Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Research + Development – A good number of tests shown however there is not much reference to the “cop” aspect of the design which I would like to have seen more of as this is what makes the character unique. Would be worth looking into undercover police and researching what equipment they would carry; I noticed a couple of images on the pinterest section there may have been more on that that weren’t on the page? It would be nice to see how you built up the character through research into why they are wearing what they are wearing and tell more of the narrative through the model itself. It would have been nice to explore other tough looking females and got some votes on similar to what you did with the clothing and hair choices as arguably that is more of an important feature of the character due to the other elements being interchangeable. Creative – I like the use of the paintovers for the R&D stage to experiment with different styles and would encourage this when using photo refences however I would avoid painting over other artists work as the concept art you have created would be considered as plagiarism due to it being this- https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GZ1rQ There is no issue with basing a model off of someone else’s concept however you should first ask the original artist for permission to do so and then credit them in the description of your model when published. I wouldn’t know that the character was a cop by looking at the model without its title. Maybe this is intentional as she is supposed to be undercover? Even if this is the case it would be good to have subtle hints like a gun holstered under her coat which can only be seen at certain angles. Technical – Great job on the clothing models they are very effective. The cap could do with some stiches added in substance and some subtle fabric creases in the sculpt. The character model is looking good but would have been nice to see some more stages of how you got there from the base mesh. The hood topology is quite dense; I would advise using Zremesher to knock this down and make the topology a bit cleaner. The main area to focus on here is the UV layout optimisation. You want to aim to use as much of the UV space as possible whilst retaining an even texel density. This is good reference for optimising your UVs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roNFY8G8KUM You will also need to ensure there is enough padding between your UV islands as most game engines will use Mip-Mapping that will downscale your textures based on distance from camera here is a video which goes into some more detail on that - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD7mlc6h4N8 Presentation – It would have been nice to get in some of the lighting from the concept into the scene to see the reflections from the neon lighting, bringing in the blues, pinks and oranges. Feels odd to me that there’s a duplicate of the character in the same scene. I would focus on getting one exactly how you want and add in some props to the base they are standing on to drive the narrative of the character. Documentation – Good amount of detail overall but I would like to have seen more trial and error shots where it comes to the final pose.
• It has a good flow and development this character, but falls short a little on the final outcome and presentation. The clothing as high poly and retopologied looked good, but perhaps concentrate a little on texturing and also lighting and presentation for the next one. But on the whole you are getting the technical side of it mainly down, just keep practising.
• Hi Jake, here's the feedback I have for your character. - Presentation - Don't present your characters on dark backgrounds, especially if they have dark clothing. You want your characters to pop and be immediately visible to the viewer, black on black doesn't help that. Only render the character from one angle per picture, don't have multiple copies of the character in a single render, it's harder to read what is going on. I would rather look at 20 photos of 2 different poses from all angles, than 10 photos with the 2 poses packed into one picture. - UVs - UVs should be oriented vertically where possible. The head is facing 7-o'clock, but it should be vertically aligned where the forehead is at the top of the UV sheet and the chin pointing down. You should also maximize the texturre space for the head, especially the front of the face, there is a ton of wasted space on the texture sheet. Same goes for the clothes, they should be vertically oriented, which can allow for tiling detail textures to be applied to the clothing. Technical Issues - The hat is super blurry in your renders, like the textures failed to load. There are clipping issues throughout the character, like the hand clipping through the jacket sleeve cuff or the shirt clipping through the back of the pants. The knee collapses badly when posed, it's really noticeable from the side views. Avoid triangulating meshes (notably, the pants and hood), if you need to edit the mesh in the future, it's almost impossible once it's been triangulated. Let the engine handle the triangulation. The Head - Her head feels too big for her body. The anatomy forms are also overly defined, giving her a very masculine appearance. Female anatomy is generally softer and more subdued. More attention could have been given to the ears as well, they dont integrate into the head very well. I recommend spending some time doing anatomy sculpts of heads, based off of real people, to improve your anatomy skills. Take these notes and improve on your next character you make, you have a decent skill base to work from and improve upon.
• great sculpts! the clothing in particular is really nice. Great r+d also. A little wasteful with UV space but UVs + topology themselves are fine. I think the project is let down a little by the final renders (they're pretty dark, a secondary light colour wouldve been nice too) but the quality of work is really good :)