Anatomy & Character Sculpture: Projects & Compilation

06.10.22 - 10.12.22 (Week 6 - Week 15)
Chai Yi Xuan / 0346645 / B' Creative Media
Anatomy & Character Sculpture / Entertainment Design
Projects & Compilation

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INSTRUCTIONS

To-Do List:

• Sculpt a character
  

Projects:

• Project 1: Stylized Character Blockout
  
• Project 2: Character Detailing and Texturing
• Project 3: Polishing and Dynamic Posture with Props
  

Project 1: Stylized Character Blockout

Week 6

For my project, I decide to sculpt my character that I designed for my other module Character Design. At this point of time, I already designed her appearance so I didn't have to think too hard about it.

Figure 1.1: Turnaround of Mizuki Aikawa, from Character Design

Week 7

In ZBrush, I decided to first blackout my character with spheres, cylinders and cubes. At this point, I'm finally more familiar with the program, so it didn't take too long to block out my entire character. Despite that, I felt that the proportions are off. I decided that I will make the adjustments as I merge and sculpt my character.

Figure 1.1: Character blockout, simple 3D meshes

Week 8

I managed to finish up until the waist, though the features on my character looked horrendous. I got caught in trying to fix the details that I ended up progressing too slowly. The worst part is, it still didn't look too great.

Figure 1.2: Sculpting progress, waist level

Week 9

Forgetting about the details, I went and sculpt the entire model. I managed to finish it, but it definitely needs a LOT of refinement in terms of proportion.

Figure 1.3: Sculpting progress, turnaround for week 9

Week 10

After some feedback from Mr Kannan, I adjusted my model's proportions as best as I could, and start refining the features of the model. I also started to sculpt my character's hair.

Figure 1.4: Sculpting progress, sculpting hair

Week 11

I refined my character further, making sure all the basic details are there before the submission of Project 1.

PDF presentation file for Project 1

Project 2: Character Detailing and Texturing

Week 12

With the base of my character done, it was time to start sculpting her costume. At this point of time, I made some changes to the design of my character, so I would need a new turnaround to refer to.

Figure 2.1: Turnaround of Mizuki Aikawa, updated design

As the same I did for Project 1, I first insert the general shapes of my costume and props as a blockout. Then, I started sculpting the details on.

Figure 2.2: Sculpting progress, props blockout

Figure 2.3: Sculpting progress, water gauntlet

I was having a lot of trouble with sculpting my character's gauntlet, as it has a hole to insert another cylinder in. I consulted Mr Kannan for technical advice and he taught me how to subtract a mesh from another. This made my model look nicer with clean cuts, and also helped with other details that I have yet to sculpt. I was also advised to not sculpt the wires because they will be a pain to deal with when I pose my character.

Week 13

There is a little bit of rushing this week, since we are expected to have a fully coloured model for presentation. It was hard for me to colour my character, since I couldn't find a way to get my colour palette in ZBrush for easier colour picking. Adding on the need to consider material texture, it was a lot of work. Eventually, I got something satisfactory out of it. I also finally learned how to render in ZBrush, so no more low quality screenshots from now on.

PDF presentation file for Project 2

Project 3: Polishing and Dynamic Posture with Props

Week 14

Onto the final project of the module, we have to pose our character and also render them. The hero pose I designed for Character Design is a complicated pose, though I decide to try and pose my model like so.

 

 

Figure 3.1: Hero pose from Character Design

 

My first attempt of posing character made me realise that there will be a lot of skeleton frames needed to ensure my model moves the way I intend to.

Figure 3.2: Posing progress, ZSphere skeleton

Figure 3.3: Adding more ZSpheres to create frame

And now, featuring "There Was An Attempt".

Figure 3.4: Attempt of posing character

It didn't work too well, since I couldn't figure out how to move both the boots and legs at the same time. And with time against me, I had to think of a more simplistic pose that I could do. In the end, I settled to pose her arms instead.

Figure 3.5: Final attempt at posing character

I managed to get her posed like I wanted her too, so I had ZBrush modify the model. I was careless, though. While it did pose my character as I wanted to, a lot of the meshes ended up distorted, so I had remodel and sculpt back some parts, especially her arms. It took up a chunk of my time.

Week 15

After fixing my model, I only had to render it and create a poster. I decided to do something similar to the official character bio sheet that is featured in the manga I based my character's design from.

Figure 3.6: Official Character Bio sheet (sourced from MHA manga)

Figure 3.7: 3D model poster

Aside from that, there's much else left but to render the model for screenshots.

PDF presentation file for Final Project

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FEEDBACK

Week 8

Work quickly on sculpting your model, do not prioritise details just yet.

Week 9

The back can be pushed in a little more, because currently your character looks like she's hunching. Define her muscles and sculpt landmarks to show your understanding of muscle anatomy.

Week 10

You might want to tone down her muscles a little, since she looks super buff. Continue working on her hair and complete it for submission.

Week 12

Good blockout. For your props, add some indents to make it look more interesting. Do add more details to the rest of the props. The shorts should have more wrinkles around the hip area and the crotch as well. The applies to the shirt, but around the waist area where it's pinched by the belt.

Week 13

Your costume and props looks good, just a little more and you'll be good to go. Do hurry with painting the model.

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REFLECTIONS

All these projects I have done made me super efficient with using ZBrush to model. I had to model once before this module, and it didn't turn out well. And doing these projects made me realise that I'm not too good with 3D modeling, though it might be the inexperience talking. Yet, looking back at all the work I have done in this semester, I found that I came a really long way. At the start of this module, I couldn't imagine myself modeling a 3D character. Nonetheless, I managed to create model one, with all the props and poses that seemed to complicated for my liking. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but I think this module has really allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and actually create something. If time constrains weren't a thing, I would probably have fun doing this as well.