Ken Claassen Homework Thread!
I only joined CG Cookie about a week ago so I missed the first two classes. So here is my homework from Week 3 onwards.
Week 4 Homework: Unfortunately due to being sick and also biting off more than I could chew I didn't finish the model to the level I wanted but here is where I got to. At least I was able to make it PG in time.
Week 3 Homework: (Extra Credit)
Week 3 Homework: Melvin (https://skfb.ly/6AY9N)
Week 3 Homework: Primitives
cptken Great work! You can use the decimate modifier to help cut down on the polycount. I'd probably save what you have as a separate file, then apply the decimate modifier and go on your way. That way you have your original copy to fall back on if things go terribly wrong. Can't help with the scars bit. Experiment?
cptken You're blowing this week's assignment out of the water 💥
Individually detailed fingers and toes...that takes tiiiime. And everything is looking very nice. Brilliant work, my dude!
It sounds like you might be maxing out dynamic topology's workability. Once your into a few the millions of polys, dyntopo gets impractically slow. And it sounds like you want to add more details. Granted you're way beyond the scope of this week's assignment so my next suggestion is not required, but if you want to keep going with the orc, I'd recommend converting over to multires.
First do an optimized retopology then use the technique in this video to salvage all your detail in a multi-res modifier. From there you can subdivide into much higher polygon counts with multi-res.
ccarrotnl ssmurfmier1985 Thank you XD
silentheart00 Cheers. The issue with decimate is that I will lose a lot of detail. I also find that decimate creates a tonne of artifacts. Cheers for the idea though.
@theluthier Thanks Kent. Those toes and fingers sure did sink a lot of time haha. I'm definitely at the max of dyntopo at least for my PC. The retopo / multi-res solution sounds like it will work the charm. Thanks for the link. I've never done retopo before so I might not have the time to get this done before next class. I think I'm happy with where it's at for now. However, I'm so happy how it has turned out I don't want to abandon it just yet. I'll probably use it to learn Retopo and I would love to put armor and weapons on it and maybe learn some hard surface modelling / sculpting for that part as it's a bit of a mystery to me at the moment. Cheers
Figured I'd better do the base homework so here are my primitives. Regarding the cone... I promise I did not cheat. I simply started with a high resolution sphere and didn't turn on dyntopo . I used a mask on the top half of the sphere and used the flatten brush several times on the unmasked bottom part. Then I inverted the mask and used a combination of the smooth brush and the grab brush to make the cone shape with x and y symmetry turned on. I added a screenshot of the mesh so you can see on the bottom the original polies underneath that match a sphere and also one point where I got the mask wrong and slightly smoothed an edge.
Inspired by Arron's turntables, I decided to try make one myself. I don't know anything about lighting, rendering or materials so the lighting is bad but oh well. I actually think I like it in stills better because the movements makes it difficult to see the details in some ways.
cptken Lol, dancing orc 😆 I keep lovin' the spinning things!
Those primitives look mighty good, that cone.. wowie!
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Seriously, that's the kind of stuff I aspire to do, phenomenal detail.
thecabbagedetective Haha thanks a bunch. Honestly if you told me that I was capable of this 2 weeks ago I wouldn't have believed you. For some reason I feel sculpting just clicks for me. I think having done a lot of anatomy drawing in the past has made a big difference, though plenty of room for improvement :)
Now for the sake of homework here is my melvin. I really had to force myself to do this but I thought I should respect the homework instructions. https://skfb.ly/6AY9N
cptken how do you do that in 1 day?????! 😱 Melvin took me two weeks! Looks great too!! 😃
cptken Cheers for doing the base homework as well. I can't believe you sculpted a legit cone out of a multires sphere. ALl of them turned out great! And your Melvin is spot on. Gotta give you the A++ this week.
PS: Remind me - have you done much digital sculpting before this?
@theluthier Thanks Kent! :) I only started sculpting 2 weeks ago. The Orc is my second sculpt, third if you include a half a tutorial I did before that.
cptken and for how long are you doing 3d modeling or art in general? This is great results for such a short term.
nekronavt It's hard to say because its been on and off for a very long time. Spent the last 8 years or so in coding games so not much in that time but before that I did it plenty. About 3 months of hardcore drawing / digital painting last year too which I think has helped a lot with anatomy and using the pen/tablet.
Week 4 Day 1 WIP: I set out to really challenge myself this week by doing all things that I didn't do in week 3. Female anatomy, softer muscles, strong asymmetrical pose that conveys movement and power and also clothing.
I may have bit off more than I can chew... I may not even reach the deadline but I don't mind. There's only learnings to be had no matter how it turns out. So here goes! I've mostly finished the main body shapes.
Meet 'Vitri - Goddess of Judgement'. The pose is kinda weird without context but basically she is jumping forward off a ledge about to throw a javelin at some "Sinner" and basically judge them. The head is placeholder as I'm going to sculpt it separately tomorrow.
The twisting body and gettings things uh... "Symmetrical" in certain areas was very challenging. I think it still needs more work to make the twist look completely right but it's getting there. I tried to make her right arm look a bit more muscular as it is under strain. I'm hoping that the combination of the twist, the bent back and the bent neck will convey power and movement. Time will tell.
I hope no-one is offended by the 'nudity'. I see it as a necessary aspect of understanding anatomy and a major part of getting the anatomy right before adding clothing. I'm going to assume that since we're talking about art here that it's not a problem for most.
For anyone interested, here's a portrait sketch of Vitri I did earlier in the week before I figured out what pose I wanted. It will be interesting to see if I can achieve likeness with the head and armor... oh dear hair... hadn't thought of that :O
cptken Nice first WIP! Very dynamic pose. 😃 Not offended by this kind of nudity at all, I would even say it's necessary to get all the muscles and shapes right.
Since you're very good at this I will look more critical at your work this week, if that all right with you. Especially since this character sculpting is your end goal for specialization as you said yesterday in the stream.
Doing that I feel that the gap between the breasts might be a tad too wide. Also the twist feels.. dunno how to describe it right, ehm.. I think the abdomen is stretched pretty far, maybe a bit too far? I might be completely wrong about both things but that what's my gut feeling says.
Overall it's again high quality and very nicely sculpted, you got some great details in there already!! Looking forward to your day two pic 😄
ssmurfmier1985 Thanks for the feedback. I can make some minor tweaks pretty easily. I think the twist is a little extreme too, what I probably have to do is shift the front leg back a little and the back one forward, then instead of having the absomen follow the twist on centre it should probably squish on one side a little by the leg.
Anyway, I didn't spend any time working on the body today. Had to get the head done. I did it separately to the body for symmetry help and I'm just gonna plonk it on the body.. Then I might have to sculpt in more detail specific to the pose. Hehe kinda looks like I'm doing week 3 homework here.
It took a lot of time to make it look feminine in the way I wanted it. The hair will probably help a lot with that when I get to it. I find the female form way more challenging than male anatomy because its more subtle and subtle is hard. The ear isn't finished but it's good enough for now.
