Well well well, when you get into reworking something like I have done here with Kat’s complete topology it’s bound to take a little bit longer than expected. But here’s a quick update until I’m completely finished with her. Aiming on tomorrow, but you never know. Anyway, here’s an OpenGL screenshot of her new hand in it’s current state compared to the old roughed out placeholder.

It’s getting there, but I still some tweaking to do until I’m completely happy. Originally I intended this piece to be quite a quick one to improve my work with edgeloops. But since then I’ve got so much into anatomy and correct proportions so I’ve changed my mind and instead I am now aiming for this character to be my most detailed and realistic character yet to this date.

Today I’ve been working on all parts of her body, adding details, especially on her back, adding all the small things like hints of the spine, shoulder blades and lot’s of small bones under the skin. I’ve most details in place but I have a few hours of pushing and pulling vertexes around until I get the nice smooth surface on top of everything that I want to have. I’ll post more images as soon as I am there.

And what you all been waiting for…
Todays Modeling Music: Her Majesty - Happiness

There has passed some time since my last update of my character Katana. Last time I posted a progress of her I was in the texturing, shading and hair phase. Since then I have improved my skills so much in topology and anatomy so I just couldn’t stand to see her mesh anymore, so I took it back a few steps and went back into the modeling phase to fix her up a bit. She was a bit reluctant at first laying down under the knife, but at last I talked her into it.

So I just wanted to post this quick update of where I am with her at the moment, with her anatomy update.

I am by no means finished with the anatomy changes, but the image above shows some of the progress I’ve made so far. I have given her better proportions on the skull and the overall body shape. Started defining the shoulders, neck, crouch, stomach and so on much better. I will post more detailed shots from several angles and closeup wires as soon as she comes off the operating table, sometime tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed everything goes well.

Modeling Music: The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams

There’s been lot’s of ZBrushing in the log lately, but I’ve continued working on among other things my Katana character piece at the same time.

So while I was in LightWave 3D today modeling on Kat we talked about accessories. Yes, you do actually have to talk to your characters while modeling them. How else will they spring to life? And we decided that I should get her a Katana sword. I cleared out my screen and modeled together this piece of weaponry for her.

And here is an occlusion render and the wireframe of the above sword.

Alright starting to get time for a new update on the progress of how she is coming along as well. She told me she was eager to get a public appearance again. Stay tuned for an update of her shortly unless any new zbrush doodles surfaces first.

Modeling music: Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die

Here’s a quick update of my progress with this female character since yesterday. I finalized the facial features tonight, and started working on the shading and textures. Here’s my current state of her.

I’ve finished the eyes and textured them. I’ve also started paint the textures for the skin. There is still some more work left to do around the eyes and mouth, as I want some special things to go on there, but the base layer is in place. I’ve used the new skin node in LightWave 9.2 for the shading which I feed my painted textures into. I’m really enjoying all the new toys in LightWave 9.2.

The next update will probably not be that far from my goal with this image. I’ll have the hair finished, the texure maps, clothing and the rig is also slowly getting in place for her posing. Stay tuned for a new update in a day or two.

Tonights Working Music: Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Alright, this piece has continued to progress. I’ve mostly concentrated on the head since the last update. I have tweaked the mouth and eyes a bit more and also finished the ears and attached them to the skull. I still have some finer adjustments left to do on the facial area before I am completely happy with her and can move on into the texturing phase.

My main focus on this update has been hair styling. As I am using LightWave, there is a couple of different approaches I can take when making hair. This time I went the Fiber Factory route. I got the Fiber Factory plugin for LightWave a few months back, but I haven’t had the time to get into it until now. I spent about a day playing around with the Fiber modeler until I felt completely comfortable with it and had found a good workflow which gave me the control I was looking for. A day well spent. So this is the result of my first Fiber Factory based hair style. Below is a render where I am in the progress at the moment. I still have some tweaks left to do before I am happy with the hair, but I am starting to get the overall style somewhere in the ballpark of where I am going.

And here is an OpenGL shot of the hairguides I’ve sculpted with mainly the Fiber modeler with some additional tweaks in LightWave modeler.

I must say after having worked with Fiber Factory now, I’ve begun to find it a very useful and powerful hair plugin. I’ll definitely use it a great deal in my coming projects. I did have to switch between Fiber Modeler and LightWave modeler now and then to be able to get it the way I wanted, though, so there is still room for improvements in the hair styling tools. I’ll supply Jon at Binary Arts with my findings and wishes for improved styling tools when this project is finished, and hopefully that might be added to a future version, for an even more elegant hair solution. Hair in CG is something that is quite important to me and fortunately the future for hair in LightWave looks very promising. I am a beta tester of TrueHair, which still have some roads left to travel before becoming production ready, but it starts to show a great deal of potential already. Also, Worley might have a long overdue Sasquatch 3 lurking around the corner in the near future, that might bring even more power to the world of CG hair in LightWave.

Well, back to work. Coming up next is the final tweaks to the facial area, so I can start painting the textures and include that in my next post.

Working Music: Aracade Fire - Neon Bible

I had some other business to take care of, so I had a break for a few days from this piece. Tonight I got back to her again though, and I have made some more progress to her since the last post. I’ve spend this night working on the facial structure, and have been focusing a great deal on the edgeloops, and I finally think I am starting to get happy with the layout of the wires. As I’ve mentioned in the last post, I primarily make this character to fine tune my edgeloop modeling skills.

I still have some refinements left to accomplish on the head. The ears lack some details and need to be properly attached to the mesh. There is also some loops around the mouth area that I have to work a bit more with before I’m completely satisfied. Other than that I just have to massage around her points a bit to get the features in the face to have the appearance I want them to have.

Here is some shots of her face up to this point. A rendered version and also a version with wires. I’ll continue tweak and refine her head and post a finished version of it later on today.

When I’ve finalized the head and attached it to the body, this piece will quickly close in to a finished state. The piece will probably be named Katana and not her as a character. Stages left to complete after the mesh is in place: Add hair and clothes, add a basic rig to pose her, paint textures and model accessories and then it should be prime time for a final render.

Working Music: Hello Saferide - Introducing

I’ve begun working on a new character today. I have a pretty good idea where I’ll take her and how the final image shall look. This will end up as a single still only. I’ve focused a great deal on edgeloop modeling on this one, to finetune my skills in that area.

The topology of the body is laid out with carefully placed edgeloops. Also I’ve blocked out the basic shape of the head. Now I’ll move on to adding details and massaging all bodyparts into the shapes and proportions I want her to have.

By the way, I’ve named her Katana, consider it a hint where this girl is going.

Working Music: Thåström, Hellberg, Ossler - Sällskapet