I’ve been working on this for a few hours, and I thought it might be a good idea to get some feedback on it. This is my first (successful) attempt at a character. Here’s a test render (materials are only temporary).
It obviously needs feet and some further tweaking, but I’m rather pleased with how it’s turning out.
Here are some wires:
I’m hoping to rig the little fella so it would be good to get some feedback on my edge flow etc. There are a couple of 6-sided poles on top of the beak which I hear are bad for animating, but I’m having trouble removing them. Would they cause an issue in their current position?
I’m also not sure about the shape of the wings. They sort of seem too uniform. I dunno, I’ll continue playing with it and see what I get.
just start animating stuff for practice.
you will learn from trial and error more than you will learn from other people’s maxims.
the “poles” are just a general term and should be taken lightly.
there are some assholes who will tell you to be a perfect modeler before you animate.
I disagree with them, I think it is very important to lean a bit about animation before you are a “modeling master”.
after you learn a bit about animation, it will all make sense.
I wasted way too much time trying to be a perfect modeler , most of the shit I learned from other artists was total overkill in most senses.
now you know a bit about modeling, jump in , and try a bit of animating for yourself.
you wont need a tutor for modeling after this, it will all be very obvious to you what you do and don’t need.
mmph! sorry if it seems as though i’m intruding, but please dim down the swearing.
there are many types of ‘perfect models’. a low poly game char that is textured to boot can be a perfect model, or chicken run’s chickens with teeth and multicoloured featherless bodies can be a perfect model.
what i define to be a perfect model for this little guy should be cartoony, stylized, and relatively low vertex count. yes, for an animation, don’t stuff in vertices everywhere you can and abuse loop cuts for massive detail, just keep it simple. i think what you’ve got there is a pretty good start, you just need to tweak the shape a little. as for the wings, they need to be a lot thinner, and more angular shaped. here, go to page one of my ThoughtScore proejct (link in my signature) and scroll down until you find my penguin model, it also includes a reference picture so it might help you a lot. the beak should also be curved more, not straight. oh, did i forget? interesting legs
Thanks for the replies!!! @Mmph!: I definitely agree that the best way to learn things is often to just dive in and practice practice practice. That’s how I’ve learnt a lot of what I have so far. However, I felt that it would be a good idea to get some feedback anyway just to make sure I was on the right track. Thanks for your input!
@noidtluom: “Cartoony, stylized and low poly” yep that’s pretty much what I’ve been going for so I’m glad to see it’s coming through. Thanks for your suggestions! Looking at it now the wings do look a lot like logs lol. FAR too thick. One question: when you say the beak should be more curved, do you mean outwards (convex) or inwards (concave)?
Here’s a minor update - added feet and changed the wings slightly (may still need more adjusting).
For the eyelids I created them as separate meshes as I couldn’t get it to look right having them joined to the main mesh. I’m quite happy with how they turned out. There are lower lids for use in certain expressions, but they are rotated inside the head in these renders.
Now its time for another installment of drumroll UPDATE!
I’ve started texturing. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
Suggestions? Improvements?..
One question though: Is it possible to make the transition between the black and white parts blend to be less sharp? They’re separate materials and separate faces so I can’t imagine it being easy (if even possible), but I thought I might as well ask anyway.
Here are a couple of different colour schemes (sounds like I’m decorating a room ;)):
