Character: Young Lady

[Tiburon3D]

Hey there, good work so far. I haven't spent a lot of time studying your images, but the first thing I noticed (besides the hands) was the neck area needs work. The collar bones seem too level, and perhaps a bit too defined. Try to soften the area and angle the collar bones down toward the center a little bit.

BTW Thanks for your postings on my female head WIP. I'm still planning on working on my model too, but I haven't had time or the opportunity lately.

Anyway, keep up the good work and I'm interested in seeing your young lady come to life.

[anorris]

The models look good, they remind me strongly of GTA3 models, which were very low-poly, but still looked fairly good. If you're looking for more accuracy, I'd add more to the hand area. Good work so far!

[Gilgamesh]

Well, as far as proportion goes, it seems to me like the hips should be at least as wide as the shoulders.
It also seems to me that you have some unnecessary polys in some places. For instance, the lower legs have a ton of edges left to right, but barely any top to bottom. Try to make your polys closer to being square, and not so long and skinny.
Looks nice. It's coming right along.

[Electrofirma]

fattyLees...your links are broken Yeah, get use to it. I'm irresponsible for my own host, so my links are broke a lot. :)

Tiburon3D...Try to soften the area and angle the collar bones down toward the center a little bit.I will agree they are too defined. I don't know if angling them down is the answer(see attachment). The neck area is on my long list. I spent the better part of one night just trying to get the neck area loops flowing along the collar bones and the muscle that comes down to meet them. My main gripe with the collar bones was that they seem too straight, and they should have some sort of deviation along their length, but once I got the edges flowing close to right, I moved on without digging deeper into the collar bone subject.

anorris......which were very low-poly...It is only 4,500 polys now which isn't very low, but is far from being very high.

Gilgamesh...For instance, the lower legs have a ton of edges left to right, but barely any top to bottom.The body is a true box model(i.e. started with a box) As I was adding detail I was using MJPolyTools EdgeLoopSplit. I would add another loop and it would run down the leg, around the foot, and back up the other side. Then I only added enough horizontal loops to approximate my reference images. I know there are way too many vertical loops, but I don't want to thin them out until I've got the knees roughed in and have done a little more research into the muscle flow in the legs.
Sort answer = Legs and arms are WIP, Very! WIP :)

Thanks for your input on the hips.


How about thoughts on smoothing?

I don't have the eye some have for building a mesh for SubD. It appears to me that a good SubD mesh needs to be build exagerated, because the SubD is going to pull away from all the verts. I see three options for smoothing, though I'm not to that point yet...

1. Use SubD and start re-tweaking things back to where I think they look right.
2. Use a polygon smooth because it can be made to more closely follow the curvature the verts define.
3. Manually drive up the mesh density, smoothing and adding detail as I go.

Personally, I am leaning toward number three. Does that sound unreasonable? Like I say, I'm not at that point yet, and I will certainly save off copies before I do anything drastic. Yet I feel drawn to making this a pure, hand pulled, poly model. Am I nuts?

[Electrofirma]

Doh, spaced out the collarbone attach...

[anorris]

Sorry, wasn't real clear, the rest of the body looks very detailed and nicely polied, I was referring just to the hands as being low-poly looking, if you do one thing to make it more realistic, I'd add polies to the hands. Looks very good :)

[Electrofirma]

anorris...I was referring just to the hands as being low-poly looking,

Yes the hands are not even really started yet. I simply added an overall shape during the initial shape blocking stage, then as I added more detail to the upper arm my edge loop split tool ran edges down the arm and around the unfinished hand.

Because of the vertex smoothing, the shaded view gives her right hand the illusion of having a thumb, but there is really no hand geometry yet, except for a basic blocked shape.

The hands will evolve.

Thanks for the replies.

[Tiburon3D]

Electrofirma,

After reviewing the reference pics, maybe it's not so much the collar bones as it is the neck. If you look at the reference, their necks are thicker in the front. The neck is almost a cylinder but flares in the back with the trapezious muscles. Maybe pulling those points out a bit and make the neck less defined will help.

Just some thoughts.

[Electrofirma]

T-3D, Yeah, I see what your saying. Her neck is awfully triangular. I will keep it in mind for future edits.

Thanks

[Electrofirma]

Here's a small update.

I cut in a couple loops across the top of her shoulder to better define the top of the rotator.

Also toned down the traps a bit, and widened the hips.

NOTE: I figured out how I went wrong with the traps. I created my initial reference images in poser. I had bumped up the muscularity to get better contrast of muscles, and that in turn cranks up the traps and changes the outline of the neck. It certainly is a learning process.

[Electrofirma]

Forgot the attach :(

[Electrofirma]

Here's an update. Still lots of tweaking to do.

Got the hands and feet started. Got some form to the back, but it still needs work.

Anyhow, Let me know where I'm going wrong!

http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/thumb5.jpg
Front (50K) (http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/Update_10-24-03_Front.jpg)
http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/thumb6.jpg
Back (50K) (http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/Update_10-24-03_Back.jpg)

EDIT: Specifically, please look at the topology of these hips. I've beaten them around to be as quaded and edgelooped as possible, but I'm curious if the crisscross on the thighs will lead to problems when animating? Any input is appreciated.

http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/thumb7.jpg
Hips (http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/Update_10-24-03_Hips.jpg)

[Electrofirma]

Update, got some definition to the hands, still a couple hours of closing loops and tweaking to go, then I stick 'em back on.

http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/thumb8.jpg
Hands (38K) (http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/Hands_10-26-03.jpg)

[Electrofirma]

Just a quick update to show the direction I've started down.

http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/thumb9.jpg
Update 10-30-03 (http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/Update_10-30-03.jpg)

As always, please post crits and comments!

[Akildee]

Honestly, if you really want to get accurate proportions on your model, you may really want to consider changing your posing on the character. It will be easy to skin your model and paint weights with the existing pose, but it's much harder to get an alluring looking female model that way make her arms straigher with just a slight bend in the elbows. Twist her palms down it will look more natural and the main thing is to put her legs together. Her feet should be maybe a virtual five inches apart. Next you should probably grab like a comic drawing of a girl from the front and side. Try to find pic from J. Scott Campbell's drawing book. The drawings are very exagerated, but what they allow you to see is what attributes mabe a figure look womanly. The attributes that work against that goal are much more subdued in his drawings. Looking at a regular anatomy book is good as well, but sometimes it's harder to get accurate proportions on a pic of an actual nude female because the proportions on a real female are very, very subtle and hard to get a handle on at times. I hope this helps. Right now she looks a little manly and odd. Or, just ignore completely what I'm saying if you don't agree!

Akil

[Electrofirma]

Akildee, thanks for the comments.

I understand what you are saying wholeheartedly.

This is what I was thinking, as I've done what I have. (And I think at this point much of it is too far along to easily change without following through to an atleast partial rig)

First my intention wasn't to create an "alluring" woman. I was shooting for something a bit more realistic. A little shorter and stockier. Muscular, with just enough fat to smooth out the muscle definition. She was never intended to be a runway model.

I chose to start the arms the way I did because it places the shoulders and elbows ~halfway through their range of motion. I was hoping that this will give more natural joint deformations later.

I rotated the palms up toward the elbow due to the lower arm shape and tendons in the wrist. The lower arm shape is more uniform in this position(the flatest part of the wrist, is aligned to the flattest part near the elbow), and the tendons run straight up the mesh.

I started the legs that way simply to make them easier to model and paint weights.

I'll try rotating stuff into a more 'standard' pose, simply as an exercise, since it seems like a daunting task at this point. We'll see what she looks like.

[Electrofirma]

Here she is roughly translated to a standard pose. It does look different.
http://www.electrofirma.com/cgtalk/wips/YoungLady/test_10-30-03.jpg
Researching....

[Akildee]

cool! Now i can give you a more accurate crit. It's not looking bad at all for what you're going for. Just maybe raise the knees just a bit. And make her hips wider. Even non runway women have nice rounded hips! Also where your arms conect to your back, we should see a little of that area under her arm pit from the front. Right now that area looks almost like a right angle. Also get a picture of a nude woman and you'll see how the shoulders work. I still make this mistake from time to time. Her shoulders should actually be a lot closer to her body. They are far to extended righ now. Her colar bone should lead right into her shoulder. And tweak the curve of her waist a little. Not a whole lot, just kind of mess with it a little and see if you can a more natural look. But don't get me wrong, you have a nice model! But as artist we have to strive for pure beauty!

Akil

[Drakaran]

well, I don't know if beauty is ALWAYS the point, but certainly proper proportion is. Even if you are doing something totally a fantasy, people expect it to follow certain rules of proportion, if you can show you know those rules, you can also break them in a way people will believe. or at least be believable. Often I see bad modeling and the excuse given is it's a fantasy figure (instead of the truth, which is it's bad modeling). However, all that said, this is NOT bad modeling, give it some tweaks like with proper proportions in upper arms, legs, and make the hips taller, and reduce the polys for the belly (looks like you are hiding it anyway and don't really need extra detail that this figure wouldn't have either) and you are there! Good work.

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