for a real time model.

Joints
The areas that will move the most should have extra loops to compensate when they bend, ancient pig has a tutorial on the subject: http://www.pig-brain.com/tut02/tut02_01.htm

Maybe this will help maybe not, keep going!

[ninjastickman]

Thank you for your constructive reply Psyk0. This is the latest update, have worked on the proportions and anatomy as well as the joints (the tutorial you linked to was very useful, thanks). Still have a little more poly reduction to do, but almost there.

Thanks again, the changes you suggested have definitely improved the model! :)

http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/2412/kasrenderwip2vt5.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/kasrenderwip2vt5.png/1/w870.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img78/kasrenderwip2vt5.png/1/)

Oops, just noticed the joints on the arms still need to be done. That will be the next job...

[ninjastickman]

Another update with the first pass at textures. Once again, any comments are appreciated. The model has improved considerably due to the feedback from here :)

http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/1055/kaswip20sh2.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/kaswip20sh2.png/1/w1000.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img128/kaswip20sh2.png/1/)

[CodeVeroby]

Great improvement ! give her a little tan and some life to her skin, she looks very old right now ...

[samgriffiths]

Your topology and flow improved drastically in 2 weeks, well done.

[illadam]

looking good. One thing you may want to do is adjust the feet so the character looks more natural. keep it up!

[ninjastickman]

Probably the last update for this model as I'd like to move onto something else :). Can't thank you all enough for your feedback, it's been incredibly useful and a great learning experience during this little project. Have given the textures more warmth and posed the character since the last post, hope you like it. Despite the fact I've pretty much finished this now, would still be great to hear any crits anyone has, as I can apply these to the next models I build. Thanks again everyone!

Stats:
4806 triangles
Two 1024x1024 textures (clothes and skin)
Two 512x512 textures (hair and accessories)

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5627/kassheet01ge5.png (http://imageshack.us)

http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/5249/kassheet02tj9.png (http://imageshack.us)

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