Artstation is the main online portfolio website for artists. Other industries expect your portfolio to be printed out or be it's own custom website. Artists have an advantage in this aspect but by gathering all the artists into one platform, the competition has the same advantage you do. That raises the question, How can you distinguish yourself from all the other artists?
My Sculpting Process
Mr. Dunning–Kruger says I should just jump into sculpting, no need to take things slow when I already know what to do. But we gotta go by the rules, we have to know the entire checklist before we can skip steps.
Wait, didn't I just go over concept? Isn't that the same as this step? Nah...
What was shown above was the character's Splash Screen, a very flashy and beautiful illustration but it isn't the only reference the 3d modeler would have received. Behold, turn arounds!
These weren't made to serve as reference for a 3d artist which is why it doesn't include a side profile view but we can work with the frontal view, which is the most important. This is what I'll be using as the main reference. That doesn't mean I won't use more, though.
This one is a great reference to use for texturing and poly painting plus it was made by the original character designer, Justin Murray. I'm also lucky enough to have picked a character with an already existing 3d model. I could take a look at it if I ever get stumped and see how the 3d modelers tackled the same challenge.
Excluding the head, eyeballs and neck for now, we have SIX components
This won't be a tutorial or guide on how to properly sculpt a character, it's a breakdown of how I personally sculpt but put under a magnifying glass for documentation's sake. It will most likely change as I keep improving but it's how I've learned and been taught.
Now, I'll be focusing in the hair, usually one of the more important aspects of any character. Malene has a big, blocky bang on the front, two long, pink bangs on each side of her face and a shoulder length bob. The amount of volume and curl her hair has varies from ref to ref but I'll be using the main reference we took a look at first. It's more sleek and straight than the original design from Justin Murray but it's more faithful to the splash art and in game model.
wip
References:
Step One: Concept
For this project, I wanted to practice sculpting a compelling and stylized female head. I really enjoyed Vainglory and one of my favorite characters in that game was Malene. Despite my intentions just being to sculpt a face, I think her design has a bunch of little elements that might make for good practice, I'll go over those in the next step. Malene has her ghostly form but I'll be ignoring that aspect for the purpose of simplicity. It might make for a good texturing project, though.
Step Two: Concept Art
What was shown above was the character's Splash Screen, a very flashy and beautiful illustration but it isn't the only reference the 3d modeler would have received. Behold, turn arounds!
A lot goes into making accurate and usable references for 3d artists, I won't go too in depth into it. All you need to know is this:
- Turnarounds must be consistent. Major body landmarks, such as the knees, chin, shoulders, elbows, etc. should align across all drawings. For example, if you trace a straight line from the knees of the leftmost drawing to the rightmost, it should intersect the knees of every drawing in between.
- The reference sheet should have a frontal view, profile view and back view at minimum. Some artists add a three-quarter view but that isn't as necessary for 3d artists down the pipeline.
- Costume elements should be clear and readable. You'll notice how the character's arms are separate in the profile views, this is to maintain readability and not block and of the jacket/holster elements.
The turnaround above is a great example of a good reference concept artists should be handing down to 3d artists. Sadly, official game character turnarounds aren't really posted on the internet often. However, Malene's artist was kind enough to post the head studies they made during the splash art process.
These weren't made to serve as reference for a 3d artist which is why it doesn't include a side profile view but we can work with the frontal view, which is the most important. This is what I'll be using as the main reference. That doesn't mean I won't use more, though.
Step 3: Breakdown
Sculpting a character is a little more complex than drawing it but the initial process is very similar. When doing a study, a 2d artist might start with laying down guidelines, we can do something similar in 3d by boiling down the character's components to their most basic shapes (Which 3d artists call "primitives"). Let's go back to our main reference and see how we can split up the head into different shapes.
- Red: Is for the Pink bangs on the sides of her head.
- Aqua: Her front bang.
- Yellow: Is the rest of her hair.
- Blue is for her pointy ears.
- Pink is for the flowers on her head.
- Emerald: Her earrings and face studs.
Why split them up in the first place? It makes it easier to tackle things if they're separated into manageable chunks. Going from 'I need to sculpt a character bust' to 'I need to make this character's front bang' is less daunting and it give me small victories as the process goes on.
Step 4: Modeling and Sculpting
I'll be using Zbrush for sculpting and PureRef to keep the references on top. This is what my set up looked like at the start of the project.
This won't be a tutorial or guide on how to properly sculpt a character, it's a breakdown of how I personally sculpt but put under a magnifying glass for documentation's sake. It will most likely change as I keep improving but it's how I've learned and been taught.
Step 4.1: The Block Out or Sketch
I'll start at the head, duh. There are many ways of making a head in 3d but the one i like the most is the Andrew Loomis Method. It takes the head (which starts as a ball in this case) and splits it into even more manageable chunks.
I'll be the first to admit it looks a little funny at this stage. Such are the woes of digital sculpting, your character will look like doo-doo at first. However this basic sketch is still using the reference as uh... reference.
As we start going up in resolution and adding details, the model should really start coming together. Right now, it’s in a pretty low-res state, so the details are still rough and hard to see. The block-out stage is all about getting the main landmarks of the face and body in the right spots. This is the 3d equivalent of something like this:
Step 4.2: Fleshing Out the Details
The main landmarks of the face are roughly in place, now we'll raise up the document resolution and start carving out the details like nose, lips, eyelids, etc.Now, I'll be focusing in the hair, usually one of the more important aspects of any character. Malene has a big, blocky bang on the front, two long, pink bangs on each side of her face and a shoulder length bob. The amount of volume and curl her hair has varies from ref to ref but I'll be using the main reference we took a look at first. It's more sleek and straight than the original design from Justin Murray but it's more faithful to the splash art and in game model.
Hair is a notorious thing to render in both 2d and 3d. For the latter, people can take a sphere and stretch it out into a rough hair shape (Like I've done in the image above) and then sculpting in the hair details. I don't like this method as the end result for me tends to like a Lego minifigure hair piece. It can be done, I'm just not very interested in learning that method at this time. Instead, I'll be doing the more tedious method of sculpting out the hair strands individually. This is the method most collectable figure sculptors use. It isn't super practical as the polygon amount will quickly shoot up which isn't ideal for videogame characters. Nor is it realistic, this approach is very similar to the stylized hair clumps anime art styles tend to have.
Using a curve brush, we can insert tubes that snap to the scalp topology. Editing the curve we can have it so it has a WIDE start (serving as the hair strand root) and have the ends be THIN (so it serves the strand's tip). After eleven of these curves we have Malene's front bang! That's one out of six bits done.
Next I, I block out the side bangs, they're still relatively low-res at this state but once we go up in polygons, I'll be able to sculpt in some details. I also started on Malene's face studs.
Low Poly Tubes are placed in order to fill out any gaps that might show the scalp. The way I'm going about things means Malene will have a bald spot on the top of her head, where the crown will be placed.
The model still looks a little uncanny, that's mostly due to the blank eyes, lack of eyebrows and eye lashes.
Malene has some flowers on top of her head, these were handled by using IMM (Insert Multi-Mesh) Brush. It's very similar to the curve brush but it allows for more complex and not just wormy-tubes. I did not sculpt or model the flowers (shocker!) and opted for an IMM pack from Artstation. The only thing that is left is to make the rest of the hair. It isn't a particularly difficult or complicated process, just a little tedious and slow. I'll be going around the head, placing wormy-tubes on the scalp.
The model still looks a little uncanny, that's mostly due to the blank eyes, lack of eyebrows and eye lashes.
References:
Malene Splash Art and Concept Art: Mushk Rizvi
Malene Concept Design: Justin Murray
Turn Around: James "Red" Tadlock
Malene Concept Design: Justin Murray
Turn Around: James "Red" Tadlock
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