HMC #20 - Aang, The Last Airbender

[Intervain]

looks like a nice choice - believe it or not I’ve never seen Avatar… might give it a go now, out of curiosity

[RageOfAges]

The way I typically learn things in 3D is by starting with a project that is way too hard right from the start. Well this time I’m going to force myself to not do that. I don’t have a lot of experience doing expressions so instead of trying something super hard like my original idea (self-portrait) I’m going with something simple, a cartoon. And a bald cartoon at that.

Still waiting to see if Roberto is done with the expressions or if things will change. I’ll post refs after that. If it goes well I’ll try the other characters, Katara, Sokka, Toph etc. Yeah, let me just do the one first.

Lol Wyatt. I see a lot of conflict of interest in these two sentences

It reminds me of The Smurfs concept I had for HMC 19. It went something like this:
“I will do something simple, like the smurfs” I said to myself. Then 5 minutes later, I said:
“1 Smurf is not enough…I will make 10 smurfs…AND a smurf village…with dozens of generic Smurfs in the background…” and I finished with 2 Smurfs and no environment : :buttrock:

You have a great idea, with a good goal and a solid understanding of your limits. I wouldn’t get carried away with the other characters.

Best of luck to you in this challenge. I’m toying with an idea right now, but I hope to have a thread with reference up by the end of the week.

-Rage

PS. This post is in jest. If it sounds “dickish” it’s cuz I’ve just finished working a 16 hour shift and I’m hella tired, so I’m having a hard time typing what’s in my head.

[WyattHarris]

Omnilight, psebesta, Intervain - Thanks guys, I’ll do my best. Intervain, you won’t be disappointed.

Lol Wyatt. I see a lot of conflict of interest in these two sentences

It reminds me of The Smurfs concept I had for HMC 19. It went something like this:
“I will do something simple, like the smurfs” I said to myself. Then 5 minutes later, I said…

Lol, I know what you mean. My mind always runs about 1000% faster than my ability. I currently have no less than 20 ideas in my head that I would like to finish sometime in the future. Instead I keep entering these challenges where I actually get work done. What a “catch 22”.

I’ll try to keep it simple for now. I’ll collect references tonight, I’m going to try and grab most of them from the finale. Which gives me a reason to rewatch the “Sozin’s comet” movie. Woohoo!

[WyattHarris]

Lol, well I didn’t mean to grab so many but by the time I got to the end I had 104 reference pics. Now to sift through them all.

Avatar Aang

Not all are so serious. Not sure if I will attempt any pure cartoony faces such as the last one.

[robo3687]

lol i’d love to see that last one…

can’t wait to see some modeling progress…

[menthol]

hey pal,

I hope you are doing fine That’s a great looking anime, even though I’m an anime freak, tried once but nah… somehow felt different and bored

Hope you find time for other characters as well, have fun

[WyattHarris]

We’ll see Robo, we’ll see.

hey pal,

I hope you are doing fine That’s a great looking anime, even though I’m an anime freak, tried once but nah… somehow felt different and bored

Hope you find time for other characters as well, have fun

The style is similar but its not an anime. That may have been the problem.

[WyattHarris]

I’ll try to keep the mesh light if possible.

I never sketched out a topology before but it makes good sense, everything is always easier to lay out on paper first. Having said that I’m not sure if these are something I can actually go by or if I’m just figuring how many points I’m going to use where.

The nose is still my trouble spot. That whole nasolabojabolo thing didn’t click for some reason as you can see in the sketch. I think I’ll just study some good ref while I’m making it.

Poly time!

[WyattHarris]

Scratch that light mesh stuff. Looks like if I want good deformation I’m going to need more geometry. I’m trying to not rely on ZBrush “fixing” everything as much as possible this time.

Started modeling and got sidetracked on surfacing and running some tests for the Avatar state. I like the result so far. So yeah, I’ll try to get more done tomorrow.

[TheRazorsEdge]

Sweet choice! The mouth shapes should be an interesting challenge all by themselves.

Looking forward to more!

Cheers!

[WyattHarris]

Sweet choice! The mouth shapes should be an interesting challenge all by themselves.

Thanks Razor. This is what I am not sure. For a 3D cartoon, do you need more loops around certain parts? What is needed to stretch the mouth, eyes etc. to those big exaggerated expressions?

If anyone knows a good reference for such information I’d greatly appreciate it.

[iatethecrayon]

Great choice of character to model! I really can’t wait to see how this turns out. I liked the show overall but the animation and expressiveness in it was really my favorite part! Good luck!

[airflow]

Nice, this should be fun seeing the two sides of this character.

[Swizzle]

Blah blah blah, talky talk, pretty pictures, GET TO THE MODELING.

:deal:

[WyattHarris]

Crayon, Airflow-Thank you thank you.

Just you wait you Swizzle you.

Wednesday is a game night but I still got some done, Woohoo. This is a very odd project. The mesh seems to be matching the reference but its almost like modeling an alien or Gollum. Huge eyes, tiny mouth, sparse features. It’s hard to tell what he’s supposed to look like. Guess I’m going to have to invent some facial features.

[TheRazorsEdge]

Thanks Razor. This is what I am not sure. For a 3D cartoon, do you need more loops around certain parts?

     Not really! In my experience the fewer loops the better on cartoon-style characters, depending on how much creasing you want in certain areas. You do need a solid, well-placed minimum though to get the overall shapes and defs you are aiming for, so the model retains its look once subD-ed or approximated. A good idea is to do a concept sculpt first on a sculpting layout to get the look down and then figure out the needed loop flow during retopo. 2D to 3D can be very difficult to get right, especially Anime and its derivatives for some reason.

What is needed to stretch the mouth, eyes etc. to those big exaggerated expressions? If anyone knows a good reference for such information I’d greatly appreciate it.

     Common practice is to use lattices to get the extreme deformations such as bulging eyes, extremely deformed mouths incl. teeth & gums etc. I dont know of a good, free, online ref, but there are two books out there that go into decent detail on how to do that: "Body Language" by Eric Allen & Kelly Murdock and "Stop Staring 2nd Ed" by Jason Osipa. Both focus on how to do this in Maya, but if you know your app well enough, the general principles should transfer easily.
     
     Hope this helps.
     
     Cheers!

[shin4]

Common practice is to use lattices to get the extreme deformations such as bulging eyes, extremely deformed mouths incl. teeth & gums etc. I dont know of a good, free, online ref, but there are two books out there that go into decent detail on how to do that: “Body Language” by Eric Allen & Kelly Murdock and “Stop Staring 2nd Ed” by Jason Osipa. Both focus on how to do this in Maya, but if you know your app well enough, the general principles should transfer easily.

wah, book looks are interesting, I will going to check it out. ~ tks

[BertieRooster]

Yep, anime heads are difficult. I agree with TheRazorsEdge regarding the topology - less is more for cartoony people.

[Swizzle]

Avatar seems like a bit of a mix between western animation and anime, at least to me. The characters don’t seem to have the rather chiseled, highly simplified features that a lot of anime seems to.

Anyway, here are a few possibilities and pointers on how you might be able to achieve what you’re going for, Wyatt:

[Spin99]

Cool work. Looking forward to more updates.