I made this exact same expression that time when I stepped on a slug barefooted.
7 Likes
Thanks, it’s nice to hear) The hands are always a source of much anxiety 
When I’m watching poly-modeling tutorials or following WiP threads it always blows my mind. How? What’s going on? What is this magic?
When I’m trying to do the same things it just turns out broken, and weirdly angular, and looking funny… And it’s a pain to handle vertices free-floating like that, without a surface to shrinkwrap them on…
Now I won’t be able to look at this model without laughing) Or crying…
4 Likes
Don’t worry you’ve ‘nailed’ them!
(Every pun intended)
2 Likes
Nothing really new here, but an attempt to define a set of goals.
The idea is to finish an old WiP - last time I got too frustrated with it trying to adjust facial features, figuring out proportions and how to model/sculpt clothes… I feel bad for abandoning him for so long.
In practice I would have to start almost from the beginning.
Focus 1: Head.
This one is of the biggest importance right now. The goal is stylized animation-ready head with higher expression range than what I usually end up with. I need it to be:
- Appealing
- Supporting “extreme” deformations for full smile, deep frown, etc…
For this purpose I’ll work on it separately from the rest of the character until I figure it out from sculpt to temporary lowpoly.
Appeal is a tough one. I’ve been scrolling through Pinterest for a while now trying to understand what makes certain faces better than others, testing on paper. No conclusive results so far. Critique from WiP thread has very good points (…that I tried to implement, but without much success at the time).
Topology probably requires adding “eyebrow-loops” compared to my usual setup. Think Warcraft’s manly (orcish) brows. Needs confirming though.
Focus 2: Hair.
It’s going to be sculpted/modeled with curves (for all characters in a set). I needed to explicitly choose one approach because I’m always torn between this and haircards. I spend too much time being indecisive about it, instead of polishing one solution. I love using haircards, but in this case they won’t work… or rather I won’t be able to make them work consistently across multiple characters, so I won’t be bothering with them for now.
Focus 3: Body and clothes.
Proportions will depend on how the head turn out. Clothes need to be re-designed for new circumstances. It’ll wait though.
Focus 0: Getting things done.
Stop obsessing over how everything’s systematically NOT working out. Better to draw something bad than not anything at all.
Expression over precision.
And if need be: appeal over common sense. 
8 Likes
Love the breakdown, the goal-setting and the focused approach. Just deciding for systems and techniques and working in between those “limitations” has always been the most creative and succesful path for me. Your post is very motivating, I’m excited to see your updates 
4 Likes
This is an insanely complicated subject, made worse by the fact that there’s no real consensus, everyone has a different opinion about it. One thing I’ve seen a few studies on is that generally speaking, symmetrical facial features contribute to a sense of “attractiveness”. People with more symmetrical faces generally are ranked more “attractive” than others.
Beyond that… I don’t think there’s anything out there but pseudo-science. Attractiveness is heavily based on culture; right now, it’s popular for young female celebrities to get their buccal fat removed, giving them gaunt cheeks and sharp cheekbones. (It seems like they’re trying to look like Taylor Swift, maybe, who has a low amount of buccal fat naturally(?)1). I don’t like it at all, personally, the female celebrities I’ve always found attractive have much fuller cheeks, but it’s the “thing”.
Generally, my guideline for making “attractive” characters is… do I find them attractive? If so, that’s good enough for me I’ll usually get my wife to weigh in on male characters since my personal taste in men seems to be far from universal, but yeah, I gave up worrying about what “attractive” means a long time ago. You’ll never make everyone happy but I think you can reasonably assume if you find your character attractive, other people will as well 
1 I don’t know anything about current beauty or any given celebrity at all, I should clarify. You’re hearing my wife talking, magically, through my keyboard, like ventroliquism 
4 Likes
I’ve been thinking less in terms of “realistic attractiveness” and more of “attractive stylization”: which lines on the face to include, what shapes to use, what to smooth out, where to leave a mere suggestion of a feature…? And how to make sure that the character still looks roughly his supposed age and gender.
Sure this too is very subjective. There are some patterns though. I’ve been looking at character art that I find pretty (Pinterest keeps throwing various images of McCree from Overwatch at me… I don’t mind), even tracing some to understand their construction/proportions better.
For sculpting this one, I’d probably have to completely reduce him to basic shapes first and experiment 
Heh, putting some lines down is already better than a blank page Stops me from (mentally) running around in panic.
5 Likes
The topic in general is extremely interesting. I often tend to think that we subconsciously see other people like animals see other animals. Of course the cultural aspect is important, too, but when I think of predators and their placement of eyes in comparison to herbivores I get the feeling I can find those similiarities in faces or shapes, too.
Thats how I view character design, asking myself what type of person I want to portray, what are the traits etc, and then just thinking about the character like I would think of a creature.
A funny thought and maybe I’m completely nuts, but I do think that characters with wide set eyes (wide apart) seem to me more like herbivores than characters with eyes closer to each other, like a Lion would. The character instantly then gives of a different vibe, same with posture and proportions.
(Excuse my strange english here)
3 Likes
This is an interesting thought! Certainly something to keep in mind when designing a face structure.
So what I’ve tried is to start from a stylized random animal and gradually move features back to human. I need to remember to push stylization more. I think it might be worth exploring this exercise further: if nothing else it shifts perception a little from “features” to “shapes”.
9 Likes
Intermediate retopology meant to define certain “construction lines” (which are beveled before subdivision) - don’t take it seriously.
9 Likes
That is an interesting idea, many faces do resemble certain animals and that does give them “personality”
One thing I do notice (sorry to dive in and nit-pick) is that your foreheads are often very short.
This is a thing that happens to me when I try to sculpt and draw heads, I think I work so hard at on the face that the cranium gets smaller than it should be, As if subconsciously I give it little importance.
Also (I did not do this in the example) there should be more distance from the ear to the back of the head, as I say this happens to me all the time and I end up having to enlarge the cranium at the end.
5 Likes
I appreciate your nit-picking very much - after a while it’s easy to stop seeing certain issues
It seems to be a quite recent quirk too (maybe) - I don’t think it was this way before I’ll try to look out for it.
Fun with shapes:
11 Likes
I have started a sketchbook of my own, so you can see that I am no expert in character creation 
You have some really good characters here.
3 Likes
Art is hard 
I’m stumbling blindly here: not sure how to go about giving him more… character? How to add some sense of “manliness” but without facial hair (yet)? Does he even needs it?
He’s starting to look very generic to me
10 Likes
I think lighting and shading will go a long way here- your last sketch has strong shadows that define the shape of the nose nicely (and very masculinely). I would try to replicate the lighting in that sketch
2 Likes
I like the black and white hair in the first concept image. Coloring the hair might help add to the character identity.
2 Likes
Don’t think he needs more “manliness”; he looks quite definitely like a man.
As to the “generic” feel – I think it’s something around the eyes. In the top sketch his cheekbones and eyes rise, maybe a little exaggeratedly so, but it gives him quite a distinct look. I don’t feel the same from the 3D version.
5 Likes
Temporary topology, texture and hair… well, everything is temporary.
I’m hesitant to add too much contrast to his hair, per @Charles_Weaver suggestion… because I do that too often. Even my own hair naturally getting grey like this since I was a kid (thanks, genetics)
But taking into account @piranha4D’s reply, I’ve sharpened cheekbones a bit.
And the rest is - in theory - up to the texturing and lighting. Probably. Man, this is difficult.
Need to gather better references for this, but I have no patience to browse a bunch of pictures Also need to iterate faster -__- this is taking forever.
12 Likes
I know you already know this, but it’s good for us all to hear it from time to time: unless someone is paying you, you don’t have any deadlines to meet Give yourself grace and let yourself take as long as it takes to get things right, stressing about how long things are taking just isn’t worth it
6 Likes
It’s a kind thing to say and I thank you for it
There is however a point when one just has to push through it somehow. Right now I’m in a such state of constant avoidance that it’s almost physically painful to start performing a task. I can’t even bring myself to launch a game I wanted to play a long time. And when I pick up a pencil or launch Blender my mind starts drifting almost immediately I have to get this going for sanity’s sake.
Added this odd nose-eye loop. It felt like it would help define lines/planes in that area.
Looks like it’s time for second (third?) iteration of sculpting, but I’m not yet sure what I learned here.
10 Likes