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ANIM2005
Week 1-2
Week 1-2
Character Design Research - The 2010s
Character design is important - it's what you're showing off to people, after all! It's supposed to be marketable, easy to recognize even through just a simple silhouette and it's supposed to give you the general energy of the character through the design. It's quite a hard art form to master, but one that is important nonetheless.
I'm mostly focusing on characters that were designed in 2D, as I find it quite interesting how one can put a cartoony style into 3D. There's a certain art about bring a character to life through animation already, and I believe making it three-dimensional but stylistically goofy is a skill in on itself.
I have decided to put my time into researching characters from the 2010s because while I do enjoy how the late 90s and early 2000s used shapes and sizes of all kinds for their characters, I especially enjoy how human yet alien the modern cartoons of the past decade have looked.
OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Source: Cartoon Network
One of my favourite cartoons of the last decade.
Source: Cartoon Network
One of my favourite cartoons of the last decade.
A lot of the most beloved cartoons from the past decade have been known for using so-called "bean smiles" and "noodle arms". The round faces and bean-shaped mouths have been dubbed the "Cal-Arts style" by critics, as it's been quite notably drawn by modern animators who have graduated from schools such as the California Institute of Arts. This doesn't happen to all cartoons, but it's become a big enough trend that people have taken to calling the character design "lazy" and "unoriginal". I've taken my time to research it, however, and try making it more pleasing to the eye with my own character design. If anyone can make this work in 3D, it's going to be me.
As you can see to the right, I tried to use the shapes and sizes of the characters shown above, while also focusing on a similar style. The body is quite square, with the head being round and squishy. I'm also trying to make the feet more triangular in shape, as I think it'd be a nice touch when translated into the third dimension.
idea 1
idea 1
Since I want to go for a space theme, I decided to design a saturn-themed magical girl! I don't think I would use the hoop around the dress due to limited movement (I consulted a seamstress friend about this), but the middle design is still cute and practical!
idea 2
idea 2
Another alien, this time with a nice robe. The designs are starting to get less human as my mind wanders everywhere.
idea 3
idea 3
The idea I think I will develop further. An alien with big ol' fluffy ears and tail, as well as a hole in the chest for aesthetic purposes. The ears were inspired by the ears on the last idea on the 2nd character, and I decided to develop them to be more animalistic.
I ended up picking "space girl" from design 1, or as I like to call her "Star Cadet Stellanova". Her rounded design makes her seem like a bubbly and like-able kid, but the sharp edges on her dress prove that she's not afraid of kicking ass.
My general marketing age range is girls 6-12, as this is something a lot of my childhood friends would find enjoyable! It's about the energy - both in the design and the character Stellanova herself.
For colours, I'm going with the 3rd design. It's colourful and eye-catching, and gives off a magical girl vibe :)
^ HERE SHE COMES
Finalizing the design
Finalizing the design
Finalizing the design
Since the original design was quite bland, I decided to add some more flare into the design.
Her hair is now longer - sprouting a bun on top, but leaving the rest of the hair freely waving in the wind. This gives her more childlike wonder, making her seem a lot less serious than she originally did. Additionally, I made the hair wavy to make her seem like a "free-spirit", as if she's been out playing in the solar winds.
Another change I've made to her is the dress - I gave it two long ribbons coming out of a star on the chest, making it look like the trails you see during a meteror shower - better known as shooting stars. This makes her seem a bit more energetic, yet elegant at the same time.
The finalized design is cute yet simple - it's sprouting a bright colour palette, with skin and eye colours that make you realize she's out of this world! I kept the limbs and body see-through to make it easier for modeling in zbrush later.
Why are her eyes in the final design so long? I thought that since she's an alien, gravity might work different, which would give her some (but not many) different proportions than ours, thus giving me the power to play with slight exaggeration.
ZBrush
ZBrush
me fooling around in zbrush, 2020
Next up is modeling - which can be extremely tricky. Luckily, ZBrush has quite an understandable interface (for me, at least), and I am exctited to dig into it with my hands.
While the best tutorials can be found on LinkedIn Learning, I do think it's quite important to hear other people's experiences with the program, as well!
Here are some tutorials by other people I found quite interesting!
Here are some tutorials by other people I found quite interesting!
And here's a compilation of me just messing around in the software, trying out different textures et cetera.
And here's a compilation of me just messing around in the software, trying out different textures et cetera.
"the world's first gay dog"
"oh my god he's a statue"
"mirror dog I love you"
"snoot"
"if you touch him your hands are going to be moist for like 3 hours and you won't know why"
"this is what nightmares are made of"
"I want to hold him"
"copper statue"
"fucked up dalmatian"
Progress Week
Progress Week
This was the plan for progress week - I was going to get a lot of work done by splitting it up into factors. However, things don't always go ones way and the whole week was a jumbled mess of everything happening at once, including a gas leak while modeling in ZBrush.
Modeling begins - I am using a mannequin as a base, just like how it was shown in the tutorials. This is making it a lot easier for me to sculpt.
Here I was doing things wrong, but I figured out what I was doing wrong as I went on. I was aligning limbs with the model sheet :)
In this screenshot it's clear that the body is starting to take on a shape more akin to the one in the sheet - It's flatter, but is starting to resemble the goal (except for the head)
Head sculpt begins, starting to look more like the original drawings. However, it was still extremely lumpy here, as it was not properly formed yet.
Then ZBrush crashed and I lost my progress, which is where I called it a night. I continued more the next day, following tutorials shown on the OneDrive folder shared with us. If I didn't understand something THERE, I would take it to LinkedIn Learning and YouTube.
Body is lumpy, but the general form is there.
Nose and ears are in place, and some parts of the body have been fixed! However, now I have a problem with the hands that I've tried fixing. I might need help with this during the next tutorial.
The Hair Problem
The Hair Problem
Here is what I like to call the hair problem - Despite following the tutorials closely and watching them over and over, I was stuck with this for hours until I decided to call it a day. Whenever I export a mask like shown, it would delete the rest of the mesh without the ability to undo it. I've been googling and searching for a solution to this for hours with no luck, which is why I've decided to wait so I could ask for help.
I also experienced a gas leak right after this, but thankfully no one in the house was hurt.
Moving Forward
Moving Forward
So, here's my issue. If I continue the way I am, I'll never finish the model. Omid knows this, so he's given me modeling clay and tools to work on a sculpture to scan in. I'll still continue working with zbrush on the side, but I quite literally cannot catch up enough to reach the topology part unless I do this. ZBrush is a great program and I will continue to learn how to use it but as things are going I quite literally cannot progress unless I do this.
Luckily I have worked with clay before, so this shouldn't bee to much of an issue for me. I'm sorry it had to come to this, though.
I overworked myself last week and was told to take it easy, but that didn't stop me from at least doing some of the work!
I find it easier to work when I have background noises I enjoy, thus I put on Animaniacs 2020 in the background as I worked on sculpting the face. I plan on having this finished by next week.
3D MODELLING CONTINUES
3D MODELLING CONTINUES
Now that the hair was in place, I could get back to work. The hair had been extracted, and I finally understood what I had done wrong. I grit my teeth together, and continued working on the model.
I finally managed to start getting shape on the hair, more fitting of the actual image I had drawn. The bun was made during different tools, including the "standard" tool and the "strand" tool.
I find it's a tad harder for the dress to take shape. While I understand the program more now and I am comfortable in it now, the shape of the dress is quite unique and hard to grasp, as it has multiple sharp edges.
The dress was a challenge, but after a lot of cutting I managed to give it a nice shape.
The star and ribbons are separate extracts, with the ribbons stretched out using the elastic tool.
The shoes have a shape similar to the dress, as well as soles on the bottom.
Instead of "mirror and weld", which didn't work, I managed to find a workaround using transpose, clicking the ctrl button and mirroring the eyeball. It's not perfect, but it worked.
However, there was a problem. Since the eyes weren't mirrored and were quite wonky, I had to remove them and re-do them. I did run into a lot of issues through this, however.
For "whatever" reason, it woulnd't let me mirror and weld the orb, which would become the eye. This freaked me out quite a bit, as I really, REALLY was getting tired of fiddling with the eyes at this point. I got one of them in, but couldn't get the other one in no matter what.
Turns out the issue was simple - my model is slightly off-center, which caused it to not mirror properly!
Thankfully, I got help, and we got it in the end by measuring the eye from the "center", moving it, mirroring it and then moving it back again!
I've decided to divert from the original and go for a bit more detailed look at this point. This way I can test myself more, making things a bit harder for myself. I don't mind a challenge, though! It's all about growth!
The hands are clipping through, but this will be fixed later!
Adding her purple blush - she looks cute!! Look at her!
For some reason, during all of this hubbub the star from the middle and the ribbons disappeared. I then re-made them! Easy enough.
Here is space girl in all her colourful glory bfore we move onto the retopology in zbrush!!!
Retopology in Zbrush
Retopology in Zbrush
At this point, due to Maya being unavailable for me due to my hardware specs (I need 8GB RAM to download Maya and my machine hs 4GB RAM), I have parted from the Maya tutorials and had to do my own research on how to do retopology in ZBrush. There's a lot of people on youtube with knowledge on the topic, as well as a community run discord server, where people post links with resources.
So here's the thing I've learned from my research on this topic - A lot of what's needed for retopology in ZBrush is stuff we've already learned in the remeshing tutorials from OneDrive. This makes my job a lot easier, sure, but the fact that it's this simple is stressing me out. Having done most of it already through tutorials makes me feel like I'm still behind everyone else, despite there being nothing else I can do.
Below are some tutorials from zbrush users on the topic, showing off different techniques!
Making things low-poly is fun!! I quite enjoy the re-meshing.
I had a few issues with how the arms were clipping through each other. After I merged them with the body, they decided against co-operating with me.
I managed, however, to fix this using dynamesh, and then zremesh! This way they connected together just fine as part of one mesh!
Voila! Or as I like to say... Wa la
Like shown in one of the tutorials, I proceeded to paint over a white filled model. I then went on polygroup > polygroup from paint, and now had separate subdivisions for each part of the head!
In the middle fo this, I decided that if I wanted a mesh for animation I'd have to do the re-topology by hand, so I am.
Tutorial
For some reason, it keeps messsing with polyons to the point where they're just... missing. I have no idea what's causing this!!!
It also makes the mesh thicker than the head actually is which makes it harder!
I'm so lost
Retopology in Maya
Retopology in Maya
After enough failed attempts in zbrush, I resulted to going to campus to work in Maya. I would do this multiple days in the week, spending a minimum of 5 hours in the Pierson building at a time.
I started with the face, following the tutorial on LinkedIn Learning from scratch. I had the tutorial open on my personal laptop (as I was already logged in on everything there), and followed along as I worked on the cyntiq in Pierson. I did find this challenging at first, but drawing lines showed to be quite entertaining, a lot easier than it was in zbrush.
I continued at this for 7 hours in a row, before heading home for the day and crashing. I do find this a lot easier than Maya, and the LinedIn Learning tutorials do help a lot. The face isn't as complicated once you learn how to follow the curve!
Day 2
Day 2
After I returned, I had found that Maya would not let me re-open the file I had re-topologized. I sat for an hour trying to fix it, before giving up. There were no auto-saves, so I had to re-do it. No big deal, as I had already watched the LinkedIn tutorial for it.
I had started re-topologizing the hands after I was finished with the face and with the hand being an extremely complicated blob with multiple moving parts, it was tough. I did, however google a hand retopology guide, helping me understand the curves that had to be followed.
Reference Image - https://80.lv/articles/free-hand-topology-model/
Retopology in full force
Retopology in full force
I won't lie - it took a while for the retopology to actually begin. Why? Well, I had misunderstood instructions in the LinkedIn Learning tutorials and had made a grid over the entire body! That won't do, so I went back to re-do the guidelines again. However, now that I understand how it works, I doubt it will take much longer :)
It's quite a relaxing process, actually - drawing the polygons is quite fun and calming, sort of like connect the dots books.
I am doing half the body, so that I can mirror it later on, just like the tutorials said.
Unfortunately I could not finish the project, and this si the body's retopology as it was left off at this part. The situation is explained in the learning report.
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