This is pretty much my first attempt at a high-poly character that is animation ready. He’s the main character to a movie I want to make and this would be something like the looks of the first scene except his hat would be down over his eyes for the first part. I wasnt going for photo realism here but instead a more cartoony feel (as stated in the topic) and I’m trying to avoid subsurf so I can render animations as quickly as I can on my computer.
C&C please.
i think it works for what you are trying to achieve. i immediately thought of the character from the detective novel "City of Glass " by Paul Auster. it is illustrated in a simple stylized way by David Mazzucheli.
personally, i think you could do a little more with the simple style. rough polygons work very well for angular features as well. it would only require shifting a few vertices to turn down the brim of his hat for instance.
looking forward to seeing how this progresses. good work so far. 
jim ww
I hadn’t seen this detective before but i looked it up and i agree that mine looks quite like it. I guess thats good because I have created a character that looks like a detective.
For comparison, here is a example of Mazzucheli’s drawings and an old concept drawing for my character (dont make fun of my drawing, drawing is not my strong point).
My character has changed much since the original concept mostly because I planned to make a movie with this character way before I even knew about Blender. He wouldnt look right if I made him the way I drew him.
Anyway heres a bit of an update:
He certainly caught – and held – my attention. There is definitely a surreal quality to him, to the fact that he is basically translucent. The top-down lighting accents this even further. You could really have a lot of artistic fun with this guy as the start of a film noir type of piece. I’ll like to see it.
I think he needs alot of work. His neck is too fat, his hat looks like a cheesy VOTE FOR ME kind like you would se in the old movies. His body looks way too square, and unless the movie is going to take place in a sewer I would show a full render with lights. His nose could also use some work, and you gave him ears that are way to far up on his head. His mouth looks too square also. Animating facial expressions would be a real task.
I would look at Calvins old lady head to get a good idea on toon type heads, he did a good job with all the facial features, making it easy to add expressions.
Thanks for your comments.
Thats just the feeling I’m going for in this intitial scene. I plan to grab the audiance’s attention right at the begining. However the movie as a whole will not be very film noir at all but may involve some elements of it. I might even make a short animation with him in that style.
thanks for the crits but I think most of what I have will be kept. It’s my style of modeling for this project so it will be unique. Besides I’m still pretty much a newb when it comes to doing this kind of modeling. I will work on the mouth though if I can. I believe the ears are positioned correctly relitive to his eyes which are a bit high (but which cartoons character’s eyes aren’t?). The neck seems to be in the right proportion but I realize it looks a bit weird.
Anyway heres a full light render for you, but I think it really kills the effect I’m trying to acheive.
Well, I stopped work on this guy for a while to better my modeling skills. Now I’ve worked on him some more, subsurfing to smooth out his squareness and fixing the mouth and the nose.
Can you post a wireframe of his face? The loops are most important for easy animating, especially around the mouth if you plan to make him speak.
Does he have eyelids? Blinking adds a subtle sense of character (even with real actors where fast blinking signifies weakness and rarely blinking shows strength). I think if you watch a few cartoons, traditional or 3D, you’ll notice they usually blink.