Lel's Sketchbook

[LelephantInk]

Finally posting after lurking on here forever, yay.

I'm working on my first big character on my own. I'm in school for this stuff, but my last character class was over a year ago so I'm a bit rusty. My concentration at school is environment work.

Concept image:



My original base mesh was a bit of a distater... xD



I'm in a club at school that gave me some feedback and went from that ^ to this v



Feeling waaay better about it. I know there are adjustments I need to make to her hands. Her fingers are too short and shaped a bit weirdly. I'm definitely on the right track for proportions and anatomy now, and her face looks waaay better.

If anyone on here has some good feedback for beginners in character work, I would be forever grateful

[Zeriel00]

Wow this is really cool, your style is going to be similar to mine (I'm learning Zbrush right now)
As for Critique I think the Arms are a bit too long, the legs should be longer, the head should be
a bit bigger and rounder. She also needs more definition on the hip, chest and shoulders and a bit
more mass on the tighs, calfs and arms.

You know it would be cool, if you had Skype, we could help each other out

[TheArtMonkey]

Your characters' proportions do look a bit off, like the above comment says. One way to get a more accurate proportion is to load your concept image to an image plane.

Like this:


Also, I'd suggest working more on the form at a lower subd level. She's got a lot of clothing that will hide a bunch of the body details, so getting her base proportions correct will be more important in the long run. Once you get her body right, the costume will fall into place.

And since you mentioned it, do you have any examples of your environment work? Any of it done in ZBrush? (Just curious)

[Zeriel00]

Wow that's so cool! How do you load the image into the plane?
Is it like an UV texture? but how do you make it fit so perfectly?

Thanks

[jan19]

Not meaning to butt in, but about the image plane --

The images I load don't usually need adjusting. They just fit.

It's a lot easier than you think. There is more than one way to load images onto a plane...you may want to check the Z docs.

You can use the Floor and Draw or use the Texture Palette...but the directions are in the Z docs online.

***That is a beautiful concept drawing! The character will be lovely, too.

[TheArtMonkey]

Sorry for the late reply, but I've been helping my brother move.

Like jan19 said, there's more than one way to load an image for reference (all links go to the ZBrush user guide):

Probably easiest is to just use Spotlight.

If you have orthogonal views (straight front, side,and top with no distortions), use the Floor Grids.

The example I used was Image Plane, located in the Texture menu.

Here's a couple of pictures showing how I did it:

[Zeriel00]

Oh nice thanks, I wonder if Lelephant is still working on the mage
or if he gave up