Good thing I have to stick to the reference, or I would’ve been tempted to paint shaved head - I’m kind of used to this look now. Or modeled messy “bob” hairstyle …maybe I will make variations later, should be easy enough.
It’s not the final model. Gives me a retro vibe somehow. Though maybe there’s something to it. But it doesn’t work for me just yet:
Looks great! Hair really changes everything, doesn’t it. The vibe’s really different now. Funny how brains work 
Right? It usually makes head sculpting sooo difficult, everything just looks alien. And then you finally get to the hair part and the result comes as a surprise 
Though I’m not complaining at this point - some things turn out better than expected.
It’s easier to model hair in layers, from back and moving up. Easier to edit later too.
Only issue: in the end I don’t think I can blend the hairline any better 
In most of my previous models I could just hide it.
At first I though about falling back to more casual style, with long bangs on sides (the only references I got out of google/Pinterest searches). But this looks more fun, reminds me of Queen of Blades a little.
“Curved” haircards will stay in the backup file, and since hair is practically a “customization”, I can change it at any time. From experience, if I move on now I probably won’t go back to it… but the option is there.
So, final, I guess…?
Variation for fun:
Could it be? Is it the time for the final push? Only rigging’s left on the list 
…I feel like I may have forgotten something… 
This hair looks truly incredible. Jaw-dropping, even. Thanks for showing your layering process- I’ve often struggled with it myself, and I’m realizing now I’ve been doing it completely wrong 
Weight painting is, well, a pain. This is the moment where all the topology mistakes (that weren’t obvious during baking/texturing) come back for revenge. Ah well, too late to regret anything
If I did anything right with topology it’s the “scapula loop”. Which in this project is hidden under leather and hair, errr… But it’s still a win!
There are still some weight issues with the jacket, but the main skeleton is defined (only jaw bone in the face for now).
The painting process:
);Next step is rigging mechanism.
Oh, that scalpula loop is nice!!! Hmmm… looking askance at my WIP basemesh… yeah, I need to remesh the back 
any chance you could post a still image of the topology there? I get the general idea, it’s just tricky extracting that kind of info from a GIF
Bit late to the party, but just wanted to say that this is some excellent work! 
Thank you! 
A thing I learned in previous model: the final armature does not have to be the same as “weighting” armature. I’ve mentioned it before regarding extra bones in “pelvis” and “chest” area. Another one is the “hand”. Even if bones inside are not going to be used, they are useful to get reasonably good autoweights: otherwise each finger will get a share of “hand” weights that will need to be painted out. Never doing this again
It’s a bit of a pain to merge groups afterwards (delete “extra” groups > disable all groups but the one you merge to > fill in the normalized weight), but worth it, imo.
I don’t really need these bones, so I got rid of them:
Something I’ve been struggling with the most is “helper” cloth bones. At first, I thought I won’t need them at all - the jacket is short after all. But without them the stretching is too terrible.
I strongly suspect there’s still something wrong with the constraints that control them - had to tweak axes and values so often I might’ve broken something that worked before and hadn’t noticed yet. They won’t let the cloth slide around the form or anything like that, but maybe at least fake cloth deformation a little.
Hair bones allow only minimum control (it was more of an afterthought really) - the extra bones move and curve the back hair mass up/sideways a bit. Not much though, because the mesh won’t really allow it anyway.
Yet another lesson from an older model, which I forgot (because my last two rigged models were so non-human they simply didn’t have this problem): joints of the rest pose should be bent at least slightly. Two reasons:
Of course, I forgot about this completely 
So I posed the character with elbows bent. Then applied armature mod to the model, and “Pose as Rest Pose” to the armature. Had to make sure that all rig bones are properly aligned in the new pose (wouldn’t be a problem at all if I did that before IK’s and all that). Then edited the elbow shape (as a shapekey at first, just to be safe).
Corrective shapekeys might still be needed, but in their absence it improves joints… somewhat.
That’s 75 deformation bones. Of those: 4 are for cloth, 9 - hair, 3 - eyes and jaw, 6 - twist bones.
I think I will do the face with shapekeys (there’s not much potential for expression with this lady anyway)… though that might change if I fail to find a way to control the eyelashes
Wow, what dynamic poses! Character looks a lot more lively now 
Ok, I figured how to deform the eyelashes with shapekeys. It’s messy but I only need 6 shapes for eyes.
First, it’s easier to work with a temporary face mesh. Or even better: only half of the face. And for lashes use a simplified polygon strip (just extruded from eyelids). It will be source of Surface Deform for the copy of actual lashes mesh.
It only works because there’s not that many shapes to do. I’m sure a better less destructive way can be found.
Then drive some keys from “eye_direction” bone of the Armature:
This is the part I don’t know much about.
To finish the model I want to add:
Once that is done I can call the whole thing finished.
Of course, I don’t know anything about animation. Don’t expect it to be any good, but since I have a rig now would be a shame not to try something. I’ve no idea what I’m doing - neither with the interface, nor basic principles of animation - but I’m getting somewhere…
Also I don’t usually do hard surface… and now I’m paying for neglecting it as I try recreating this classic Enforcer from '99 Probably one of my favourite gaming pistols ever.
Sooo close now… The hardest part is to accept that, no, I can’t possibly finish it over the weekend: there’s one or two other simple props, maybe an additional texture, lots of tweaking with this and that, exporting (which never goes right on the first try)…
…eh, but it will be such a pain to do it all on work days 
Mm that pistol looks good by itself and in her hands as well
Thank you!) I’m kicking myself for making such a rushed job out of it, but on the other hand I’m pleased with making something I’m not used to.
I just wish I thought of putting it in her hand before finishing highpoly and realizing that it doesn’t quite fit only after texturing
I had to really search for where it didn’t fit, so while I know it’s annoying as a creator, I don’t think it’s a problem for the viewer; it doesn’t even register.
You’re right. Though I had to meditate on that for a bit. It’s difficult to say what’s important and what won’t be ever noticed when you’re in the process. I tend to get hyperfocused on some things and miss completely on the others. But I suppose the ability to see as a viewer is an acquired skill 
Did that just happened? I think I’ve checked every item on my list.
Some things turned out worse, but some so much better than expected. A few ideas had to be scrapped when it became apparent that they won’t work as envisioned. It’s not necessarily bad, because other ideas occurred in the process. Well, art would be boring without the element of surprise
Process overview:
I even added some widgets to the rig (it would be impossible to manage otherwise):
Strangely enough, it’s the texturing process that caused the most pain. 4k multilayered PBR is… a bit too much. It’s very difficult to manage, the nodes get tangled, and it has to be baked down every couple of layers. Destructive and a bit laggy. Ouch.
And yes, as expected, export/import (with idle animation) to Sketchfab was a huge pain. Also I think I still messed up Color Spaces of some maps. Again
I’ve been meaning to attach a reference image of the original character but kept forgetting 
It took a while to launch the game to take a proper screenshot though - system compatibility is sadly lost - it goes a little crazy.
Safe to say this fanart is… approximate? Something like “draw it in your own style”.
But it is done. Woohoo! Thank you, everyone, for keeping me company and visiting! Pretty sure I’d given up somewhere half-way through it without your support <3
Yay, done! Congratulations!
She looks great! And so much better than the original (this is really kinda unfair to the original, since the game is “so old”)(I am still constantly flabbergasted how much game graphics have improved in just a decade).
Thank you!)
Hehe, you mean two decades =D Gosh, it should make me feel old, but somehow it doesn’t.
This is one of those games that really holds up with time in my eyes. I mean, sure, it’s old but it’s still perfectly playable (provided you can run it): with its iconic environments, clever bots (still one of the smartest) and smooth gameplay, it easily taps into imagination making the player fill in the details.
