Creating Josiah
ludickes
Posts: 27
Hi! Thank you for reading this. I am currently working on a character design (called Josiah bc I have a hard time saying male gen 8.1 character design attempt) where hopefully the end product is something I can sell on Daz! Progress pictures will be posted here and I would like some critique. I won't lie, this will be a long process where I will no doubt ask too many questions. However, I will be talking about what I did so in case I made any big mistakes, someone can point it out. Basically, this is going to document the creation of a character done by a beginner. Maybe this will help someone in the future. Regardless of whether or not this figure makes the cut, I still think it would be fun to show what happens!
First things first! I am aiming for a skinnier figure with less of a heavy masculine frame.
Attached are pictures of the main morph, made in Zbrush. There are no skin details or textures, the model is currently using the default Daz 8.1 male skin. JCMs have not been created yet. Think of these renders as showing just the overall shape of the character. Critique is welcome and encouraged!
Right now I am looking for people to test the morph itself and let me know if there are any super weird rigging issues. (I tweaked and double checked that the shape doesn't do something super weird, but I might have missed something. Like maybe the foot is moved and the eyes leave the head but that shouldn't happen.)
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Comments
Congrats on taking on the challenge of doing a male figure!
Okay, since you asked for critiques- I find the nose a bit too exaggerated, definitely up by the brows and halfway down. It's really apparent to me from the side view. With the lower half of the face narrower and thinner lips, the nose is the main feature of the face (as intended) but I found it to be more of a cartoon element than realistic. You'd have to ask yourself what you are going for. This is how it struck me when I first saw him, hope this helps.
I adjusted the morph a bit more. I'm not sure when I should stop working on the morph and start on the JCMs or normals maps. The newest morph is ready for testing. I've been looking at characters for sale in the store as references. I don't know when the morph is of good enough quality for the store ahaha.
Yes, I agree with Novica on the nose. Have you even red the 'Dennis the Menace' cartoon strip or seen the old TV show of it? Try for a vampire like that which vampire skin and normal skin with morphable ears & fangs.
Or Bela Lugosi.
Cartoon vampires seem to tend more toward Dennis the Menace's father's look than Bela Lugosi's look though. One wouldn't expect a vampire looking like say, a WWE pro wrestler.
Don't forget: Werewolf, Mummy, Frankenstein, & Bride of Frankenstein from the 30s classics.
Heh, I like his nose!
I assume he's not meant to be realistic. He'll be easier to jusge with a more toony skin, I think.
I decided to not go with the vampire route, but the original character idea I had. The character itself is comparable to a vampire, but if I head right for vampire I might lose sight of my original goal. Now that I'm heading towards realistic, I will be shaping the mesh based off of some real figures. I'm going to make a skin that's realistic and nicely detailed, but I might also create a scarier skin to add.
If this character becomes of high enough quality for the Daz store, I will upload an additional morph (more cartoon) as a freebie.
I do absolutely love the Wolfman and werewolves in general. If I can figure out some other things like fibermesh hair, I'll definitely try to create something reminiscent of old fashioned werewolves. I'm also still learning how to use Maya so I intend on making some fun props later on. (I need a traditional casket!)
The chin and lips need work, and there's a weird lighting issue on the nose. Exporting the normals meant I had to lower the divisions on the model so it mucked up some features.
I'm adding pores and stuff via Zbrush, but even with exporting normal maps, they don't seem to appear too much. I'll export the higher definition model into Substance Painter and hopefully things will become clearer. I've had better luck getting HD details to show when using Substance Painter.
I've updated the morph to make it more realistic. I was hoping to better convey pores and other facial details, so any tips on how to make HD details using the normal and bump maps would be appreciated. I'm iffy on dividing the mesh even more.
I think I'm done with the main morph. There's only so much I can do. Turning a cartoon character into realistic is difficult hehe.
All this aside, how is it looking?
Sounds cool. Have fun.
I redid the skin. I encountered some oddness with Substance Painter but I'll figure it all out haha. I'm probably going to add some more textures to add some age to the face. Right now I have the normals maps and the base skin maps applied. The skin is a merchant resource that has been edited quite a bit, along with a mish-mash of hand painted textures and real life references. Is the base skin looking good? I might make the skin a bit paler. It's too tan right now for my liking.
Plans are to get a good base skin, and then I can add the fun details like spoopy veins and scars.
He looks too much like a former classmate of mine....
Progress on the skin. I'll be adding imperfections and some veins and other good stuff. The normal maps and bump maps are still a WIP. I'm hoping to add some more imperfections so that the skin isn't so smooth. Any ideas on how to do that would be helpful.. JCMs will come last.
I can't believe I've spent so many hours on this character. As of now, he's just a big mix of merchant resources. Like, a HUGE mix of stuff that's been heavily modified.
How is he looking? I don't know if he's good enough quality or not. He's stylistic, and I know that's pretty much doomed lol