I took a few hours tonight and had another speed doodling session. I worked from my imagination with this one, with a goal set to as fast as possible get a decent looking character. I really need to get a speedy workflow in modeling characters for some of my upcoming projects, so I’ll probably make a few more similar doodles around this theme.

The image above was created from scratch from the first polygon to final render in about 3-4 hours. This was mainly a ZBrush project, but I did end up rendering it out in LightWave 3D at the end. If I had spend some time on bulding a skin node network in LightWave and worked a bit on the hair it would probably have ended up pretty decent looking, but I’m saving that for the next time.

Anyway, I started this project by making a few ZSpheres and sculpted and pushed around the mesh from there, going up in level of detail now and then, trying to capture the basics of the female facial form as much as possible. Check out the image below for a few screenshots from different times in my sculpting process.

At this stage I felt I had got most of the structure down as I wanted it. As sculpting from a few ZSpheres in ZBrush doesn’t create a decent topology, I included fixing the topology to my workflow this time.
To fix that, I roughly painted out directly on my character how I wanted the topology to flow, somewhat close to what I like, and then I used that model with my paintover as a template, building my new topology on top of that. When I had my new topology in place, I projected my sculpted details back into the new mesh. Here is three additional screenshots; The original topology - My paintover - The final topology.

Alright, the third one looks much better, so to end this session I made some basic texture painting as well. I didn’t bother with painting any Subsurface Scattering, Specular, Diffuse maps and so on this time, I just wanted to get some texture down and painted a simple color map. Here is the color map rendered in ZBrush with a basic skin shader applied.

And to close out this doodling session, just for fun, I exported the model out of ZBrush and brought her into LightWave. I made a quick and dirty wig with some hair strands, just a few minutes worth of work, and then rendered out the image at the top of this post.

Well, that’s it for this time. I shall return.

Working Music: Markus Krunegård - Markusevangeliet

A 3 hour speed sculpting.
I haven’t used ZBrush for a while, so I doodled around in it for a few hours today, to get the groove back. The image below is the result of a couple of zspheres and then just playing around, sculpting out the basics for the female form. I wasn’t going for accuracy or realism this time, just trying to get the shapes down and having some fun with it.

I could probably go on for a few more hours, keeping on refining and improving on her looks, but that would take the speed out of speed doodling. When I ended my sculpting session I exported her out of ZBrush together with a displacement map, and made a quick and dirty render in LightWave 3D, which is the render above, trying to capture at least some mood.

Actually, I think it’s pretty healthy to do a doodle now and then, to give myself some time to explore some new tools and techniques in my applications which I might not dare trying out when I do real projects. I’ll probably try do this somewhat regular to work on my speed and nail down better techniques.

Sculpting Music: Reyn Ouwehand - The Blithe, The Blend and The Bizarre

There has been some unhealthy long periods of silence between my posts lately. The usual reason, commissioned work has kept me a busy bee. CG artists need to make a living as well - bills, bills and bills - unfortunately.

Some of my paid gigs are interesting and challenging though - gives me opportunities to tune my skills and dive into creating pieces using all my arsenal of CG tools which I might not have gotten into if I only worked with my personal projects. But still, some of the things I have planned to do for myself I really long to do. I’m working on a solution to switch between gigs and personal projects more freely, which seems to actually work out and become reality.

Anyway, I’ll probably be able to get back into posting regularly again, at least a few times a week. Starting from today. So now I don’t have any choice to not post, do I?

Even though my postings have been sparse I’ve spent a lot of my free time working on my projects. One of my different short films and animation projects have progressed rapidly, and I registered a new domain name for it a few days back, so it’s getting ready to be revealed real soon. Just a few weeks away for the initial release.

I’ve also been working a lot with my CG character development. Updates to those will be posted shortly. Just a quickie to go with this post to not make it completely boring without any images. A CG chick I’ve been trying out some things with in the last days. Modeling and sculpting is finished, currently working with textures and some hair guide styling.

A quick screenshot from the OpenGL view in LightWave with a temporary texture I’ve painted and the beginning of my hair guide styling.

Posting to be continued in the next days….

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

Sunday morning. I woke up early today, and just felt like spending this lovely morning doodling around a bit in ZBrush. This is what came out after a quick session.

It’s based on the character from my last work in progress post which I’ve been working on in LightWave 3D. I just exported her out of LightWave at her current state and sculpted away for a while in ZBrush. This gave me the opportunity to get into using sub-tools, transpose control as well as polygon painting and materials in ZBrush at the same time. Well, this was just something I made for fun to get the day started. I’ll post my progress of the LightWave version of this character this evening.

Morning doodling Music: Camera Obscura - Let’s Get out of this Country

Lately I’ve been dedicating almost all my polygon modeling time towards the art of the female form when I haven’t been ZBrushing or recovering from dental surgery mayhems.

This character is going to turn out to be something really special, and I’ll have her finished right next to my Kat(ana) character. I just wanted to post an entry about her to get this modeling thread going as well in the blog.

As can be seen, I haven’t really worked on the head yet, but been deep into working with getting a good anatomy topology of the body. I’ll work with this character this weekend, so I’ll have a new post with her on Sunday with better closeups of all the details and the final body modeling in place.

For quite some time I’ve been studying the female anatomy and the belonging topology a great deal to improve my modeling skills in that area as much as I can at the moment. I really hope this character turns out to be very good in that respect. I must send many thanks and kudos to Steven Stahlberg for all the great advice and information I’ve got from him and made myself get into a better habit of research and planning of my models in an early stage. I wouldn’t have learned so much and increased my understanding in this area if I hadn’t got the opportunity to share some of his knowledge. And I have learned to don’t fear the n-gon as much as I used to. ;)

I don’t think this particular character will get any ZBrush treatment. Polygon modeling has its own elegant charm, even though I really do enjoy sculpting. But there is a time and place for everything. And it feels pretty good to be working just inside LightWave’s modeler again. It gives me a very cosy and warm feeling to puzzle and spin all polygons in place.

On an unrelated note, I started editing together my 2007 showreel earlier this week, and it will go online in July. Details to come later.

Modeling Music: The Sounds - Dying to Say this to You

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