[ENDED] BC2-1803 - March 2018 Class Homepage - Creating Stylized Characters with Blender

So sorry to hear your news. It is nice to have the recorded live-streams to go back to. Plus, Kent threatens to have these classes again. :-) So you may get another chance at a time, hopefully, when life comes at you at a normal pace.

Homework Week 3: Late(ish) and not quiet complete edition

Long story short- work kept me late, and I had to choose between completing the orb assignment and working on Adam.  The orb will come later, but I decided to post Adam for critique(now on sketchfab)!

Prior to retop I adjusted the body's proportions with Zbrushes transpose tools in order to better fit my initial vision.  I think I'm happy with it(for now).  For retopology I used retopoflow to quickly block in cylindrical areas, and used blender's basic tool set for the rest.  I don't think I have too much against it, and I think I might try to move on with it before I start redoing it over and over again(like the last character that I started- and am still working on 3 months later). 

One of the big things I'm thinking about is the hair right now.  For now I've quickly done the current hair just to kind of get something that works, but I'm considering changing this over to a single mesh block of hair instead.

Quick edit: just noticed the tubes got messed up on sketchfab import.  They are a bit more curvy and in the right spots in the actual blender file

Adam Retop Jrenna 3 27 2018 by silver0199 on Sketchfab

https://sketchfab.com/models/37cbbd7b49fa4ab0a0a3788cb80994d3

(in case I messed up embedding the sketchfab thing)

(Very late) Homework Week 2 Submission.

This took a few days longer than I had expected, but I'm finally done with the sculpting phase. I'm gonna try to get retopo and shading done in time for the end of the class, but realistically, it's probably gonna be an extra week or so. I had a lot of fun working on this sculpt, and I would like to thank everyone who submitted feedback on the work in progress, it was very helpful :) Now without further ado, I'd like you to meet my character.

"It's not easy, being a halfing in a human world. Especially with that freak's marks painted on my head. Who am I? My name is Silvaly'ithalda. I know right, bit of a mouthful. Just call me Silva, that's a lot easier. I was raised an orphan by some cult, far of to the east. I never really felt like I fit in, but for some reason the thing they worshipped chose me to be granted his 'gifts'. However, I've seen what his magic can do, it causes nothing but pain and destruction. When it comes to a fight, I like to rely on my sword. Nothing fancy there, just a piece of good steel, and you strength and skill against your oponent.

"Part of ascending the ranks in the cult involves giving up one of your eyes, which would allow the thing to see through your other eye. I didn't feel much for losing my sight, but the cult wouldn't take no for an answer. In the end we got a compromise of sorts, I suppose. I lost my vision, but at least I got to keep the eye. It wasn't long afterwards that I left. Ever since then I've been wandering these parts, doing some honest work for my food and drink, looking for... I don't know, actually. Maybe just some peace and quiet, to forget my youth. Maybe one day I'll find a way of getting back to them, for all the pain they've made me go through. In the end, I suppose I'm looking for purpose. But for now another drink will do, telling my story always gets me thirsty. You're buying, I assume?"

A great way to reduce the size, one that I've used as well, is using the decimate modifier. It keeps most of the details, but can reduce the vertex count of your model significantly.

Ulbricht finally made it to class completely retopo'd. Yay!

The sculpt looks so clean, I would have bet you had already done the retopo! Great work!

As it was already mentioned, the decimate modifier will help you! At 0.2 ratio I managed to keep all the details and reduce the file size from 120mb to 24mb!

I do owe you the retopo excercise @theluthier . ;) Thanks for the feedback!

awesome job here everyone ! jack07  man ,i m really happy to follow ur progress ,u r doing great !

so what next .?? i'm going to take a day off ! hopefully my flu will recover quickly ! then i ll clean up mthe y model , multires sculpt details lost in retopo , then i ll redo the initial pose ,with cloth simulation , give Pete back his beard and eyebrows , and some UVs , then texturing ... and maybe shading ..

i cant wait to see everybody finished character !

and @theluthier senesei ;thank u again !

Thanks mmalhomsi ! It means a lot to me!

And thanks everyone for your kind words during the livestream, you made me smile and I needed it :D

And @theluthier , did I thanked you for the hair tutorial? Thanks for the hair tutorial ha! 

Oh man I can't wait to see the painted characters, there's so many cool ones!!

BC2 1803 Week 2 ish Homework Submission:

I hate that I'm so behind, and sorry my participation has been lackluster, but I'm determined to finish the class.  Had another 70 hour workweek, and still no internet at the house (they promise me it's coming this week), but here is what I have for week 2, the priest of Ungit:

Backstory:

The priest of Ungit is a character from the CS Lewis novel "Till We Have Faces."  He is the head of the temple of Ungit, a fictional version of Aphrodite, in the fictional kingdom of Glome.  Princess Orual, the main character, describes him with fear and disgust, saying that he had a disturbing smell ("the holy smell, of blood, and singed fat, and burnt incense), and that his mask made it look like a great vulture was growing straight out of his chest.  He is a foil to the main character's tutor, a Greek slave who steers her education toward logic and philosophy and high, ethereal sorts of knowledge.  By contrast, he is an emblem of myth and ritual, darkness and mystery and what Lewis elsewhere calls the "dark gods of the blood." He is not quite a villain, but definitely a menacing presence, both physically and politically.  The story's location is fictional, but I decided I would aim for ancient Anatolia (pre-Alexander), somewhere far enough out of the way to be autonomous from Persia at the height of its power, but close enough to Greece to be familiar with its culture, and not so far north that lions, featured in the story, would be an impossibility. I looked at a couple ancient Hittite friezes and sculptures to inform some of the design. I used various images of Dhalsim from Street Fighter for his major features.  I initially wanted to make him more emaciated, but I couldn't quite pull off the intimidation and presence I needed him to have.  The bird mask is from the book, and I looked at a few different old world ceremonial masks for the design (textures will change; you guys recognize the feathers? ;).  I will probably give him a couple more priestly items, a knife and maybe some animal hide, but wanted to go ahead and get this up.  Will get a sketchfab up when I have internet. Now on to retopo.  Thanks again for your patience.  I've really loved seeing everyone's submissions in the chat.  Great stuff!

Thanks so much guys! Don't worry, nothing tragic happened or anything! ;)
Mostly it was just the result of me putting too much on my plate,
and coincidentally having a trip scheduled to see family, that kind of thing.

I do want to say that this class really gave me confidence in sculpting though,
and renewed my fire to seriously work in Blender again!
(I cycle through my too-many hobbies/interests all too frequently lol.)

I'm so glad this digital-classroom concept seems to be quite the success,
and I'll definitely be on the lookout for the next one! For now, I'll still be
gaining what lessons I can from the course suggestions and livestreams.

Don't forget: You all are AWESOME.

Only three weeks late and now i get to start with sculpting. :) then again, when you have time to sculpt you should. :) Concept picture is by Josh Norman, asked permission to use it for this project.

 blocked out the pose, (spent maybe way too long with skin modifier to fiddle around. hair is just a placeholder, will do particle hair once i get that far. :)