'Red Ring' Rico Tyrell

Artwork Works in Progress
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Her real name is Rico Tyrell, the daughter of Colin Tyrell, principal of the Pioneer 2 starship. As a scientist, she held several doctoral degrees in science and linguistics. As a person, she was loved by the people and affectionately nicknamed “Red Ring Rico” due to the special red armband she wore.

Hey guys It’s been a long time since i’ve done some personal artwork, I’d like to share with you my progress of this character project. After Orange I continued CG work here in my homeland. I’m having a break from work over the holiday peroid, and decided I might start a showreel. I needed to start new projects ofcourse, since all my personal works are latest 2004 really.

My reference.

This is the character Rico Tyrell from the game Phantasy Star Online. It’s interesting as she is not seen in the game at all, and is dead at the start of the game. But the path she took you follow, and she leaves message capsules the whole way, so one becomes quite attatched as she reveals a lot about herself in these messages. She is a scientist but also a great hunter and pioneer in the world. I found her mysterious and imagined what she would be like as a fully realized character, so this is my impression of what she may have been like in life =)

The plans now are to create a secure rig, one that can for example; allow her legs to move freely under her skirt, without the skirt sticking and moving with the legs. I plan to rig her for Facial animation aswell, I’ll texture and then begin some acting and action tests with her.

And here is the model render before rigging.

Here are my working snaps…













Love to hear your thoughts! I’ll have info on rigging process, plus the characters sidekick ‘Mag’ and weapons which i’m also modelling.

Peace out!

ps. I can’t beleive I forgot to put this in: a BIG thankyou to all in #Blenderchat IRC channel for their support, encouragment and input on the character to this point!

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As I said on IRC, I think the boots at the ankle/calf area are a bit thick and bulky. Though that does seem to fit the character overall. They could be toned down a tad IMO.

Didn’t really notice this earlier, but the breasts seem to be off. Could be just the angle and the lighting playing tricks on my eyes though.

Beautifully modeled, as always man. Love your anime style.

BgDM

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Dead on. You captured that character perfectly, and actually made her a touch cuter. Really clean looking model, this is going to look great rigged and textured. The boobs look a bit lopsided in the render, but during most of the process look right. Could be the angle. I say go back to the original looseness of the coat underneath the boob, instead of the defined final version. Let gravity tug at it instead of a snug fit, like in wipcap020. She could be a bit slimmer in her lower legs, but for this style of character I agree with BgDM, it does work.

Hey, round boobs are great, but I think, with her face, she would definitely benefit from a more perkier style =P

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Wow momma. That’s one frickin huge wip. :stuck_out_tongue: I guess since it’s finished, there’s not a lot I can say except ‘nicely done’. That and PSO rules.

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It looks like you altered the face to an extent, lowering the cheek bone and nose. But its such a clean mix of a normal porpotioned face and the picture thats i think the model looks much better than the picture. More true to form. Thanks for sharing great stuff.

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I just noticed something. In the picture, she seems to have a slight over-bite. I dunno if it’s the angle, but I’m missing that.

…Still though, it isn’t like I could do any better. XD

1 Like
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jessegp: yeah when going 2D to 3D sometimes it won’t look right if copied exact, or it’s just not possible to get it looking exactly like reference, I did want to have a bit of a personal touch aswell, and not completely copy the concept artist of the character.

BgDM and Blengine: thankyou very much for the critique, you guys have always been great help in my projects to improve. i’ve tried to fix as much as possible and have updated the top picture with the changes =)

Thankyou for your replies and input, I’m going to sleep now, tomorrow i’ll model panties, and the sidekick =)

Peace out!

BlackBoe: I’m glad you like it =D the overbite is noted, I did an early texture test which found that it wasnt really a problem, at the moment i just have put a temp material group on the lips, its a bit innacurate and spreads further out the lip the the final ‘lips’ will, so if by texturing this is still a problem I’ll know something is up, will keep an eye on it, thanks for the input =)

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Great piece. You managed to get that “cute girl” anime look on it which is very nice. The hair is a bit messy at the back but it’s hard to tell if thats good or bad. Something I didn’t notice at first is her stockings and they look great.

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tef: Glad you like it =D I was hoping to get a CG anime style, It’s great to know you view it such. I agree the hair crown could use some work, when I begin texturing soon I’ll make sure its fixed up. Thanks for the heads up, i’ve got it marked.

ok just did this a few hours today, Rico’s Sidekick; a ‘Mag’. I don’t know the name of this one (there are many types in the Phantasy Star world), i just saw it on a pic for PSU and thought it was way cooler then PSO mags which i was origionally going to do. So i’ve just generally named him Mag.

My reference ( yeah not much to go on >_< but this mag looked so cute! =D )

http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_ref.jpg

http://www.leewj.com/diverblog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/mag_render.jpg

Wire…

http://www.leewj.com/diverblog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/mag_wipcap006.jpghttp://www.leewj.com/diverblog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/mag_wipcap005.jpg

And some more working snaps…

http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap009
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap010
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap011
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap012
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap013
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap014
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap015
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap016
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap017
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap018
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap019
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap020
http://www.leewj.com/misc/mag_wipcap021

Hmm, should i do texturing, rigging or model the weapons first? o_O oh well gotta make up my mind, updates soon

Peace out!

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I’m going to have you know it’s not fair that you can do that so fast. :stuck_out_tongue: Anyway, it looks great; j’4w3s0m3, even, would be the word I’m going for.

Anyway, I’m just falling for it out of pure nostalgia, so my perception of it will be biased, but I think this is insanely cool.

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I’m curious about your modeling technique. I see a single vertex doing some outline or something. Could you possibly describe your process? Please? :open_mouth:
Btw, both models look fantastic.

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Really great models, the anime look is spot on. The female model looks like straight out of a video game cut sequence. :wink: Thanks for sharing the workflow with us. :slight_smile:

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Great models, great render.
I would really like to see the lighting setup for the girl’s render. I am currently struggling with lighting and I very curious how do you do it.

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Wow… This really shows the power of the poly-to-poly modeling technique. Both those models are great! Could we see a complete wire of Rico? I just have to learn from this awesome modeling. Good luck with your project (you definitely DON’T need it)

-Alden

EDIT: Just realized that my fanboy posts aren’t going to help improve your model… I looked closer at the mag model and noticed that you could see the polylines on the back of its foot. Is this intended? That wrinkle on the leg looks like it’s going to give you some pain during skinning, too. Hope you’re as good at weight painting as you are modeling.

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BlackBoe: Thankyou for your support i’m honored =D really inspiring. I have great memories to PSO aswell, it was the first game i played online. since we never could afford very good computers when i was young, I would save and get consoles for my gaming needs. That feeling of first playing multiplayer RPG i’ve never forgotten, and I love the atmosphere of the PSO world, it would be a fantastic place to live on pioneer 2 ;). Whenever i hear the music I go all nostalgic hehe.

zanz: thankyou for the kind words =D.

To do with my crazy modelling style: The single vertex lines you are seeing are pretty much ‘3D traces’ or ‘3D sketch’, Rico’s working snaps show some but with the Mag since i had no side/front ref i had to use it a lot more.
It’s pretty much the alternative to box modelling a lot of people use, and a style of working i usually prefer. This method is where one will trace out, for example a peice of clothing, (keeping in mind how many vertices you will need so later you connect faces) in 2D, and then pushing each vertex outward to form a 3D outline which can help define shape early.
This is quite similar to box modelling mindset, where one will push and pull out the basic shape of the object early without too many polygons. With no faces attatched and some basic lines I can pre-plan which way i want edge loops to go (very handy for cloth folds and wrinkles which are very very tricky if the loops arnt right), and i have a lot of freedom to cut detatch/reattatch edges. When i’m happy I start connecting faces, adding more loops in or sub-dividing edges to create more vertices on a line in which i can connect faces how I like.

If you have anymore questions please ask =D I’ll be happy to help with anything you’d like to know.

skypa: thankyou! I think my mindset from the beginning was to create something that would appear to be a FMV (Full Motion Video; pre-rendered) version of the character. So to have this response is really great 8)

cipix: Heres a pic of 3D view port light setup just below. I must admit lighting really isnt my strong point, so I havnt done anything really complex, especially not node setup stuff for model test renders. Essentially the character materials are just the default Blender material when one is added with spec taken to zero, and slight changes in shade. I’ve got about 4 different shades in which i assign them to what will become different colours of the character, this helps me see a bit of how the colour coordination will work.

http://www.leewj.com/misc/light_cap001.jpg

Note: the area light is of high intensity, but the remedy is that the distance is lower and its further away, this only works with area lights, the further away and less distance vs intensity, the more of a wash-over effect i find it having.

Hope this explained it well enough, if you need any more info just give a shout.

Alden: Glad you like them, thanks for the compliments and thankyou for the well wishes!

Heres some wire shots: Click on image for bigger version.

I was actually thinking to post some but got a bit lazy haha… (BTW these are from a slightly updated and tweaked version of the character which will be included in next renders)

http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap001.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap002.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap003.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap004.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap005.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap006.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap007.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap008.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap009.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap010.jpg
http://www.leewj.com/misc/rico_wirecap011.jpg

Also very good points on the sidekick character mag. My hope is that seeing how the mag is made, only the parts disconnected from the body are supposed to move. I assume they are there just for visual effect and not actually useful since he flies =D So I may try and avoid him walking at all, just take off and land if it needs to, but if he does walk it will be a funny cute walk since he will just have rotating one-joint limbs =)

Thanks to all for their input and kind words, its all very helpful and inspiring =D I’ll post some more updates as soon as possible.

Peace out!

1 Like
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Yep great piece of work!

I use the same technic for hair.

Keep up the good work!

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LohnS: Great results for such a simple light setup. You really show us that “less is more” when talking about lighting and modeling.

Thanks

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Excelent work my friend, I really love the outfit, hair, and sunglasses, beautiful! I can’t wait to see this textured and rigged.

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Wow… Thank you for the insight on your modeling and for showing those wires! It’s great that you’re willing to take the time to show your methods while working on an advanced project like this. I learned some stuff from those wires (like the fact that poles don’t always end up looking crappy when subsurfed)

I typically avoid using light setups like yours. Not because they aren’t effective (they actually have a very nice result), they just take forever to render (especially on 512 megs of ram…)

Well, thank you so much for sharing this great information!

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ok this doesnt have any bells or whistles, but heres my progress so far on her rig

http://www.leewj.com/misc/renderpose2.jpg

.: still to do:.

  • Driven shapes
  • Some tweaks etc
  • Hair and face rig, both are sitll in default
  • Phisics; eg earings jingling around

proper update soon, just did most of the rigging after a day at work all night until morning :wink:

Peace out!