Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Hi Sammie, congratulations on finishing the character for SFAS. Anatomy - I recommend focusing a lot of your time learning anatomy. There are many resources online, but I first recommend getting Anatomy for Sculptors, as it's a relatively inexpensive way to get high quality references. Getting a physical anatomy statue is also highly recommend when learning, as you are able to rotate it in your hands and see how the body is built and connected. Physicality - Going off of anatomy, more focus needs to be spent thinking about how things are built and connected. How are clothes actually made? How are they stitched together, how do they sit on the body, why do they wrinkle and fold that way, what's the difference between how jeans act compared to cotton or leather? How does hair actually come out of the head, how does it layer itself when hanging, what about when under a hat? Hair is not one big sculpted mass, it's larger forms composed of smaller strands that clump together to make medium sized forms, then smaller clumps still to get those details. Why does the character have dirt on their body? Did they fall, get splashed with mud from a passing vehicle, did they get caught in the rain which stained their clothing? You need to always be thinking how a character lives in their world, and create those details accordingly. I highly recommend learning more anatomy and doing many practice exercises before attempting a full character again. Fundamental skills are more important at this stage than finishing a project and calling it done. You know the basics of 3D software which is great, now you need to focus on improving fundamental art skills.
• Research + Development – There is some good references here especially the game characters as you can get a good sense of their personalities through what the studios have developed. There seems to be a lot of fashion images which is good for developing the look. I would look at expanding the research to movies and novels too. The key thing missing for me is more exploration into the concept stage specifically looking at different styles and experiments on how you got to the final design. Creative – When I first looked at the model, Chloe from life is strange was the first thing that came to my mind and that was before I saw the inspiration page. I would try to avoid referencing a character as closely as that as you want to be able to put your own unique stamp on it. There are some nice elements from the concept that were lost in the final model such as the looser, flowing hair and shape in the clothing which changes the silhouette. Her clothing on the model looks all too tight so try and pull areas out like the hanging fabric from her top and the wider, untied boots around the ankles. I would take the tattoo designs further and add some narrative in the designs. The one you have looks very fresh as the colours are all quite saturated which given she is in a post-apocalyptic world feels odd, so I would look at desaturating that to make it feel like it was done before maybe have some that she has attempted herself which look less polished. The bag is a good element you can explore to tell more of a story too. Try adding some items that she has scavenged along with practical things she would need to survive like cooking utensils or a rolled up sleeping bag tied to the bottom to really sell the survival aspect of the design. Technical – Stylised characters are tricky as you need to simplify the forms whist sticking to correct anatomy. The face could do with some defined planes, the best reference for this is John Asaro’s planes of the head - https://www.planesofthehead.com/ but William Nguyen recently made something similar as a lighting ref which I like to use for referencing the forms of a head https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6a0Par I noticed that the bends on the arms and legs look unnatural and this will be down the poly loops on the joints. Here is a good point of reference to correct that - http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Limb_Topology A rule of thumb for topology is to keep polys as evenly spaced out as possible then add loops and cuts in where is necessary for animation. A good video to follow on this is - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQzPDs99yM&t whilst this is done in blender the same rules apply for all retopology programs. I would say the polycount for this character overall is too high but by following the tips in the video linked you will be able to cut this down by a good amount. I see you have mentioned you wanted the textures to be simple however without having colour variation in the skin this can make the overall textures look flat. Danny Mac has some good tips for making skin look simple and clean but still retaining the details it needs to look like skin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9V1_mN-VbY Presentation –There is an opportunity to showcase some of the unique aspects of the character in this pose such as sorting through her survival bag or cleaning her weapon to really sell the post-apocalyptic feel, maybe even a death tally scored on her board similar to what you see on the helmets of the American troops in Vietnam. The current pose isn’t very dynamic I would advise looking at the research you looked at for getting a nice dynamic pose and look onto facial expressions to capture a look you are after. Whilst the small piece of ground the character is on isn’t part of the model, it can be used to really help set the tone of the character and ground it in its environment. Rather than using a tilelable material you can treat it as more of a mini diorama and include some set pieces that add to the characters story. This could range from empty bullet shells from a recent attack or maybe some tins of food she has been eating from. Documentation – It is concise and to the point and nicely presented but as I mentioned in the R and D stage there are some stages that could be improved upon.
• Not bad, I would practise your anatomy and texturing more. Its always great fun to take a part of the anatomy, a head, or arm, or torso, and work on that on its own to learn in zbrush. Keep practising!