Initial Ideas
The Style Matrix projects were completed and I had learnt a lot about myself and my work, and then it was finally time for my Final Major Project. It somewhat crept up on me as one moment I was polishing my work, and then I had to do a presentation on my FMP ideas; I was extremely nervous.
I knew that I wanted to do a 3D character project and that semi-stylisation was my strongest medium but I needed an interesting backdrop for them. Luckily we were given the opportunity to present some of our initial ideas to a tutor before the presentation.
Ideas I considered:
Seven Deadly Sins
Characters for a game were people fight via animal familiars/demons
Victorian Family Portrait
Vampires/Ghouls/Werewolves
Character loading screen
Girl raised by wolves
Strongest Ideas:
Seven deadly sins
Victorian family portrait
Animal familiars
These ideas had the most potential to them because they had the most depth and interesting references that I could work from. However there were some issues; seven deadly sins is somewhat vague/overdone and I would have to really consider how to originally apply the contexts, the Victorian family portrait would need refining so it wouldn't be boring, and the animal familiars could become somewhat risqué and could come out a bit too furry force.
In the end we decided that the Victorian Family Portrait would be the most interesting and also an original idea. People liked the idea of how I could display direst in the family via their posing, designs and their backdrops.
Getting the Green Light
We had to present out ideas to our course leader and another tutor to get our projects approved. This made sure we would be efficiently using our 20 weeks and actually doing something that would be beneficial for our portfolios; our final major projects are meant to encompass what we want to be professionally after we graduate.
I was really happy to get the green light as I had done some initial research and already felt passionate about the project.. They also thought my idea was quite original which I am glad of because it means that my work will hopefully stand out.
I was also given some advice from my now-supervisor to focus on the characters and get them done to an amazing standard, and then focus on putting them in an environment, basically just remember my rationale (3D character artist) and not get lost in the other parts.
My Brief
Initial Research
I'd done a bit of research before Christmas break where I did some moodboards to get a feel for the characters I'd be creating.
First and foremost I looked at actual photos of Victorian families to look at their positioning, backdrops, and how their looks. I decided that I wanted to create a middle class family as they were a rising part of the Victorian society and would have a good balance of grandeur but also humbleness which would be fun to convey; this was also the most turbulent class.
Next was twins, there's a certain eeriness to them that I really wanted to capture in the daughters. There's also an almost physic link between twins which I find really intriguing.
For my midwife I decided that I wanted a Caribbean woman who was part of the high class black people of Victorian England. Victorian black people were something I came across during the summer holidays and it is a topic that really intrigued me and was glad that I could apply it to my project.
I also decided to look at actual midwifes ranging from the ones that would work in a public hospital to private midwifes that would work for richer families. I also found some midwifes that were convicted for murdering their charges, they have this eerie look in their eyes.
As this project is set in a certain period I wanted to make sure I got everything historically correct so I got these books from the library, this will greatly help me when designing. I spent the first few days going through these books noting their pages. Books:
Victorian’s Unbuttoned by Sarah Levitt
Art and the Victorian middle class: Money and the making of cultural identity by Dianne Sachko Maclod
Black Victorians: Black people in British Art 1800-1900 Edited by Jan Marsh
Victorian Babylon: People, streets, and images in nineteenth-century London by Lynda Nead
Victorian Fashions & Costumes from Harper’s Bazar: 1867-1898 Edited and with an Introduction by Stella Blum
Art Style Exploration
I collected all the named and dated images and put them on my Pinterest board and made an art style exploration for the project. This is extremely important and will keep me grounded and give guidance. I used a pdf called Art Club: A Digital Publication by Extracurricular Activities, Mike Yamada and Victoria Yang to help with this; they break down what's needed in a style guide and what you need to analyse for it.
I then made a more refined guide, also adding a range of colours picked from all my reference images (magazines, paintings, article clippings) to get the correct Victorian colours. Everything's quite muted and they seem to use the same colours and just change how deep or light it is. Another thing that I noticed was that there aren't any solid blacks and the whites always have a tint to them, probably due to dying capabilities and their harsh clothes washing products (soda crystals). Fun fact: the green dyes, though wonderful and sort after as the hot thing to have, was actually made using large quantities of arsenic often causing health problems and even death.
Concepting
Faces
Morgan
As I don’t often create male characters, I decided to start with Morgan. I used Andrew Loomis' facial proportional sketches to get the base face right. The father needs to have a stressed and unkempt air around him which I tried to capture in his sharper face and unkempt (for the time) facial hair; I played around with the cheekbones, sharpness, and fullness of the face as my character has to be more withdrawn and dichotomous to his plump wife lively wife.
Dorethe
When concepting Dorethe’s face she was looking slightly sallow so I perked up her face; they were simple changes but drastically improved the design.
The first hair I sketched definitely looked too modern, a bit frumpy, and also managed to age her so I looked more carefully at the reference I’d collated and worked from those. The hair is generally curly with an array of twists and tucked hair to create beautiful but extremely intricate hairstyles. This will be tricky to model, but look great if I can pull it off.
The Twins
Bethany and Eliza are quite opposite, the first being rash, cruel, and apathetic and the other being cautious, careful, timid but calculating. I wanted to capture this in the designs and also tried to make them look in their early teens. It’s interesting how much difference changing the mouth’s position and hair/eye colour can be; whilst the top twin has an almost manic look to her, the other looks really withdrawn/sad. Bethany is definitely showier and outgoing so her hairstyles are larger, curlier, and more glamorous whereas Eliza being more demure has more modest and low-key hairstyles, however it wasn’t uncommon for the younger girls to have their hair out and flowing with simple braids, with accessories such as flowers. Strongest designs; for Bethany I prefer the longer 1st hairstyle because she would prefer to show off the length and curliness of her hair, the 2nd one also looks too mature. For Eliza the 1st hairstyle is a bit too simple and she’d most likely be forced to wear more intricate hairstyle for social events and photographs; which is why the 2nd one works better, and thus we have the twins.
Vivienne
For Vivienne I wanted to capture her cultured and suave personality, so I played around with a more sensual face. Looking at my ref also helped me solidify her facial proportions and I really like how calm and collected she ended up; also carrying an aristocratic air. I really like the glamour that her headdresses give her, but also the exotic flair of her textured long hair, so I’ll be playing around with both maybe even combining them for a nice middle ground, accessories will also be important for this character. Keeping the headdress as the main feature, I experimented with having her hair out loose and styled differently; looking at the design and getting peer feedback, the fully wrapped hair looks the best. It has a sleek and sophisticated look.
Oscar the Cat
I started out with a base cat face so I knew the proportions were correct, and then squashed them in for the comical, and recognisable Persian cat face; these cats (though not as squished in the face yet, were highly sort after pets for the rich.
Outfit Design
Again using some help from Andrew Loomis' books, I made sure the bodily proportions and anatomy were correct before concepting the outfits on top of them. I’m also collecting my references and reading up on Victorian dress etiquette, they were very particular about which outfits were appropriate to be worn at what events. I’m thinking that the clothing for younger men would be different from that of the more mature men as well.
Morgan
These are the main suits from the period; things are generally a lot looser fitting, but neat and carefully primped. It’s also interesting to see the modernisation of a tie rather than a cravat or bow tie. The high collars look best on Morgan because it gives a more imposing look, and as he is somewhat tall the waist coats look better than the big, shapeless over jackets which don’t flatter the shape in my opinion.
Combining all the best parts of these designs to make the Ultimate Frankensuit. Decided to a version with a jacket as well because most gentlemen would wear them. Pattern & Value Exploration: The cuts of the suits were generally quite straight forward and not actually too different from the suits today, however the materials and patterns used were wildly fabulous. In terms of values the suits were usually quite dark and often over a white shirt. Although Victorian’s often wore jackets, in terms of design I think it looks better without. Also after speaking to my supervisor we agreed that sometimes it’s ok to break the rules to push the story; especially if this character’s supposed to be having a crisis. He probably wouldn’t care about what was "proper".
Dorethe
Victorian dresses are extremely detailed so I made sure I followed my ref really closely.
For the wife I relied heavily on the Harper’s Bazar book that I have; the dresses are often extremely intricate and are very much statement pieces. I did a range of dresses ranging from the low-neck more flirty attire, to the fully covered but elegant and I like how they’ve turned out. I really like the lace and high-collared look. As she reminds me of Venus I want to keep the almost aquatic looking frills. These are my favourite dress designs I like things about both of them; the 2nd definitely looks more formal though I’ve been told that the skirt looks more maternal. Dress made from strongest designs, I really like the almost mermaid-esque feel to this dress; there’s also a really lovely balance between with both glamourous and formal hints.
I got some feedback from a tutor who said the underskirt had too much material and could be shorter and flow with the one above a bit more; more space to show off detailing on skirt as well. Improve silhouette. As there are more parts to dresses, it makes it harder to do the values for but having all the pieces separated definitely helps. Looking at the book I have dresses seem to have similar values and vary more in colour so I’m going to have to separate it up better later on. I ended up adding more flowers and an extra skirt layer; this greatly improves the flow and aesthetics of the dress. Final dress values: I’m going to edit certain parts later on but for now I’m satisfied with this dress. Adding colours will definitely help me make it look more maternal later on, at the moment things are looking slightly too dark.
Twins
The twins' outfits are a balance of a more relaxed and youthful which give me more room to play with the designs, it also wasn’t uncommon to have the dresses at calf length, I tried it out and the length looks really awkward to me. I might try it out with some of the other dresses and shoe styles. I really like the difference between Bethany’s more elaborate dresses and Eliza’s more demure but still elegant ones. I combined the elements that I liked most from each dress to make these, I really like the waistlines of these and they’re both suitably glamorous enough for a family photo, but also very much work with their quite dichotomous personalities. Luckily the values for the younger dresses were a lot more contrasting than the women’s which made working out the values for Eliza and Beth; I really love the difference between their outfits as well as it’s very much a princess vs. Gothic countess feel. These dresses also make use of semi-transparent materials which will be really fun to texture later down the line. These are the final outfits for the twins, I feel like I’ve really captured their personalities in their dresses and am really pleased with them.
Vivienne
Vivienne is part of the more elusive rich black Victorians (one of the most famous being Sara Forbes Bonetta, top row, 3rd along) so I really wanted to capture that allure and regality she has in her designs. Looking at my ref pearls and lace ruffles are the fashion of choice and I tried to capture that in my first design. I also really love the look of a high collar on her and will be experimenting more with her designs.
Vivienne is part of the more elusive rich black Victorians so I really wanted to capture that allure and regality she has in her designs. Looking at my ref pearls and lace ruffles are the fashion of choice and I tried to capture that in my first design. I also really love the look of a high collar on her and will be experimenting more with her designs. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Vivienne’s dress to have a more fitted look or looser and relaxed feel so I tried out both and I quite liking the chest ruffles with a clinched waist. I felt that the first dress I did worked for Vivienne the best. I added some jewellery and accents her and there to spruce up the design, also looking at how I wanted to the sleeves to bring the dress together. I really like this design as it has a slightly Edwardian style (hourglass and curvy) almost as if she’s ahead of the trends; as expected of Vivienne. I actually found myself really liking the darker values for this dress, the cut of it has an almost witchy feel to it with looks great darker.
Oscar
For Oscar I made sure that I got the correct proportions and bone structure for a cat's body before I stylised it.
I started off with some really simple gestural shapes for the body just to get a feel of his character, I want Oscar to almost have a tiny lion feel to him so I really liked the last one. I then made some tweaks to the body using Liquefy, especially on the last one which gives him a stocky/brave look, though I definitely preferred the pudge of the first 2 as it fits a spoilt house cat’s disposition a lot better. Oscar’s final design has quite a regal and as he is a gentleman, I gave him a mini pocket watch as a collar. I looked at some gradients ranging from warm to cool grey as I do like the thought of a grey cat with smoky coloured fur and bright eyes. I liked the look of the more neutral grey fur and looking at some reference for interesting fur patterns I used overlays to create these; the markings that look like the cat has a moustache which goes really well with the Victorian theme.
Colour Exploration
These rich colours are meant to show masculinity and how rich they are as they can afford well pigmented dyes; I've also listed what materials I'm going to make the clothes out, this'll help me later on. Materials Waistcoat: Gabardine with velvet lining, velvet back panel Cravat: Silk Trousers: Corduroy Shoes: Leather
Dorethe
Dorethe has this warm, lively feel to her which I tried to convey in her outfit colours. Materials Top skirt: Velvet Mid skirt, jacket: Serge Collar, blouse, flowers: Organdy Skirt and jacket lining: Satin backed with tarlatan Necklace, Bracelet: Copper with rose quartz gemstones (copper for fertility and rose quartz for love and family)
I couldn't decide which colour I wanted for Dorethe's dress so I put my preferred one next to her husband and they matched well and looked quite charming together.
Twins
Bethany and Eliza are quite dichotomous which crosses over into the colours they wear. For Bethany I chose lighter more powdery colours including a rich gold which looked great with her hair. For Eliza I looked at deeper, darker and richer colours like dark reds, blues, and greens. She was the hardest to choose a colour for because I didn't want her to look frumpy so in the end I chose the dark olive green dress because how well it went with her eyes and deep auburn hair.
Bethany Materials Cuffs, chest frills, upper skirt trims, roses: Organdy Ribbons, bottom skirt, rose ribbons: Silk Bodice, sleeves, top skirts: Serge Rose gem: Moonstone Necklace: Soft gold Bird eyes: Moonstone Eliza Materials Ribbon, skirt, blouse: Velvet Chest and arm lace: Organdy Collar, chest ruffles, cuff, lining: Serge Gems: Green aquamarine stones
Vivienne
To go with her warm colouring I chose rich colours that complemented her skin tone. Though the blue looked nice it didn't have the oomph I wanted for Vivienne, the purples and reds had that aristocratic air whilst still looking inviting and feminine. The ruffle design was getting lost in the dress and it didn't have enough contrast so I added some highlights, gems, and emphasised the transparent bust area, it brought the outfit together.
Materials Headdress, bustle, blouse: Silk Shoulder ruffles, sleeves, skirt: organdie Jewellery: Electrum, angelite, celestite
Oscar
Originally I was going to keep Oscar grey, but there I still wanted to explore other colours for him, I also had to edit the eyes as they weren't cat-like enough. The red and black cat stood out to me as they have nice depth to them. I chose the black cat in the end because I liked the rich blue-black but I also found out that in the Victorian times black cats were actually good luck (which makes me wonder where the superstition comes from), I did highlight the chest, feet and tail for more contrast though.
Materials Collar: Velvet Watch: Silver
The Odell Family
As it worked so well for the mother, when developing colours for the rest of them, I made sure they looked complementary together as a family.
Rendering
I then decided to test out the render style for my characters, due to to time constraints however I decided to only render out the characters I was going to model. My tutor advised me to do Morgan, Dorethe, and Vivienne because the twins work best as a package deal, and there's enough detail and variation in the one's I've chosen.
Orthographics
I wasn't sure how detailed to do my orthographics and asked one of my peers, the general thought was to have them to a point that I'd understand, so I did quite a simple one, with photos of similar outfits online
Morgan
I'll definitely need to do a more detailed one for the Dorethe and Vivienne (complicated dresses) but this is enough information for me to model Morgan.
Dorethe
For Dorethe I mainly needed some reference of how I'd model her hair braid, and also what the back of the dress looks like.
Vivienne
I was told previously that Vivienne looked too similar to Dorethe so I made sure to make her look more unique when rendering her. I also wanted her to have more Caribbean features so I tweaked those as well. Her grey-blue eyes really offset her colouring. I then put together my orthographics so I know what I want to back of the dress to look like
Modelling
Since I made the clothing in Marvellous designer I decided to make the base models simpler where they would be covered by clothes and later deleted, but made sure to add detail to the faces and heads. I didn't want to spend too much time making fully anatomical bodies when you weren't even going to see them.
Base Models
Morgan
To model the head I turn on symmetry and start with the eyes, and strip model the rest outwards and make sure to pay attention to the loops. I've modelled in the beard because I'm going to sculpt it, but the moustache is separate.
To start off the hair a made a skull cap following the shape of the hair from my concepts, I decided that as the front of the hair has a lot of depth and the curly detailing it was a better idea to actually model it, and for the rest of the hair I used layers of planes which I'll alpha for the rest of the hair.
I made sure to compare my model with not only my concept, but also an anatomically correct male. Although it will be stylised and mostly covered, I still wanted to make sure that the base work was correct.
Testing the mesh in marvellous designer; not only is this fun for me but it also helps me troubleshoot. MD works really well with the meshes as it automatically make the whole mesh a collision; this is just some starter content.
Morgan's Accessories
Pocket watch, sleeve cuffs, and waistcoat buttons.
Dorethe
This time round I decided to work directly off of some body ref, especially because she's pregant: http://www.deviantart.com/art/40-Week-Pregnancy-Turn-Around-Set-1-Reference-469495791 I also used parts of Morgan's body and made them more feminine.
After I'd finished the base body I made it look more like Dorethe's accounting for the stylisation, maternity corset, and that she's not as far along in her pregnancy.
Hair
I started out with some curved planes to do the brushed back part of her hair and to also give myself a starting point.
I then modelled some wavy strips for the side of her hair. To make curls for her hair I used the Spiral tool which you can also adjust to make low poly, but believable curls; I'm so happy they have this shape tool else it would be hell to model curls.
In the end I used thinner, warped polygons which I moved around, curved and tucked in to give the illusion of the braid, I'm really happy with how this turned out. I then added some accessories to her hair that collaborated with her earrings. I feel it's the small details in a character's design that really helps bring them to life.
Although you won't really see her feet in her long dress myself and my tutor thought it would be good to have them modelled anyway. I used a mixture of reference for these shoes to create a custom look that worked best for Dorethe.
Vivienne
I used Dorethe's model and resized it for Vivienne, which meant getting rid of her stomach and making the model more slender. The waist had to be scaled in quite drastically to account for Vivienne's body shape, the corset, and also the general stylisation of my characters; the face was then edited to look more like my concepts.
I made the head wrap using a plane starting from the back to give the flow and weight of wrapped fabric, and the tied area are rounded cylinders rotated over one another.
Vivienne's hair was really simple as it's just the hairline and edges of hair that peak out of her head wrap.
Marvellous Designer
I decided to make the clothing in make the clothing in Marvellous Designer because it creates outfits and simulates them in real time, I also didn't want to spend ages sculpting in folds. It's always fun to learn new software and I also know that MD is becoming increasingly popular with character artists.
Morgan
Looking at some suit patterns from The Victorian Tailor book I've made some primitive trousers and a shirt. They're both too tight and need refining but for now the simplicity makes it easy for me to understand and work with.
I used patterns from my tailoring book and some resources online to create the bases for the shirt and pants, I then refined and edited them to match up to my concepts. My favourite part of this outfit is definitely the trousers, to create there defining lines I used a tool that creates internal shapes and adjusted the settings till I got a crisp line.
I generally stuck to basic shapes, and then made them more detailed one I saw how the fabric fell.
Marvellous doesn't have a button tool (as far as I know) I had to simulate a closed double-breasted waistcoat by making cuts in the front, and then stitching the opposite sides together. This was quite a bit of trial and error but I'm really satisfied with the end result.
I added an almost Dracula-esque peak to the back of the waistcoat to give flair to Morgan; it helps sell his dark, tall and brooding character.
To finish up the waistcoat I used internal shapes to simulate button holes and made some fake pockets. Considering this is the first outfit I've made in Marvellous I think it went pretty well.
Dorethe
I couldn't for the life of me simulate the bustle effect in Marvellous so I went back into 3dsMax and made a fake crinoline (metal posterior-maker) which I'll delete later on; this immediately gave the recognisable Victorian shape.
The skirt has quite a few folds so the large circle pattern gave the best effect. As Dorethe has a more complicated chest area, I stuck with simple rectangles at first and added and stitched points to wrap around her body. On a side note I really loved this stage of making the dress because it reminds me of Aleera's dress from Van Helsing...
I got to a point where I was stuck with how to complete Dorethe's dress so I moved onto Vivienne's dress I ended up saving over Dorethe's; which turned out to be a happy accident because the new design was a clear improvement from the last dress.
To get the dress going I saved a version of V's dress and imported Dorethe's base model instead and adjusted it for her shape. This time round I utilised my knowledge of the software a lot better.
Dress Vol 2.
I used what I'd learn from making V's dress to make D's new one; it's also a lot closer to my concepts.
I really like how the sleeves turned out and there's a nice pull on the blouse.
Final dress pattern
Vivienne
I started with again adding a skirt base in 3dsMax and then made the circle skirt and blouse. I tried a new method of making the top skirt by using curved rectangles attached to the waist belt and this was really successful in giving me the folds and horizontal creasing.
This dress has a later Victorian/early Edwardian feel to it because it accentuates an hour glass figure. The ruffled layer skirts were tedious to stitch together but it looks good.
The sleeves and waist corset were quite tedious to make but I think they turned out well.
For the shoulders I made a bib-like semi-circle and added some internal shapes to make it look like it's connected to the arms.
Final dress design; it really looks a lot like my concepts.
Re-topologising
My process for the MD outfits to the low poly version:
Outfit exported from Marvellous Designer as an .obj and make sure it's set to cm
Import into 3dsMax and remove the base model that was imported with the clothing
Export clothing in parts or as a whole depending on how dense the topology on the meshes is
Use Zremesher to turn the models into quads and then reduce the tri-count, I messed around with the settings a lot as it gives different results
Import back into 3dsMax and manually edit the topology e.g. removing loops and cleaning up the mesh
Delete parts of the base mesh that will be covered by the clothing
Unwrap low poly models in preparation for baking
Base Mesh: 8,556 tris Marvellous Designer Outfit Export: 40,422 tris Zremeshed: 74,205 tris Low poly: 3,907 tris
The dresses were the hardest to re-topologise because of the overlapping folds; I actually ended up remodelling parts of the outfit with the high poly model overlaid to keep the silhouette.
Base Mesh: 13,068 tris Marvellous Designer Outfit Export: 108,070 tris Zremeshed: 971,431 tris Low poly: 6,658 tris
Base Mesh: 7,049 Marvellous Designer Outfit Export: 97,049 tris Zremeshed: 148,406 tris Low Poly: 4,251
Unwrapping
I had to go back and redo M and V's unwraps because they had way too much space in them. I decided to render out my whole character on a2048 because resizing it tp 2048 after meant the textures will be crisper. I also decided to have it on one sheet because there's not enough skin to go on its own sheet and I don't need to you any of the shaders (e.g. skin or glass)
Morgan Unwrap
Morgan Unwrap Redone
Dorethe Unwrap
Vivienne Unwrap
Vivienne Unwrap Redone
Sculpting
I sculpted details onto all of the characters in Zbrush and have done some bakes for them in Xnormal. For the sculpts I added in the strong details from the concepts which I'll then enhance with my albedo. I had fun with Zbrush this project because it was more about getting in extra details and refinement than rigid sculpting and it felt more fluid than it had bedore.
Morgan I wanted his face to have some wear and tear on it and look aged/fatigued. I added some minor details to the clothing by sharpening parts and cleaning up the folds.
Dorethe She was looking slightly depressed in the face so I gave her a more whimsical look and an overall plumper face. For the clothing I added in the detail on the blouse and deepened some of the folds.
Vivienne She has a sculpted but supple feel to her face, which I think I managed to enhance quite well. I added the details in V's headscarf to make it look like it has tension and also added some detailing on her clothes from the concepts.
Baking & Texturing
After finishing sculpts, I baked out my normal and cavity maps in xNormal (I did try the GetBaked script inside 3dsMax, but it didn't give me the results that I wanted), and my Ambient Occlusion in Substance Painter. The cavity map was recommended to me by my tutor as you can overlay it on your albedo and its helps with texturing.
To start my textures I found that overlaying the AO and normal map (made black and white) worked the best. For my textures I use my exported normals and make a cut-out to make a mask for my albedo layer. I then make flat colour layers for to get the sense for the textures, and after add the details.
Looking at artists who make hand-painted textures like Viviane Herzog, I tied to get the depth into the skin by using shading, highlights and blemish layers) I was also more confident with the paintstrokes. Although I was cutting it close at times, I'm glad that I managed to get all of the detail into my albedo.
I also didn't end up needing a specular map for my characters so they just have an: Albedo, Roughness, AO, and Metal map.
Morgan Albedo/Normal/AO/Roughness/Metal/Cavity
Dorethe Albedo/Normal/AO/Roughness/Metal/Cavity
Vivienne Albedo/Normal/AO/Roughness/Metal/Cavity
Rigging to Pose
Rigging them to a pose meant that I could show more personality in the stance rather than just A-posed characters. I got some tips from my tutor and my peers (they even posed for me) so I could get a good group dynamic and I was given some advice to look at sources such as movie posters to see how they've implied the relationships between the actors based on their body language and positioning.
3D Viewer
Final Renders
The final poses for them are more dynamic and I feel like there's more of a narrative now; Morgan feel more aloof/disinterested, Dorethe's main focus is on her child (though she looks forlorn), and Vivienne has her eye's on Dorethe (though maybe not for the most positive reasons).
Conclusions Q&A
1. Have I answered my brief? I believe that I have displayed my ability to make a range of interesting charactes (within my chosen time period) and managed to keep a consistent level of quality across all my work.
2. Did I manage my time well? Although parts of the project took longer than anticipated, considering how much I managed to get done and the attention to detail, I think I have managed my time well. 3. How would I better organise myself for future projects?
Try not to spend too long on the 2D work
Take holidays and weekends into account when planning
Smaller project scope
Give more time for acting on feedback/improvements to minimise stress
4. Most successful part of project? The texturing is definitely the best I've done so far, and I'm really pleased with how the outfits turned out from MD. 5. Strengths, skills, and improvements:
Texturing
Marvellous Designer
Modelling and unwrapping
Re-topologising
Quality over quantity
6. Things I need to improve on:
Sculpting
More flexible time management
Baking
Project scope
7. General project feelings
My 20 weeks are finally over (it's felt like a lifetime), but I'm extremely happy with what I've managed to produce for this project; my feedback was always saying I need to spend more time polishing and refining my characters, which I feel like I've finally achieved. I have learnt a lot and can see room for improvements so I will keep on keeping on. . It's been a pretty intense 3 years but it's been worth all the late nights, stress, and tears :)
Thanks for following me on this journey
8. What's next?
I want to get the cat and the backdrop done for degree show, and also generally go through my portfolio/Artstation/Sketchfab, and generally do some house-keeping on those; I want to present my best work.
