HARDCORE MODELING!: 15 Expressions ONE Model: Rowan Atkinson

#1

Wow, there are a lot of people participating in this one - must be a good topic!

Final Entry

Original Post_______________________________________________

  I've been wanting to participate in a HMC for a while now, and this one seemed like it would be particularly educational for me. So here goes.
    
    As my subject, I've chosen a favourite actor of mine, Rowan Atkinson. I've been collecting reference so far and have come up with this:
    [img]http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/2448/rowancharsheets.jpg[/img]
    [img]http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5634/rowancharsheet2s.jpg[/img]
    
    As my favourite character of his is Blackadder, I think I will eventually represent him as he looks in this role/at that age. Plus that way I can come up with some spiffy costumes if I have time (not sure how likely that is...).
   
   I'll be working in Blender, with some ZBrush for sculpting, and my aim is to come up with each expression as a morph target (possibly with the help of a rig for the jaw/cheek area) so that I can create a quick animation of him morphing through each one in the end - that would look sweet.
    
   No clue what expressions I'll do yet, but Rowan has plenty to choose from!
   
    Anyway. Off to work!
#2

Good choice!!

#3

Great choice. Rowan is awesome:beer:

#4

yeah I love the guy [especially in Blackadder and his standups]! Gret choice!

#5

First WIP shot. Looking very rough so far - no plans on really going for the likeness until the whole head is there. Not liking the lips yet…

#6

Yes good choice. My first two choices were Rowan Atikinson and Jim Carrey as Count Olaf, but I decided to do somthing orighinal. Interester in seeing your edgeflow for the brow and cheeks and lips, and your gonna need alot of detail there for this guy.

#7

Decided to take a look at the topology, not trying to draw a full wire frame over the image - just trying to find where things flow and so forth - particularly over the cheekbone area at the moment. Rowan seems to have a lot of expression around that area, so I’m concerned about getting the topology right there.

And another WIP image: making progress on the likeness in profile view, front view is still not there. Still, a long way to go yet.

#8

More work, haven’t done anything on the brows/forehead yet. I think that ought to help a lot once that stuff goes in. He has some very defined wrinkles across his forehead that should help a lot with the likeness.

#9

I love this challenge, everyone’s picking great faces- lots of my faves too!

#10

nice choice! his facial expression can be more entertain then…

#11

Man what a cool face, I never thought of him. Nice progress too; you can already pick out his characteristics from even this early start on the mesh.

-RAge

#12

Added some work on the brow, eyes, and of course added ears! The ears dont look right just yet though.

#13

Making some more progress. The topology has gotten about as complex as I want it to get (maybe a little more, we’ll see…). I think I’ve made some decent headway on the likeness as a result though:

Current goals:

  • Break symmetry (which the lazy part of me finds very scary) :argh:
  • Sculpt in some of the persistent details (moles, pores, the remaining prominent wrinkles)
  • Start doing expressions and see where the topology needs fixing. Like I say there are a good number of poles ATM, and that doesn’t bother me greatly, and I think for the most part they serve a purpose, it would be foolish to assume some of them won’t cause problems and need moving.
#14

Great choice and very nice work on the head so far.

Cheers!

#15

Found some time to do a bit of sculpting, and after tearing my hair out trying to understand the zbrush -> blender pipeline for displacement maps, I seem to have worked it out:

#16

Some more progress, added hair, beard, basic textures (still needing work) and SSS shader (not my own see link). Then started on expressions.

#1: Tired

Still plenty of things to be working on - no insides to the mouth as of yet (this will be a separate object so that I can switch it off when it isn’t needed), the textures still need some work, as does the hair, and I will most likely sculpt some extra detail for each of the expressions if I can find the time.

Also, eyelashes.

#17

Heh, I know it isn’t necessary, but I couldn’t resist doing a quick little play-blast style animation. Damn thing keeps making me yawn whilst I try to work on it. I’ll have to do a more awake expression :wink:

#18

Some sculpting work on the two expressions I have so far, along with reference for them:

#1 Tired:

#2 Prideful smirk:

Does anyone know if I can re-import obj files from zbrush as morph targets for my original mesh? The vertex order and such should be the same (okay might be…), but I can’t work out if there’s a nice way to do it. The trouble with displacement maps I find is that even the the lowest subdivision level gets altered a bit in ZB, so just exporting a displacement map doesnt give quite the same results as the sculpt. Am I doing something stupid?

#19

nice work on the expressions - personally I feel you could have worked the neutral face a bit more, as it lacks refined features at the moment.

as to your question I’m not quite sure I understand what you have in mind - could you perhaps give a step by step of what you’re doing?

#20

Hey, First that all Good choose!, I like it…he’s coming out well, (perhaps I’m looking the chin of him a little bit flat, but nevermind maybe I’m wrong).
Love the Play-blast work, hehe. :buttrock: