Finished on the Six Armed Nutter

With the deadline in a few hours and me only just completing my door, I didn't manage to do nearly as much to my Armed and Dangerous Project as I would have liked. After taking a look at what really needed doing, I focused on quickly sculpting in the hair. This turned out to be fairly easy, although with more time I would have added much more detail. Still I think the lower level of detail works with his cartoony appearance. However, after working on my door project, I did figure out that the reason the paint looked a little bit off was because of bad UVs. I now know how to correctly unwrap UVs and next time I will be more than capable.
After sculpting the hair I decided to colour it green, the pure reason being that it gave the character a less human and slightly more grimey look, which I think works on him.

One big problem I had towards the end was that Mudbox 2013 tend to like unloading UVs when it thinks the object is hidden. This happened with the eyes since they where inside a sphere I was using as the eye lens. I tried taking the model back into Mudbox 2012 but this didn't work, possibly because of a backward compatability issue with Mudbox 2012 and 2013.

Failed to finish Armed & Dangerous on time.

I failed to complete my original Armed and Dangerous challenge in time. This is more or less due to me completley misjudging how much time it would take to sculpt an entire character. I have, nevertheless decided to try to finish the project for the final hand-in. I will also, however, be entering myself in ConceptArt.org's Character of the Week competition, which I will be talking about in another post. I also realise that I have not been posting my progress on the project nearly as much as I should have, I will be attempting to make a much more regular thing of it from now on.

Here is what I have done to the 6 Armed Nutter since I last posted. I managed to finished up the arms with a decent level of symmetry. I did continue to forget to put symmetry on several more times afterwards. My solution to this was to just open up the last save and redo any work that was not done symmetrically.
I then began work on the hands, using my own hands as reference far more than the anatomy books I had been using before for other body parts. I found that once I had spent a large amount of time on one hand, working out all of the nooks and crannys and trying to develop a technique, the next hand looked far too smooth. This was because the first hand had gained texture and, I suppose, character from all of the erasing and retrying in certain areas. The best way I could emulate this one the other hands was to build up or shave away the shape slowly with a weak brush.

I then decided to move onto the jeans. My initial plan was to sculpt the feet into the bottom of the jeans. However, the distortion from this was far too extreme and difficult to work with without moving up to much higher levels of subdivision, which wouldn't have been pratical. I thought, for the time being, I should sculpt the jeans as is they cover the feet and then make the feet as seperate objects in Maya and bring them in later.
I found that the actual fold of the jeans could not be made realistically with just the Wax tool and found that the sculpt tool was much better for creating the inital shape of the creases and folds and the pinch tool gave them the appearance of a sharp fold.

I used this image as reference for the general shape and location of the jean creases.

 

 

Considering the anatomy was bent out of shape by the grin, with the additional problem of the out of proportion cartoon style I found that I need to have a play with the shape of the head before commiting to any particular technique. It was as I was colouring in the teeth, I found that paint would jump to random areas of the mesh or only colour in chunks. After looking at the UV map I realised that this was because of crossing polygons in the UV. I returned to Maya and re-created the UVs using the "Optimize for: Less Distortion" setting on the Automatic Mapping. I then re-imported the UVs into Mudbox. The paint still ocassionally blots out from the area I paint. I think this may be where the polygons of the UVs are spread to wide. I will re-create the UVs soon, this time manually so that I can ensure the paint does as I wish it to.

When I got back to the face I managed to figure out the shape using a mirror, see check how the face distorts, and Classic Human Anatomy by Valerie L. Winslow. However, I did decide it would be better to create the eyes seperately in Maya out of two spheres, one with indentations for the iris and pupil, the other acts and the transparant gloss that causes the specular highlight on eyes. I found it easier to sculpt the eyelids around the spheres than I did when attempting to sculpt the eyes out of the base mesh during my play around. I painted the eye, including the irish and pupil and then gave it a mid grey specular layer, with a slightly lighter colour around the iris for extra gloss. The outer sphere I then painted with an almost black opacity layer, a completly white diffuse layer and an almost white specular layer. I then discover that the outer sphere would not give the desired specular highlight unless I sculpt a bulge over the iris. Although I am happy with how the eye originally looked, the transparent outer sphere is a little foggy since I loaded it up again. This is a problem that needs fixing.

There are still a few things that need to be done:

• After having a play with sculpting the hair out of the base mesh, I would much prefer to make a seperate mesh that holds the rough shape of the hair. I can then sculpt in texture. 
• The UVs need correcting manually.
• I need to work out a definite colour scheme before the final painting. 
• I need to add smaller details to things like pores, fabric, teeth etc. 
• I haven't yet even started to look at how I am going to pose the model. Although after a quick go on Mudbox's pose tools, it may be better to use Maya for the final pose and then either reimport into Mudbox or use a normal map to render in Maya. 

Above is the turntable showing where I am at at the moment.

The Sculpt has Begun

With only 15 days left to create the Six Armed Nutter, I have to pick up the pace a little. I have finished the tone on the main torso. I had very few problems with this area apart from figuring out how pronounced I should make the definition. I solved this just through experimentation and figuring out what works best. I found that, when I did not know the muscle groups by heart, as I do with the neck, chest and deltoid, I needed to use Classic Human Anatomy; The Artist's Guide to Form, Function and Movement by Valerie L Winslow as anatomical reference.

The only real problem is that I forgot to turn mirroring on when I was doing the second arm down. I also forgot to set up incremental saves. This means I have to make sure that the other side is absoloutly identical, which is extremly difficult. It is more likely I will treat the two symmetrical arms as seperate arms, I will attempt to keep incremental saves from now so that I do not create any more work for myself.

Armed & Dangerous: Base Mesh Completed

After a couple of weeks, I have finally finished the base mesh for the "Six Armed Nutter". The production of the arms, torso and legs were all pretty straight forward. The biggest problem I had was with the head. Because of the cartooned style I have chosen to use, his mouth is out of realistic proportion. This made it very difficult to work out the shape and topology using the box modelling technique. I ended up using the edge extrusion technique. I found that, when using this technique, it was much easier to work out the correct topology than if I were to use box modelling methods.

(Left) Edge Extrusion Head. (Right) Box Modelled Head.

As shown above, the head on the left has a mouth that better matches the original proportions shown in the concept art, although the topology is a bit messier than I would ideally like.
The body, arms and legs were all made with boxes and cylinders with their werts moved into the correct position.
After the model was finished, looked at it in subdivision preview mode and found that random faces appeared and other faces detatched from not being merged properly.  Most of this I managed to clean up with Maya's clean-up tool. The rest had to be manually deleted and merged into it's intended place.

Knowing I would be painting the model in Mudbox and not taking the UVs into Photoshop to edit the textures I felt it was save to create the UVs with Automatic mapping. Automatic Mapping flattens out the UVs in the quickest way possible whilst not having anything overlap. If I were taking them into Photoshop, I may then take the time to straighten up the UVs to be clearer.

Once this was done I found it safe to take the model into Mudbox. However, after taking the model into Mudbox, I found that some of the geometry creased in certain areas. Mainly around the forehead between the eyes and at the crotch. This was due to having too many edge loops running throught the middle of the mesh. I had added these when I had miscalculated the number of edge loops need to attach the head and trousers to the torso. However, now that the meshes had been combined, I found it fairly easy to delete a few of these. Only with one did I have to rearrange the geometry around the chin to effectivly get rid of it. This also, by chance, removed some of the polgons making up and meeting at the center of the eye. There is still a 5-pole in the centre of each, but I am considering sinking these into eye sockets and then using 2 spheres inside each other for the actual eyeball.

Front and Side view of the final base mesh

Depending on how the sculpt goes, I may model the hair in maya and then bring it into mudbox. I may also make some weapons for him, since the them of the competition is "Armed and Dangerous".

Armed & Dangerous

Our next uni assignment is to find an online competition that requires you to use skills used in game art. This includes 2D artwork, 3D Sculpting and Modelling and animation. I chose the "Armed & Dangerous" Mudbox challenge. The aim of the competition is to sculpt a character that is "armed and dangerous". I have spent the last week creating orthographic concept art of a character I call (working title) "The Six Armed Nutter".
I started with an initial sketch of the sort of character I wanted. and then worked out each element of the character as needed. Looking back, I should have created several initial sketches and picked my favourite.

The initial, very rough sketch.

Since the competition allowed a lot of leeway for personal tastes, I picked the same sort of mad, surreal kind of character I enjoy drawing. This was a bad idea. Since this competition is just a way of increasing my abilities, I should have tried something novel and learnt how to draw a new type of character.
Once I had my initial sketch I began looking for images online that worked with the sort of character, and the style, I wanted to create.

A collection of images used for reference and influence for the concept art.

I wanted the character to be insane and, much like the joker or the cheshire cat (American Mcgee's Cheshire Cat inparticular), the character needed a nice wide, evil grin. Already having a cartoon style, I wanted to make the bigger than it proportionally should be. After playing around with proportions I decided to move the top of the mouth to where I would usually put the nose (halfway between the brow and chin) and make the chin slightly smaller. I also made the skull slightly elongated to make room for the mouth to reach right back without making the jaw or cheekbones seem small or non-existant.

Studies of mouths from American Mcgee's Cheshire Cat, Jamie Hewlett's Murdoch and Marvel's Venom. On the right I have tested out a few different mouths and head shapes, finding out what works best.

Once I had the mouth, figuring out the rest of the face was fairly simple. I already knew that, if a character is grinning whilst the eyes are frowning, the character looks more than a touch sinister. I found that by keeping this expression and raising one eyebrow, I could make the character look even more mad and unnatural.

On the left are the final workings out for the head shape. The profile and front view on the right side of the page are the final designs.

The final thing to do was to take a quick look at his anatomy. I already knew that I wanted him to be skinny, with tone. I also know enough about anatomy that I only occasionally need reference for a more cartoony character. The only real problem I had was figuring out how the extra 4 arms where going to attach. All drawings of Hindu Gods have the arms one on top of the other. This only works when working in 2D from a front view. I figured my best option was to have them running down the side of the torso. One on the side of the ribcage, the other one the external oblique just before the character's jeans begin.
Once I had worked out what each part of him would look like, I put the parts together by drawing him in photoshop in front and side orthographic views. The only problem I had here was that he seemed too human. His face, and the fact he had an extra 4 arms, were the only things that made him seem off, I want to really throw people off. I looked into how the hands of Yoda and the District 9 "Prawns" where design and decided to do a similar thing, making him feel more alien.

Final Orthographic Concept Art

I plan on making one more piece of concept art before I start sculpting. A 3/4 posed, roughly valued and coloured digital painting of the 6 armed nutter. In the meanwhile, I plan on creating the base mesh myself in Maya using Digital Tutor's "Creating Digital Humans" series. Although, I only intend on creating a rough block out with good enough topology to sculpt with. I want as much of it to be sculpted as possible.
So far I have blocked out the torso.

Progress with the torso base mesh.