Hi everyone!
These will be the concepts that I will be attempting to modify with AI. These are the initial concepts that we (my wife and I) shortlisted from several others on Artstation. And I thought of combining them into a story driven narrative, just like my previous year’s attempt.
These are stylized concepts that I will be modifying to fit into a realistic realm. I did some initial tests with gemini with a basic prompt ‘create a realistic version of this image’
Next onto Headshot 3. Having used Headshot 2, I can confidently say in the newer version, the image mode seems to be much more accurate in getting the contours and landmarks of the face quite accurately.
Previously it used to get issues on the lip seam and eyelids, but with v3 it seems to have nailed them in first go. I will be playing next with the morph sliders to get the face looking right in areas that don’t match.
Made some progress with the head shape inside zbrush matching the head with spotlight and getting the primary forms down. Had to add the quick glasses and hair blockout to get an idea of the overall facial proportions.
Couldn’t work much last week but here’s some progress with the bottom layer of the clothing. Will be ripping off the bottoms later on after it has been retopologized.
Some initial clothing blockouts from Marvelous Designer. Think that’ll be it in terms of what I’ll be using MD for as the thicker felt like leaves don’t really need any wrinkles and I can handle that with manual sculpts.
Ripped off the pants like the concept below the knee in Zbrush by masking the high poly mesh and deleting it. Will be retopoing the ripped areas again but the upper portion will be kept intact.
I understand what you mean, but I did get the both the original author’s permission to modify their brilliant artworks and take it into a realistic style. If I didn’t get their permission I wouldn’t have pursued making this character at all.
I appreciate your opinion on using AI in 3D art, it’s a slipper slope, I agree. But I’m just treating it as a pinterest mood board on steroids, (I’m also using pinterest too btw ) to gather references and get inspiration.
Found this free flower texture from textures.com, and made it into a flower. This was probably my first try at making foliage from textures. Addressed it the same way I address making hair cards.
Planning on sculpting everything together when all the required meshes are ready in Zbrush. Will be aiming to add all the blockouts for the tons of props next. And belts at the end to connect everything together.
Mostly done with all the props on her. A few little buttons and misc props remain.
Here’s the progress so far. Almost all of it was poly modeled in Maya the traditional way.
Here’s how I made the scrolls base mesh. Drew a spiral curve, duplicated it twice to the length of the scroll. Lofted them together into a roll of paper. Did some adjustments with a lattice deformer to get the main proportions. Then another lattice to add some lumps and bumps on it. Then with a push and pull on the edges to get it uneven looking.
Here’s a little timelapse of how I tackled the various different belts. Using the PaintFX tool laid down some strokes to convert them to Curve. Simplified the curves with GSCurveTools to make the shaping easier. Then using the SweepMesh tool to extrude a belt along the curve.
The belts took a lot of time as I tried a few ways to tie them up together to be physically plausible. The layout in the concept and the AI references didn’t make much sense. But I’m happy with how they came out now.
Did some quick refinement to conform to the forms of the sculpt. Instead of giving him a full male body, thought it would fit a baby’s preset better. Although proportionally he’s close to what I want him to be. But oh boy he looks weird in a baby’s body and diaper!
Quick update on the body proportions with CC morphs. Looking less weird now. And just realized these creatures are called Mandrakes, so PlantGuy is now a Mandrake.
Found a free plant model on textures.com, I would’ve created the leaves on my own using the same technique as I did the flower on her sandals. But fortunately the leaves on the free model were something that matched well so I decided to use those after separating them out and placing them as per my requirement.
Decided on making the root/tendrils on his body with one of Maya’s legacy tool - PaintFX. It still surprises me how much of a valuable tool it still is. Here’s a timelapse of my process to make them:
After making the roots I scattered them onto the model by using spPaint3D tool in Maya. I’ll be using the tool again for generating all of the foliage on the girl and her surroundings later on.
A detail pass on the Mandrake. Hoping to do one more pass before the deadline if time permits. But I guess for a secondary character this would need to do for now.
(to be clear: creating reference images)
) to gather references and get inspiration.
