Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Hi Jessica! I wanted to share some general advice after reviewing your project. If timing or scope is adding a lot of pressure, take a step back and plan out how you will tackle each part. Sometimes things will not go to plan and that’s okay! You’ve done amazing for this very short timeframe, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how you will improve in the future. Keep it up! //Research & Development// Excellent research into key focal areas in the relevant time era. Next time, collect images of what art style you’d like to aim for to inform how you can maintain consistency. This can be from a game, film, animation etc. It may have been useful to draw a rough idea of the outfit / hairstyle in the concept phase to have an idea of what to aim towards. I understand that you changed ideas halfway through, but it’s useful to turn to 2D ideation when 3D work changes. It would have helped you realise how the details in the dress pull away from the face and hair. To use Marilyn Monroe as an example, when she’s wearing an exceptionally beautiful dress the focus is still on her face, styled hair and bright red lip. It may have helped to plan out Linda’s look beforehand to maintain that balance. //Technical Art// Marvelous designer: Have a look at using internal lines to create your cuts for trimming the dress down. It may have given you a better idea on where to cut the dress or even add a hem at the end. You didn’t mention texel density in your documentation so I’m not sure if you have considered it, but it’s something that’s very important in any games workflow. This post by Anthony O’Donnel goes into it really well https://www.artstation.com/blogs/antodonnell/BppX/texel-density-is-back-it-seems Although it’s for environment art, the principles still stand and this is something you need to know to work in the games industry. Your retopology looks specialised for characters (include closer images of the face if you are applying to jobs with this project) and includes the key loops around the eyes, mouth and nose. When texturing stylised characters, it helps to add “fake lighting” into the albedo. It really emphasises the shape and personality of a character. You can use the ‘Light’ generator on a layer to produce this, have a look at this tutorial to help you: https://youtu.be/zykNcrOODxQ?t=266 //Creative Art// The style of your hair and dress are inconsistent. Because of the dress being from marvelous designer, and the hair from an IMM brush the style differs. I would have sculpted over the base that marvelous designer produced to match the rest of the character better - I think it’s a little too realistic against Linda’s face and hair. If you haven’t already, I’d really recommend Danny Mac 3D’s channel as I think it suits your style quite a bit! https://www.youtube.com/@DannyMac3d In your reference for the dresses, we can see how the dress sits snug around the bottom and then drapes down. There’s also a lot of creasing around that seam between the front and back of the dress. It would have really helped the final silhouette to add those details in the high poly. This really shows through in the texturing, the normal map helps to bring that material to life and without any customisation, the flat areas of the dress just get lost in the texture. Again, because you’ve used the material from a different library, there’s a discrepancy in the texturing style. The hair and skin are quite flat and low in detail, whereas the dress is very high detail and more leaning towards that realistic style. Next time, work on tailoring a material to suit your character's style better. Perhaps use a downloadable one as a starting point, and then add bespoke details to suit your character best. //Documentation// You have great presentation skills and I love how the style of your documentation matches the character. It shows great attention to detail. It would have been nice to see a final albedo (base colour) map with your materials too. Employers emphasise the importance of including a screenshot of the UV unwrap with your renders as well, make sure to include this if you are posting it anywhere! I understand that the tassels were quite an issue which caused the outfit change - but it would have still been interesting to include your thought process around it and the processes you tried! It would add to the evaluation element and improve your reflection. //Final Presentation// It’s a shame that the poses didn’t import correctly into Unreal, it would have really helped to add personality to Linda! You don’t mention what the issue was, so I’m not sure what to recommend. If UE5 proves difficult, you can try to use Marmoset Toolbag to render your characters. Rendering can make or break the final look of your character. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’ve allocated enough time to set up an appropriate scene that flatters Linda, I understand that this could have been down to time pressure for this competition though. If you choose to continue this project after feedback, I’d definitely recommend having her posed with proper 3-point lighting and background. I can see that you’ve started to consider this with the purple and yellow lighting render, but pull from references from the 1940s to start. These changes, with the new poses, would help to enhance your character massively! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzLsy5a76p0
• Contestant: Jessica Coburn / @Static Electric Assessor: Tristan McGuire / @Draconic_Cowboy Tier: Search For A Star Congrats on completing your project! Things that went well: ✧ Lots of initial research. ✧ Topology is pretty good. ✧ Effective use of hair IMM brushes. Things to consider next time: ✧ Some of your final design choices don’t feel aligned with your research. The most noticeable difference is the shoes. Your research found some authentic vintage shoes that demonstrated a small, thick heel. But your model has extremely high stilettos. So next time try to stay truer to your research. ✧ Aim to avoid unnecessarily long and thin quads in the topology such as on the arms. ✧ Next time, add more variation into the hair texture. With hair there is great opportunity to use anisotropic highlights in the shader or to hand paint highlights. I hope this feedback proves useful and will help you with future projects and building your portfolio. You can find me on the social medias in the link below. Feel free to reach out in the future. All the best! https://draconic-cowboy.carrd.co/ - Tristan, Character Artist at Airship Interactive.