[BWC 2010] 'Angelika' by REiKo Rhoemer (NUDITY)

!!! WARNING for children and dragons from Kansas :wink: - This thread contains and will contain nudity (mostly 3D) !!!

Hi.

I want to post some progress on my entry for Blender World Cup 2010 contest. My speciality is character design, so I am starting with a character (which will be ‘focus point’ of the final composition). Then I will find some cool pose and composition for the BWC 2010 theme ‘Larger than Life’. And finally I hope I will also find a way to emulate ‘Stop Motion’ theme look to the render.

Right now I am not sure which renderer I will use. I would like to do the rendering with LuxRender (I have been testing it for over a half month and was very kindly surprised) - the renders look really realistic and the way it renders textures is so different than Blender Internal (2.49b). In the other hand with Blender Internal I can fake a lot of things and I can also work efficiently with render layers and composition nodes. It seems that LuxRender don’t know Blender’s SSS shading option and I can’t also make particles render with LuxRender (anyway I don’t want to make hair with particles). I will do some test after modelling and texturing phase.

I was also playing with Indigo Renderer (free version) which is sponsoring the contest and was disappointed with it - there was a lot of crashes and compatibility issues, so I had to banish it as a rendering option. Maybe I could play with it longer, but LuxRender made me choose itself :).

The character name is Angelika. She is a female :O. I plan to leave some nudity on the final image, so I want to make body topology right. I will post my concept images when I buy a scanner. I don’t want to model her too much realistic - want to try some stilized approach.

The costume will be sci-fi based and she will be also fully armed :slight_smile: - this time I will not arm my girl with a huge sword like I did with Europa last year. I plan to model Mateba 6 revolver, futuristic katana-like sword like Raiden’s in upcoming Metal Gear Rising game for close combat and maybe modified SVD Dragunov sniping rifle (depending on scene).

I spent a lot of time finding reference pictures, so I hope I will keep everything in proportion :).

So here are some screens from my modelling process. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICS are welcome (especially body topology, don’t care about the material right now).

Head (finalised)




Polygonal eyelashes

Body (sofar)



And some renders (Blender Internal)



You have a nice looking girl there.

I think the eyes look a little bit wrong somehow. It’s hard to figure out why though. Somehow they look flat compared to the nose and mouth. Maybe try adding a crease for the eye lid. And I like that you model the eye lashes, but I would do them longer, more dense and increasing in length from inner to outer rim.

I am looking forward to see your progress.

Thanks for comment - I will look at it. I may correct the eyes with a texture after I will finish modeling.

Here is a new screen:

Hand


Hmm, the hand looks very familiar…did you by any chance use this tutorial?

Yes, I did :D. I also found reference pictures on his website. I haven’t found better tutorial for hand modeling. The model looks good - I hope there will be no edge flow problems during rigging.

I also used tutorials for body modeling: link1, link2.

The head was made custom via reference pictures of an actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

hehe, thought so, cuz i followed the same tutorial, and i agree, i found it very simple to follow as well.
In case you are curious, here is my go at it http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=186653&page=2 (scroll down a bit to post 34 and 39)

And I see the resemblance of that actress you gave link to, in your model.

Nice hand model, DDD :).

New screens:








Some more:



Test render:



Attachments


wow, you did an amazing job with the modeling, incredible work!

although i think the rib cage could use a bit of work - currently it looks too high
I don’t remember where, but I heard that the rib cage forms a ~90 degree angle where the two sides meet in the front
if you google skeleton or rib cage, it also shows there’s a bit of an outward curve down the sides too

anyway, nice work :smiley:

Now I dont know anything about human proportions, but just from looking at your renders it seems to me that the chest(shoulder area really) should be bigger, or her buttocks should be smaller, I suggest finding a reference image of human body proportions and have that as a guide for the side of things while still doing that tutorial you gave a link to.

Oh and in your side render, her legs go at an angle, yes, i believe her back should curve as you made it, but after her buttocks the legs should go straight down, not angled, it looks like she is gunna fall any second :slight_smile:

Oh hair on the head would be nice. Bald models always look a bit freaky…

Otherwise she’s coming along rather nice!

Thanks for comments, guys. Its good to have someone else to look at the model with his eyes.
I have updated ribcage to fit reference pictures - i think that the top part of body should look now better. I also made some changes to edge loops.

DDD: I will fix the legs tomorrow as I will bind it with foot. And hair will come after texturing :).

Updated body (with edge flow):



Test render:


Foot:



Here are links to foot modeling tutorials I used: link1, link2.

She’s looking great! Love the style. I just had a couple of thoughts on the ribcage area, at the moment the transition is looking a bit pronounced and slightly square, it could maybe be made slightly softer. Also you might consider filling it out at the back a little and bringing down the sides just slightly, though with the style you have that’s perhaps more of an aesthetic choice.

Here’s a paintover showing what I mean:


Also, have you given any thoughts to facial hair/headgear?

Hi, ben.
Thanks for paintover. The hair and other things will come after body modeling phase - I have everything on paper :).

I edited ribcage and added foot - I will do some tweaks to topology, but I think it is done now.

Here is real-time video from BGE: >> http://vimeo.com/13186108 <<.

LOL, I like ben’s hair/headgear suggestion :slight_smile:

Yeah - I think next year I will ask ben for concept art :D.

Update:

So I did textures and spent a lot of time doing hair. I decided to do it with particle system, so the final render will be done with Blender Internal.

For render speedup I made the hair with ‘Strand render’ option. This really really speeds up the render, but it also make it ‘invisible’ for ray-tracing and it also does not cast shadows. So I modeled a lowpoly mesh with form of the hair and I added material with ‘OnlyCast’ option. This way you can fake at least the shadows (shadows are not correct, but I think it looks good).

I will do some tweaks to hair because the particles are very ‘wild’. Anyway is there a possibility to make the hair strands to collide with each other? Because the waves are going through themselves and doesn’t look good :/.

Test render:


I will post nicer renders as I will finish rigging of the model.

that pretty good I like you style, you got your own thing going there

very nice, i’ll keep an eye on this thread!

I am spending awful time with rigging/skinning. I would like to use the model in different poses. So I want it to be fully move-able.

The most problematic body parts are arm/shoulder and leg/crotch. In hellish hot weather which rules here in Middle Europe these days I feel like Frodo Baggins carrying Sauron’s ring to Mount Doom :D.