yay, finally was able to complete a full and decent character model. Lowpoly though, since I’m planning to put it in UT2k3. Still needs eyeballs, closing of nostrils, connection trousers <> shoes, smoothing groups (in milkshape3D).
it’s supposed to be Matthew Bellamy, frontman of the rockband Muse.
I’m gonna do my first UV-map/skin and animations on this model 
hope you like it!
C&C?
PS: is there any way to import smoothing groups in Blender? maybe with .obj or another format??
Very cool! I look forward to seeing him animated.
That’s a great piece of modeling. You have managed to put in a surprising amount of detail and subtlety in spite of the polygon limitations.
It should be good to see this model textured and animated.
Best of luck with that.
Made the hair different, so it’d look more like him. I think I’m gonna pick the last one, using alphamaps. What do you think?
they’re based upon this and other pics
in the photo he has a bit longer sideburns, but it looks cool anyway, so either way. %|
yes, I know, but the sideburns are gonna be skinned 
muse 
C&C
first off, I think the nose is a tad too big and teh eyes are a big too far apart, if that’s the only referance pic of the face you used I’d suggest you get some more pics to make his head look a bit more like it. also, I suggest you take a few polys from his head and put them into the shoulders and elbows as they don’t seem to have any good edgeloops. He seems to lean a bit too far back, you should put his feet back a little. overall the porportions are good.
As for the smoothing group thing, I KNOW >_<;; people don’t even know what it is XD. the game engine soooo needs this =(
no, not at all, that’s the basic refpic I used for the pink hairstyles… I’ve used very good other refs for the head, so I think his head proportions are quite right. You might be right about the eyes though.
you’re also right about the shoulders/feet. Ppl’ve already pointed that out on another forum. I’ll fix those things soon.
well, it’s been a long time I could give an update on this… simply because I haven’t had a lot of time to work on it, due to exams, holidays, etc.
but finally, I’ve managed to finish the UVmap and - considering it’s my first - I think it turned out pretty well. There’s lots of open space left, so I might add a guitar to it. This brings up a question: is it possible to hide certain groups in different gamemodes (normal <–> CTF skins)? This way I could hide the guitar in DM, but show the (team)coloured guitar in TDM/CTF/BombingRun…
that aside, what do you think of the UVmap? I probably won’t change this anymore, but any tips are useful for future projects
and what are the best tools to skin with? Airbrush, Dodge, Burn…?
thanks
Nice unwrap. Looks very clean. Did you test it with a numbered or checkerboard image to check for stretching? I would recommend it.
The 3 you mentioned, along with blur, smudge, erase, and every other tool you can think of in Photoshop. 
I use dodge and burn a lot, along with the smudge and blur tools.
BgDM
two 1204 maps? I think you should try and get all textures on one… It looks pretty good, I just think you unwraped the head in a strange way… since you only have the face once, and you wan’t to mirror the side of the face? I think the face map should be way bigger, and the clothing -way- smaller since the head is the most important part of the model, and it gives away most of the character… what tools did you use to unwrap it?
Is there a tute somewhere that shows how to do these unwraps? Every tute I’ve found is so basic as to be useless for advanced texture mapping. I’ve seen some people mention doing some of the work in Wings. I’d like to find a way in Blender, even if it’s with a python script.
yes, I’ve used the checkers pattern, and it looks good
it’s UVmapped with Lithunwrap (downloadable here: http://www.filefront.com/r.b/page__file_info/filepath_/serioussam/general/tools/lithunwrap_setup.zip/_output.html). As tutorial I’ve used the lowpoly zombie tutorial on http://www.psionic3d.co.uk.
if you want a tutorial for blender, I found this one to be quite good: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/jmandmc/uvtut/uvtut.html
the reason for the two 1024² maps, the weird headunwrapping and the small face is because it is meant for UT2003. The face will mostly be seen from a distance, 1024² is very common for UT2003, and so is the way of unwrapping the head. It saves valuable UVmap space, whilst making sure the face isn’t symmetrical.
thanks for the comments… more?
shouldn’t you have the side of his nose in the texture wrap? just remove it from the middle of his face, and have the side mesh, allowing for unstretched mapping?