Decided i'd have a crack at the mixamo contest as it'll be good motivation to get another folio character done. Mixamo have said that having a friend do the concept for your entry is fine, so with that being said Joseph Silverman was kind enough to draw some extra sketches for me to go with one of his concepts.

Joseph's folio can be found here - www.catkilo.com



Here is where i am at the moment with the blocking in and the base sculpt. There are still a lot of areas that need sculpting properly, like the front of the upper leg, the entire back side of the leg, hands, neck etc. Any feedback would be great throughout the making of this!

Wow this looks great so far! The knee area and front view of the thigh looks pretty ace, really spot on. Although I must say her face is looking quite masculine right now.

Thanks Sybrix. The face is still really WIP but i'm not sure what to do next with it to make it match the concept a little better. Here's a close up in the hope of getting a bit of guidance:


Also fixed up some proportional/shape issues with the legs

Hey, this is looking pretty cool!

I think you could puff out the cheeks a bit or maybe widen the cheek area a bit-the face still doesn't look exactly like the concept, but it should look fine regardless.

Also, I'm curious to know what weapon and class were you modeling her after?

Looks sweet, can't wait to see more!

good luck man

Man, looking at the concept, I'd say that if I was you, I woulnd't try to realistic approach. Instead, I'd prefer to folow some stylized refs, like this:

http://blogdebrinquedo.com.br/tag/bishoujo+marvel/ or this
http://images.gamekult.com/blog/imgd.../086/867_2.jpg

@Stoop, thanks for the crits, will be working on the face once i get the armor all blocked in. I'm not sure if we're allowed to mix up the classes? She's a mage.. but i think she should look better with daggers than a staff. I'm going to be making my weapons not using the mixamo ones anyway, so if i must use a staff atleast i can make it fit her outfit.
@Riot thanks man, best of luck with your entry too!

@Jramauri, Thanks for the ideas, but seeming as my last character was a stylised one and my portfolio is lacking in (good) realistic characters, i think i'l be keeping her more on the realistic side. Really like that first link though, might be a good thought for future projects.

Small update, put in some more base meshes, straps and buckles.

liking how the clothing is turning out! great job!

The clothes are looking nice. I feel the face needs to look a little more "feminine." Right now that is standing out to me... The lips need a revisit. I think this is the biggest thing. Also your cheek bones are like connecting to the brow, or that's what it looks like to me. And finally... The jaw needs to be revisited I think. You have it as a diagonal line. Where does her jaw hinge into the skull? :P

Keep it up dude.

This is making great progress, loving the feedback and sportmanship going on here.

Hey guys, seeming as there was so much attention towards the face i thought id take a break from blocking out stuff to work on it.

First iteration looked like this (yuk!)


And then Joseph gave me some feedback + this paint over and we discussed facial planes etc. also checked out some of Funkybunny's work to help figure out certain areas.


After some back and forth with crits, here is how the face currently stands. I know the neck is quite long, but i think it works rather well with the rest of the character (opinions please?).



Edit: Here's a body shot with face update

Yeah, I still think there's some work to be done, especially to the profile, but she's looking pretty slick in 3/4ths at the moment, which is definitely the most important thing for a 3d asset!

Just made her pouch tonight, did a little step by step for anybody who might find it useful. Don't think i like the different groups of leather. Will probably just keep it as one colour or just the trim as a different one.

The improvements to her face are really starting to come through, esp. on the lips. Her profile from mid nose going up might need some work, I think.

Her pouch was coming out really well, but I think some of the zbrush work isn't helping it, mostly in the strap that goes over the top of it. When it was just in stage 2 or 4, it looked like a brand new hard leather bag. Now it's a bit messy. Either, I'd keep it looking brand new or really push the beat up leather pouch feel.

great job though

Thanks water, i agree, the strap in the middle went very mushy, but it was like 1am and i needed my bed haha. I'l revert it back to the newer looking strap.

Fixed up some of the profile issues with the nose/brow and painstakingly added all this hair.. there isn't going to be as many planes in the final one, i just duplicated the final hair and added a sub-d to it so the hair has a bit more volume for now.

Hey, the face looks waaaay better, man, great job! But she looks a bit cross eyed now, something easy to fix. I'm digging the progress.

Thanks Yea i painted the eyes badly and now she's looking inward toolazytofixrightnow :P Not a huge issue though, just for the sake of highpoly previews.

characters looking great nice!

Got bored, did shader test.. 30second texture job couldn't be any worse, but i like the anisotropic direction stuff.



Also did some work on the hands and made some simple rings

Lumpy thumb is lumpy:

Really nice to see some one take a critique and improve their artwork. You really did man. The face is so much better. It could still use a little more, but it is a night and day difference.

the face is a lot better than it was...

!BUT!

currently the polypainting you've done is masking problems in the forms of her face, so post some neutral matcap shots.
the jawline is incredibly sharp, the transition from jaw to neck just looks like it needs a lot of softening.
her chin, and generally the area below her mouth is very "pointy". there's not really any other way to describe it. you can see in the 3/4 view what i mean, there's almost no "fill" of flesh around that area.
as a general critique, a lot of her features could be softened up a little, you seem to have this thing with sharp lines (pinch tool?) to form definition, and i just don't think it's reading that well personally. like look at the bottom lip, look at the angles in the side view, it literally goes like this > instead of like this ) transitioning from the lip to the chin.
try bringing her eyes closer together, and rotating the eyeballs outward some... get rid of that cross-eyed look.

@ Riot, thanks!

@Almighty - I use and abuse the trim dynamic brush a lot, so that may explain the rogue sharp edges. Went and smoothed out relevant area's and gave her a bit more meat below the lip as suggested. Here's clay shots of the face and body. Also - i actually started this off using your base mesh from Hazardous' character course, so thanks for that!

good work so far ,
character is coming along great but head is a bit out of shape, remember that the highest point of the skull is just behind the ear

good luck

Hey voice, thanks for the PO.

MASSIVE thankyou to Almighty_Gir for going over my mesh with me in g+ and teaching me a bunch of awesome tricks/pointers.

Here's the latest with the face.




Tomorrow i'l resume armour work, and probably get started tackling the first bits of cloth.

awesome progress dude, really nice face on her want to see more of this