HCR MINI-Challenge #42: Goodbye Ghilbi ~ The Forest Spirit 'Totoro'

#1

Since two people are already doing Totoro I guess it doesn’t hurt if there’s a third! :smiley:

The final image will be based upon this concept:

I also have a ton more reference, way too much to post in this thread so here’s a link to my pinterest board for this project!

And here's where I'm at so far! Done a ZBrush sketch of the main Totoro.. hoping to get some critique before I continue on with retopo and fur.

ortho views:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/RhZuS6s.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/pescucm.jpg[/img]

And a quick perspective turntable:

//youtu.be/-otimJAfP7A

#2

Nice! My totoro has a lot less girth, he hit the gym haha looks good! Really nailed the face!

#3

Haha! This is great! :smiley:

Only crit would be maybe give him a little bit more tummy but to be honest Totoro changes shape in almost every shot you see him in, so what you’ve done so far looks brilliant.

#4

Thanks Alex!

I can definitely agree about him changing shape… I found a lot of variation in all the reference I gathered. But that’s okay because it means a little more creative freedom on how to interpret it in 3D! I’ll be sure to fill his belly a little more before moving forwards

#5

aww, he looks so cute :smiley: and you’ve chosen adorable concept to base final image upon, can’t wait to see it finished :slight_smile:

#6

Real cute haha,

Looking forward to some update !

#7

Thanks Grey and strychnine!

Sorry I haven’t got a chance to upload more WIPs, I got a new freelance gig so that has been eating up most of my time the past few days. I’m hoping to get started on the sculpt of the mid-size Totoro this evening and will update you all then!

#8

Well… a late WIP is better than no WIP!

Here’s what I’ve got for the blue Totoro. Doesn’t seem quite right yet but I’m sure I’ll adjust it some when I retopo.

orthos:

turntable:

//youtu.be/SAVc_HsB8Ow

Comments and criticism more than welcome… enjoy!

#9

Quick update before retopo. Did a bit of tweaking on both the big and blue totoros, and got the little white one sketched out.

First up is ortho views of the little one:

Just through on some rough chicken feet for now, I’ll come up with something better during the retopo stage.

And a couple group shots:

As always c&c are greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

#10

Hello Pollos,

First, I really like where this is goin’, It’s gonna be awesome to have these three little guys in a cool diorama.

The shapes on the last one (the smallest), are bothering me a bit.

Here’s a few remarks to maybe improve it, if you don’t mind:

  • The main shape of the body you’ve made is too much “pear” like, the original concept looks more round.
  • The line of the top of the head and also the front of the belly looks a bit too flat in my opinion.
  • The ears should be more dynamic, less straight
  • The eyes are too big and there is more space between them on the original one.

On the original one, the body is basically just an egg with ears on top of it. On yours you broke the curves at some point between the bottom of the body, and the ears.
It should be a continuous curve.

Hope this is helpful and comprehensible, I’ve made a quick paint over to illustrate.

Cheers !

Eddy

#11

Hey Eddy,

First of all thanks for the feedback! You’ve made some very good points about the little one.

I guess it’s worth noting that I didn’t base my interpretation solely on that concept in the original post, but more so on these few:




The image in the original post is primarily my inspiration for the final presentation/composition, and less for the design of the characters themselves.

That said, I definitely agree the little one is going to need some more work! Like you said, the eyes and ears certainly need some adjustments, and I think with the body I will try both the egg shape and also push it into more of a pear shape to see what works best.

Thanks again!

#12

Update! Lots of pics :bounce:

Retopo is all done, plus some quick uvs that are far from perfect but will do the job for this project. I also made a few variants of the little totoro and played with some of the shapes… ended up liking the pear shape more than the egg.

Big one first:

Malcolm in the middle:

And the king of the castle :bowdown:

Lastly, a rough viewport 2.0 blockout of final framing/poses.

I still need to fix up the posing/make some adjustments to get them sitting together properly without intersecting… and I guess I need to model the leaf too!

Now on to fur!! I’ve been experimenting with a bunch of different tools and workflows for doing fur and finally found something I think is going to give me some good results… but you’ll have to wait until the next update for that!

Enjoy :smiley:

#13

Pretty cool ! :wink:

#14

Thanks grey :slight_smile:

And to whoever here at cgtalk runs the facebook page, thanks for sharing my WIPs (for the third time now)! :beer:

#15

I guess we know who the moderator wants to win!

Jk looks good. Cant wait to see the fur, will definitely want to know your workflow for it.

#16

Thanks Larry, I’ve been working on the fur here and there between work and should have a WIP up for you all later today :cool:

#17

I try to be impartial. I just post the updates that catch my eye.
Post updates, often I repost them in FB.

:slight_smile:

-R

#18

Ok I got some messages about the challenge and about the future…

[ul]
[li] HCR MINI-Challenge #42: Post Your FINAL Entry.[/li][li]Ok lets talk about our next challenge…[/li][li]HCR MINI-Challenge #42:Who need more time?Your Moderator-Roberto J. Ortiz[/li][/ul]

#19

So it’s been way too long since I posted an update, and the contest ends in a little over a day :surprised ! The last week and a bit has been quite busy finishing up a big project at work, but it’s done now and I’ve had some time to get back to work on the totoros. I definitely want to thank Roberto for giving us some extra time :beer:

This is my first project doing fur so I explored many possibilities for how I would approach it. I was hoping to use yeti but after fighting with it for many hours I still couldn’t get it rendering with VRay, so I ultimately decided to dive into xgen.

While xgen is incredibly powerful and seExpr (the expression language it’s built upon) is pretty neat, I found it to be rather bug ridden. I spent many hours working around silly issues, some I was unable to actually fix and have just been dealing with them. Specifically, I would get errors writing to the PTEX files “because they already exist” about 90% of the time I tried to preview my fur primitives or save my groom. Having to restart maya every time this happens has been a huge pain… and I definitely won’t be using xgen again until I have more time to investigate that problem.

Now with my little xgen rant out of the way, here’s the current state of things!

I’m really hoping to get some fresh eyes on this before the contest ends Wednesday.

So far I’m planning to add another rim light linked to the big totoro, and I’ll also likely add a rim light on the opposite side. I’m also going to get rid of my poor attempt at water droplets on the leaf.

My main concerns at this point are the fur and the background…

The white fur has been a real challenge to get a good balance between not looking grey and not blowing the values out. With some tone mapping I think I’ve got it looking pretty good but if anyone has any suggestions or comments on that it would be appreciated.

As for the background, I’ve been playing with a few variations of different gradients and colours. I ended up liking this green with the subtle radial gradient, but I’ve been looking at it a while now so it would be nice to get some other opinions on it. Looking at it now I think I might strengthen the vignetting slightly.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for looking :thumbsup:

#20

Awwwww, cute.

Great work, I love it.

The fur actually looks pretty nice, I think you did a good job with it. Rim light on the Big Totoro would be nice as you said.

The water droplets on the leaf don’t bother me that much, since you don’t have a closer look at it, it just gives bonus overall details.

Maybe, I would have put a bit extra informations on the eyes and nose. Which look a bit off with the quite realistic fur now.

Do you have any occlusion on this render ? That’s probably why the eyes and nose pop up a bit too much.

Cheers !