Hi, guys. After a few weeks have passed, I finally completed my character design and I thought I would share it with you guys. So, here it is :
To put it simply, I’m bad at rigging. As you can see, the deform in her finger and hand. Look at that, suddenly her hand become so broad. The reason I do a half body shot is because the rigging problem. The deform around her leg is terrible. I’m also bad at texturing. I don’t know how to paint a texture, so I can only do procedural texturing ( a simple one though). So, as I am bad at texturing, I decided to make a grayscale image (not completely grayscale, some of it has color).
This model actually has gone a few redesigning concept. At first, I was thinking of making a typical slim asian character, but after I finished the character and proceeded to cloth modeling, the character looked a little bit fat and her shoulders looked so manly with the cloths on .
And I redesigned it again, this time with the concept of tropical girl with a swimsuit. But again, the character just looked off. Probabbly, because I didn’t get enough photo references. Because the second time I redesigned it, the image in my head was a bit blurry. And also, I had problem with cloth. The cloth didn’t deform correctly, because I had the wrong workflow all this time.
So, basically my workflow in character modeling was this :
- I would create an A pose character.
- Import the character to MD and create the cloth.
- Cloth retopology.
- I would rig the character with the cloth, so when I pose the character, the cloth would follow.
Rest are texturing and character detail and render.
At that time, I didn’t realize that it was for a production-ready workflow. I didn’t have a clear vision on my outcome which is to create a still shot. So, after that my workflow change to this :
- I would create an A pose character.
- I would rig the character and pose it.
- Import the character to MD and create the cloth.
Rest are texturing and character detail and render.
After that experience, I redesigned it again to make this character modeling easier because by now, 2 weeks have passed and I still haven’t produce a result.
This time, I designed the concept with the problems in mind and I set myself a rule, which are :
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No cloth, or at least no need for the cloth to be rigged. Just cloth simulation.
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Grayscale image (because at first I was planning to texture the whole thing) or grayscale with a little bit color.
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Gather enough references and have a clear image of how I want it to be.
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Plan the pose, the detail, the hairstyle, and lighting.
And the next week (which is today), I finally completed this character design (as simple as it is, at least I completed it and I can move on to the next). This model also run through some issues in rendering. As you can see on her hair, the glossy doesn’t reflect really well and I don’t know why. I just set up the glossy to 12 in the light paths panel, because I thought the higher the value is the better the result would be, but it turns out like that. The top hair reflection is good, but the side hair reflection is not so good. I was also struggling with lighting, because I’ve never done a proper 3 point lighting. Normally, when I lit a scene, I’d just put a sunlight and everything is lit.
Anyway, this has been my journey in creating this model. Any feedback is appreciated. Hope you like it!