Various doodles, sculpting, rig projects, etc..

I start too many small projects to open up a new thread for everything, and some of these get discarded anyway, so instead I’ll open one thread to post these projects.

First one: Does anyone remember this little fella?
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/8411/lilfel02webmc8.jpg

It’s been ages since that one, and recently someone asked questions about it, and how to use it. Since it is so very outdated, I’m redoing him:
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2630/littlefellarebootwip02.jpg
I want him to stay very close to the original, but with a much better mesh and rig.
Made in 2.49, will release him in a little while.

Then there are some other things. Sculpting doodles:
http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/1021/sculptbwip01.jpg

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/9154/creaturewip02.jpg
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/3844/creaturewip04.jpg
Just a random sculpture

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9991/mauricethemartianwip01.jpg
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/985/mauricethemartianwip02.jpg
A friend of mine had a noisy kid who drew a “martian” with a pencil on a piece of paper, and I made this out of it.

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5808/mtinewfellawip05.jpg
Update on newfella, different head, different eyes, will have a new rig.

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/3600/mtiblockmanwip01.png
MTI_blockman, powered by MTI_biped. Both a work in progress.

they all look amazing dude.

im looking at the last one, thats an interesting rig dude, but what does the little guy at his belly do

Cool sculpts, that monster looks pretty neat.

About your sculpts:

Human has interesting combination of realism and stylization, I feel that you went overboard with the details on the neck and head, but neglected the hands.
Monster looks great, except for the hands which are in need of some love.
I love the martian, but in this case, his arms and legs need some simplification (they take away attention from the body and head, where the main focus should be)

All of them are in desperate need of texturing.

I can’t wait to play with the characters! Little fella looks much better now, and Newfella and Blockman are very promising. Bring 'em on! :wink:

Thanks guys,

I don’t have a visible update for you, but I’m working on a few things. One of them is the manual for MTI_littlefella. To me, and most likely to regular visitors of blenderartists.org, the rig is so straightforward that it doesn’t really need a manual. just select, grab and pose…
It’s not true though… some of the mails I receive every now and then touch on exactly these basic things, mostly beginners, not lazy people, but people who don’t know where to start looking, and don’t know anything about blender or 3D in general yet… They are looking for a character to animate to make a small movie look nicer or something, and that’s how they find blender.
And they’re afraid they might break stuff if they press a wrong button… A good to-the-point manual is VERY useful for them.
The rig is done, but I have to finish the manual… and MAN is it boring…

@ stvndysn: What do you mean with “what does he do at his belly”?

@ ben: Thank you, your thread and work are rather motivating. I’m glad you like it, but I still have a long way to go :slight_smile:

@ ristesekuloski: true, I neglected the hands/feet, they still have to be done, for both the human and monster. I don’t really follow what you mean for the martian.
And yes you are right, I should start to learn more about texturing and shading, but there is soo much more I can do before I get to that point…
My first blender project to finish right now is MTI_littlefella… then comes MTI_biped… texturing and all that will have to wait.

Re: the martian - I feel that his legs and arms have too much details and musculature and that diverts the attention form the body and head… aaaand, martians are supposed to have weak limbs and strong brain (some preconceptions are hard to get over with :wink: )

Hey guys, Thanks Ritsekuloski. I didn’t think of it that way. I actually like the muscular legs, since I don’t see martians as weak physically, I like the idea of athletic and nimble characters. If you are intelligent, you won’t neglect to train your body. So they will be strong and agile.
I might do a “cartoon” version that is closer to your vision… like I don’t have enough projects to finish :stuck_out_tongue:

Update. One thing really, because I call this finished:
MTI_littlefella, character rig for blender 2.49b.
Download him at my site here.
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9604/mtilittlefellasplash.jpg

I think it’s a massive improvement from the previous version. The only “downside” is that it no longer has shapekeys, so no phonem sounds. But if you need them you can pose the lips and create a pose library or something. maybe I’ll do that for newfella on blender 2.5.

I’m also porting this rig for another project, materia. I have been too busy to finish that one, but I should get to that soon.

Thanks for the little guy! Very cute character with lots of appeal. I would love to see him animated…

hey guys, been a while. Still backpacking, but got some time to work on this, stickman V4. Almost finished. Some nice new features, smoother deformations, bendy/stretch in both FK and IK and everything works nicely together. And on top of that you still have all the little free-stretch cubes that are in the old version.

Internet connection here is bad, but maybe I’ll upload a feature vid soon.
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6383/mtistickmanv4wip06.jpg

And something in between:
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/9518/pulauwehfun01.jpg

Youtube vid of some new features. Redid the stretch system inbetween because the constraints were fighting with each other. It’s much cleaner now and actually allows (and needs) some more flexibility.

Hey guys, it’s been a while.
I have an update on MTI_biped/MTI_newfella. I finished the facial rig, and made another version with 5 fingers, so that I would have one version which would have all the features of my “default rig” that I have been building.

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/9739/mtinewfellawip07.png

As for MTI_stickmanV4, and this and future character rigs as well, I don’t think I’ll be releasing them anymore. I started MTI_stickmanV4 because I was supposed to get paid for it. Didn’t happen, and my client is not responding anymore. It takes a lot of time and effort to create stuff like this, and the effort is disproportionate compared to what I get back from it. This has happened more than once, so I don’t think I’ll be releasing my stuff anymore.
For those of you who were waiting for these rigs: sorry guys, but you have to understand…

is this with image bump or proc texture bumps?
looking nice

happy cycles