A couple notes I’d like to mention: The texture work is nowhere near done just yet, especially that horrendous hair texture. Also, the back portion of the hair is going to be tweaked significantly to something that’s a little more stylized. Everything else, however, is pretty much at the point where I’ll be just making tweaks based off .
As for the original concept design, I used an image from another artist that I found on this site. Here’s the original:
So, let me know what you think, good, bad, or goddamned ugly.
Anyways, looks like I’ve got a page or two of notes to hit. Thanks for your input everyone, I’ll check back a little later to see if there was anything else added.
And yes, Pix3M, I’ll be pulling out my anatomy reference guide. The next version should be much better than this creepy-ass thing.
I think that if we can’t stick to moe-anime anatomy perfectly, at least stick to exactly how it stylizes their anatomy. The moe style of anatomy stylizes in a manner to create something more cute. The formula for that is generally big eyes, small nose, small mouth, small chin, reduced brow ridge… Big eyes are also pretty expressive, but they seem to be something difficult to translate into 3D looking at a couple of pixar characters. Anyways, brb.
Yeah, I’ve been struggling the entire time trying to keep my work looking close enough to the reference without making it look too out of proportion. It’s actually pretty difficult to translate something that’s more of an anime style into something that isn’t.
Hmm. Pixar. Hahah. Now that I look at them again, it’s really amazing how far their cartoonists can bend human anatomy in insane ways and not create something awkward to look at. They say that to be able to do that, knowing human anatomy is the first step =s
Be careful about taking referencing anatomy from an abstracted style to a style one that’s far more realistic. Often, simpler styles don’t make any sense in 3D, and in some cases, can get away with stuff like noses not placed in the middle of the face (and without people noticing)
I looked into Cel-shading when I originally started the model, but I wasn’t too happy with the results. I’m trying to aim a little more towards textures that feel more like something you’d see in Dreamworks or Pixar, but I still need to do some more work in that respect.
I used the picture itself as a reference for proportions, so they’re definitely way off from normal standards. I’ll look into making adjustments to bring them a little more in line with reality, but keep in mind that I’m going for a stylized look.
As for the eyebrows, I’ll go into the textures and hand-paint them in. I was being a little too lazy there trying to cut corners, but they just don’t look right.
Not trying to be mean or anything, but my personal opinion is that this looks like it would work better as a CEL-shaded model. I’m getting a cartoony vibe from your concept design and I don’t really feel that whichever modeling program you’re using is pulling it off, CEL-shading almost allways comes off cartoony unless the creator goes out of their way to avoid it.
But then again you might not be aiming for a cartoony style for this model for all I know, either way it looks better than anything I’ve made.
As previously stated, the hands are too big and the face is creepy. Other than that you might want to significantly lessen the skirt flare, extend the V-neck, enlarge the collar and make the socks a bit less baggy. That would give the doll a leaner look like in the concept, if that’s the look you want.
Then again, I’m not a 3D-artist so take it with a grain of salt.
…. for example, girls have much thinner, higher eyebrows. She is also clearly a middle-school-aged girl (roughly) because of the size of her head in relation to her height. I have also have NEVER seen a nose looking like that. If you’re intending for an Asian face, it helps to do even more research and say, be aware of the existence of the epicanthic fold.
I’ll keep that in mind as I make tweaks. I’ve got a lot of experience animating characters, but I’ve got much less experience modeling characters, and zero experience rigging faces.
Perhaps I should close the mouth before I actually get to the rigging part… it does look like she’s kind of smiling there.
Well, studying expressions does help you know what a neutral expression looks like. No offense, but I’m not feeling optimistic about what will result later on if you don’t study them enough to avoid unhuman-looking expressions .
btw, where did you get the art in the description. It looks awesome.
Why do people think that CG would make animations cooler when it DOES NOT!
And yes, Pix3M, I’ll be pulling out my anatomy reference guide. The next version should be much better than this creepy-ass thing.
I think that if we can’t stick to moe-anime anatomy perfectly, at least stick to exactly how it stylizes their anatomy. The moe style of anatomy stylizes in a manner to create something more cute. The formula for that is generally big eyes, small nose, small mouth, small chin, reduced brow ridge… Big eyes are also pretty expressive, but they seem to be something difficult to translate into 3D looking at a couple of pixar characters. Anyways, brb.
Yeah, I’ve been struggling the entire time trying to keep my work looking close enough to the reference without making it look too out of proportion. It’s actually pretty difficult to translate something that’s more of an anime style into something that isn’t.
Be careful about taking referencing anatomy from an abstracted style to a style one that’s far more realistic. Often, simpler styles don’t make any sense in 3D, and in some cases, can get away with stuff like noses not placed in the middle of the face (and without people noticing)
Okay, so it’s not just my imagination, heh.
I looked into Cel-shading when I originally started the model, but I wasn’t too happy with the results. I’m trying to aim a little more towards textures that feel more like something you’d see in Dreamworks or Pixar, but I still need to do some more work in that respect.
I used the picture itself as a reference for proportions, so they’re definitely way off from normal standards. I’ll look into making adjustments to bring them a little more in line with reality, but keep in mind that I’m going for a stylized look.
As for the eyebrows, I’ll go into the textures and hand-paint them in. I was being a little too lazy there trying to cut corners, but they just don’t look right.
@Background Pony
I’ll look into those points. In fact, I might just make some additional adjustments to the skirt… I’m not too happy with the way it looks right now.
But then again you might not be aiming for a cartoony style for this model for all I know, either way it looks better than anything I’ve made.
Then again, I’m not a 3D-artist so take it with a grain of salt.
I’ll keep that in mind as I make tweaks. I’ve got a lot of experience animating characters, but I’ve got much less experience modeling characters, and zero experience rigging faces.
Perhaps I should close the mouth before I actually get to the rigging part… it does look like she’s kind of smiling there.
And link a scare chord in the description.
Well, studying expressions does help you know what a neutral expression looks like. No offense, but I’m not feeling optimistic about what will result later on if you don’t study them enough to avoid unhuman-looking expressions .