Anim Contest Character Art Progress Lyubomir Spirov

Alright, I am done with the modeling, polishing of features, some damage here and there as well as optimizing the topology. I decided to perform the retopology in Zbrush with the latest Zmodeler brush features. Since this model is not meant to be animated, I was less concerned with how accurately I'd do this stage. Anyway, here is the front view comparison with high vs low poly.

PS: The scaling of the sword is not the actual representation of what the final will be. I've left it this big so that it's easier to read in this thread. And now, onto UVs -> texturing in Substance Painter and finally render in Marmoset. 

And the back view:

Now, front with no wireframe:

And lastly back with no wires.

awesome what are you gonna render it with?

Posted by: @ferruiz97

awesome what are you gonna render it with?

Thank you, mate. Well, initially I was going to make it real-time, following the Substance Painter -> Marmoset Toolbag pipeline, but things have changed and I'll update what's happened and how this will impact the project. Hopefully, I'll make it. 

Here is another tiny progress shot where I'm just starting to lay down the pose of this character. There's a lot of work pending in this department but at least his character is slowly coming to life. 

Anyway, I was planning to go bigger on the texturing and rendering stages (as I previously mentioned Substance Painter -> Marmoset) but due to a number of circumstances I'll need to stick to do it all in ZB and PS. ? 

Alright guys, here is some more progress on the posing. At this stage before I move on playing around with textures and so forth, I'd like to ask for feedback from all of you. Special call out to @ambra @ferruiz97 @longbtran88 @alecorbini @andresaponte and @jessedraper whose work I highly regard and would love to know your opinion.

Do you think I've managed to capture his character? Do you see any particular issues that I should iron out? Any recommendations? ? 

@lifelover90 Hi 🙂

I think you made a great work with your character and you captured it 🙂

I like the pose you did, it works on different angle. If you want and if you don't broke everything, you could turn the head a little bit more (little!) and do a bigger curve of beard under the chin.

I would like to suggest to sculpt/draw stronger the lines on the beard, they could give more sense of moviment and definition on it.

After this...  Give it a good lighting and render!

Bravo!!

@ambra

i was going to say the same thing haha, its looking great, just add more detail to the beard, and connect it with the hair if its not much trouble. I think that for the final render you could use a 36mm or 50mm lens to capture the perspective of the pose! Looks great anyway 🙂

Good stuff man! I agree with @ambra, the pose is looking great and it turns around nicely.

My one small note is that the face is quite even right now. The mouth in the original concept is slightly tilted, which compliments the flow of the facial features down into the beard. You don't necessarily have to go as far as the reference since the angles in your sculpt aren't as extreme but trying playing around with the angle and placement to see if you can get that extra bit of attitude in there.

Looking forward to the seeing the final shot!

First of all, thank you guys so much for the time to give me feedback. I curved a little the lip also gave more emphasis on the flow lines of the beard. @ferruiz97 I was thinking about joining the beard with the hair, gave it a shot but it didn't really work because of that big scar on the side of his head. Additionally, I realized that his eyebrows needed to go down a little bit further to make that 'angry' look. What are your thoughts? 

Alright, I'm slowly getting towards the rendering part, which will happen in Photoshop via Zbrush passes. Before that, I've considered quite a lot if I could add extra details to enrich the concept since it's rather minimalistic. So far I haven't come up with other stuff to add and I'll keep reflecting on that matter because there are a few more days til the end. Anyways, I'm trying to make silhouette checking a very strong habit and evaluate how the lines of action behave, how readable the character is and negative space. 

Value check is another important step that I need to do more in upcoming projects as this helps see the character with a different pair of eyes and how readable it is. To demonstrate, I did a quick test in Photoshop to see how the colors behave. The idea behind my simple coloring here is based on a gradient going from dark (bottom) all the way to light (top) where the main areas of interest sit. The basic principle here is to make sure that there is balance and contrast between each parts of the character so that it makes instant impression of what he is all about.

I'm still thinking if there is anything else to add. Otherwise, I'd go to the rendering stage and wrap things up.  ? 

I guess I'm nearly done. I've been thinking how to push the rendering process and I'll probably give it one more day just to be sure. Anyhow, whatever changes/additions I'll make won't be dramatic, so this may be my last WIP post. This contest has been super fun and productive, which I am mostly grateful for since it gave me more drive to keep on working; despite that right at the end of this contest I realized that I could have picked a far more expressive and interesting concept. Anyway, here is a shot including the render passes. Best of luck to anybody who have dared to keep track of my progress.