A new stylized character

I'm still working on my Living Dead Girl character - she's about 90% done, but felt like working on something a bit different for a change, so I began work on this stylized character about a week ago in my spare time. I also had a bit of downtime whilst working on 300: Rise Of An Empire at Cinesite so also managed to squeeze in some work on her there. And yes, I'm using Maya.

Most of the base geometry is done with the exception of the figure itself, which is still the low poly base mesh and is thus lacking detail and shape. I still need to add in small details like toe and finger nails and flesh out more of her forms and also give her proper ears. I want to keep her quite simple and not add too much anatomical detail. I've been really inspired by Paranorman and a few other films lately, so felt like doing something a bit more in that vain, though this won't be anywhere nearly as stylized as that.

I'm actually working on 3 characters at the moment; one I mentioned in a previous post (Living Dead Girl 4) which I've put on hold until I finish the 3rd (Living Dead Girl) and this character. I want both characters done for when I launch my new website.

More to come...

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Environment...

Just some quick, low quality renders. I'm busy with the environment, working on the pillars - they should go pretty quickly. I just need to texture the upper part above the column then do some sculpting on them to break up the edges and such, and then do some secondary maps (bump, spec, etc.). Then I can focus on the layout, lighting, etc.

I was also playing about with the colour of the gown and some depth of field in the scene. I like the white version but will most likely keep it dark. I might try red as well...

I'm also mucking about with my 4th Living Dead Girl as I work on this.

More to come...

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Coming soon....

Nothing to show at the moment but I've started working on my 4th Living Dead Girl (based on an old concept I did a couple of years back) in between working on the environment for the 3rd one. I'm trying not to get too distracted by her as I really need to finish the 3rd one soon.

Coming soon....

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Wax on wax off

I've been working on the environment for my 3rd Living Dead Girl. I'm done with about 90% of the modelling in Maya (yes I've made the switch to Maya for modelling - I'm still rendering in Max though); just one or two more things left to model. This candle stand is the first asset that I've textured and done some test rendering on with VRay in Max. I haven't put too much effort into this as it'll most likely be in the background; none-the-less I'm quite happy with the results.

I'll be moving onto more of the environment texturing and sculpting later in the day.

Until then...

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A small update

If you right-click on the image and select open image in new tab/window it should open a larger 1600px version.

It's been a while since I've updated my blog - I've been quite busy with freelance work over the past months, so I haven't had too much time to work on my personal work. Fortunately, I've had a bit of time over the past month or so to do some work on my Living Dead Girl (number 3). It's mostly involved redoing the hair for her (which I'm still working on). I've also been able to render it properly with VRay since Hair-Farm now seems to fully support it. I've redone the cloth as well as textured it properly now.

I'm quite happy with the way she's turning out. The lighting is still very much a work in progress (though I do like the direction it's taking); along with quite a few other things that I'll touch up once I start putting the scene together - I'll hopefully start modelling an environment for her this coming week.

More to come...

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World War Z trailer... Finally!

Finally a trailer for World War Z - the last film that I worked on at Cinesite. There's a reasonable amount of my work in there as well: 

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/worldwarz/

I'm really looking forward to this and I'm so glad that it's actually moving forward now and getting released.

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More cloth...

Nothing too new - one with lace trimmings and one without. Mostly just some adjustments to the placement of the cloth - mostly how it covers the breasts more now. Though I'm not so happy about the way the cloth interacts with the nipples (it's more visible in the version without the lace). So I'll probably adjust that a bit.

It's still using a basic shader with a few tweaks which looks better than the shader from my previous post. The lace is also pretty flat at the moment as it has no bump applied. I'll still be playing with the shaders later on. There are still no textures aside from the lace and a rough bump material for over all coverage. This will change once I've sorted out the UV's etc.

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Dressing her up...

I wasn't going to post this because the robe/cloth is still a very early work in progress, but I thought that I need to post something.

Anyway, just a quick render of where this character is heading; sans hair (I'll probably end up redoing more of the hair (that I posted earlier) than I intended as my idea or using morph targets with Hair-Farm didn't quite go as planned unfortunately).

The cloth still needs a lot of work:
- The way it's draped needs some attention as well as I want less of her breasts exposed
- I still need to add in seams, etc.
- The shader is also very temporary and there isn't a texture yet so that'll need addressing soon. I'll probably be adding lace trimming and some other delicate stuff.

I like where the lighting is heading as well - obviously it's just a quick test (her right eye looks rather weird at the moment). I still need to start working on the environment (here I come Maya). I've also created a small accessory for her, but will add that in at a later stage.

All that and some extra gooeyness...

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Posing

It's all been going a bit too slow as I've been stuck in a bit of a rut and have also been a bit lazy. Anyway.... I've finished the ZSphere posing and now I'm cleaning up the pose deformation and getting the muscle definition sorted out to match the pose. I've just started on her upper torso. Once that cleaning up is done, it's on to the expression. Shouldn't take too much time to get that all done then I can start setting up the final scene. I've also been testing some VRay shaders, but more on that later.

I'm also about halfway with the clothing. I'll post some updates on that soon.

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Rigging and Posing with ZSpheres.

I've really been been enjoying the freedom and ease that ZBrush's ZSpeheres offer for rigging and posing. I always used to have to painstakingly set up the skinning and posing using Max's biped and Character Studio, which would take ages to do and never really gave me great results (probably because I'm not a character rigger).

I find this works so much more easily and not to mention quickly for what I need. It took roughly 10-15 minutes to create this rig, and the best part is that it skins the character on the fly. It works incredibly well; even really hard areas to rig and manipulate like the shoulder areas are no problem - the arms rotate upwards and the mesh deforms with no problem.

There are still a few areas to pose and tweak: the hands and fingers haven't been touched yet and I might still tweak a few other areas. Once the ZSphere posing is done, I'll do a bit of clean-up sculpting to areas where the muscles have deformed and shifted and then also give the her an expression of some kind.

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