Scott's Idea Dump

Ah, no problem, Scott. Glad something in my ramble of words made some sort of semblance of sense lol. And, just about any Legend of Zelda themed scarf sounds really cool. I can't wait to see how it turns out. Nice doodle so far too! I think the proportions of it will already help communicate your message quicker and help tell your single frame story more effectively.

Alright, so back to good ol' clay style here. (I feel like the old materials weren't mixing too well with the style so I'm putting that on hold for a while). Anywho, got a head going here, hair like always is just a placeholder to get a general feeling for the character. Currently the one thing that feels a bit off is the lips, so I'll probably keep trying to tweak those to get the look I want.

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Definetly a step in the right direction. Looking forward to see more.

Where are the ears, though? I think it would be better to make those before fixing the mouth.

Dobi wrote:Definetly a step in the right direction. Looking forward to see more.

Where are the ears, though? :PI think it would be better to make those before fixing the mouth.

I'm waiting on the ears. Since I'm doing superheroes/heroines some wear masks that'll cover the ears up or have hair that conveniently covers said ears.   Certainly not a loop hole to avoid making ears.   

Yodaman921 wrote:

Dobi wrote:Definetly a step in the right direction. Looking forward to see more.

Where are the ears, though? :PI think it would be better to make those before fixing the mouth.

I'm waiting on the ears. Since I'm doing superheroes/heroines some wear masks that'll cover the ears up or have hair that conveniently covers said ears.   Certainly not a loop hole to avoid making ears.   

Hehe, nice progress so far Scott. Like Dobi said, you're heading in the right direction. Tweaking proportions to taste takes time sometimes. Just out of curiousity, how did you model the head? Did you box model it, or poly model it?

Unhurdof wrote:

Yodaman921 wrote:

Dobi wrote:Definetly a step in the right direction. Looking forward to see more.

Where are the ears, though? :PI think it would be better to make those before fixing the mouth.

I'm waiting on the ears. Since I'm doing superheroes/heroines some wear masks that'll cover the ears up or have hair that conveniently covers said ears.   Certainly not a loop hole to avoid making ears.   

Hehe, nice progress so far Scott. Like Dobi said, you're heading in the right direction. Tweaking proportions to taste takes time sometimes. Just out of curiousity, how did you model the head? Did you box model it, or poly model it?

Poly model. I usually start with making a nose, then I make the outline for the eyes, add in 'eyeballs' to help shape the eye outline. Expand on the eyes until it runs into the nose mesh. Then I jump down and make the mouth, then fill in the cheeks, then usually add in a subdivided cube that I 'to sphere' it, and connect it to the face to give a rounded skull. All in all, I hate human heads. I have an idea down the line for a kartoon koala (heh, using k for cartoon...   ), and I don't think it'll be that bad making the mesh.

Oh, ok. The last WIP image you posted makes me wonder what the topology looks like. A 'kartoon' koala sounds awesome, but why do you hate human head modeling? Have you ever tried it this way using the 'loop mask' workflow? :   




Anyways, I hope you keep at this. It's a really cool idea.   

@Dave: I'll get an image of the topology with the next update (which should be coming soonish). As for human head modeling, I guess I don't 'hate' it per say, just I have an easier time with cartoon animals. Not sure what that is exactly, but it's just how it goes.

Anyways, random update in terms of 2D stuff. My roommate's senior recital is coming up so I had to make him a flyer to hang around the university.

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I knew what you meant about 'hating' it. I was just giving you a hard time because if memory serves, I've seen you make some great characters. Didn't you make a pretty nifty looking Buzz Lightyear?    And, nice flyer. I like the white silhouette in the background and the colors.   

Journey inspired scarf is done!
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Good work! I like how even if you don't know that it's video-game inspired, it still looks ambiguously Southwestern/Native American. How many hours do you think you put into that scarf?

@Daniel: I'd say somewhere in the realm of 60 hours. This seems to be a good estimate since I would work on it for about an hour every night and it took me two months, and also I once timed how long it took me to do a row and multiplied it by the number of rows and that also ended up being close to 60 hours.

Update time!

For my senior design class for chemical engineering, I'm on a team with three others and we have to design an industrial plant that can take ethane and convert it into aromatics (primarily benzene, toluene, and xylene). Despite already being halfway into the project, I took some time to design a logo for our team based upon a name one of the others came up with:

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(just to add some extra clarification, it's pronounce B-T-Experts. Also the the chemical structure is benzene, our primary product of the 3 aromatics)

And in the realm of other updates, I've been chipping away at Batgirl. Newest render is in Cycles and has particle hair. Keep in mind the character is not done, and I feel like there's a lot of tweaks that'll have to be made (adding some 'blemishes' to the skin to break up uniformity, messing with the shaders on the costume/cape, remodeling the shoes, adding in eye lids to help with the current wide eyed look, etc). But so far I'm liking how it's going.

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Cool Batgirl! I actually quite like your logo as well; it's really clean and professional.
Good work!

Those eyes! 

Thinking about eyes, I'm just wondering how hard it would be for you to make 'real' eyes... you know, like ones that have depth to them?

Dobi wrote:Thinking about eyes, I'm just wondering how hard it would be for you to make 'real' eyes... you know, like ones that have depth to them?

Do you remember Jimtuv? Mr Tuvell made eyes like that once as an experiment. He had modeled and textured the individual parts of the eye in all their correct places within the eyeball. He was a bit limited by the BI renderer at the time though, if memory serves.

Heya Scott,

Nice logo, and nice progress on the Batgirl! I know she's not quite finished, but I like where it's going. I'd like to see her arms a little shorter, and I'm curious how she will look with her eyes closed. I was so curious in fact that I made a little paint over with a shorter torso, shorter arms, and slightly smaller eyes:   

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To be honest, I sorta wish this was an open ended collab. I'd participate.  

Hey Dave,
Thanks for the info, I ended up shortening the torso and arms slightly. As for the eyes, I ended up just shrinking the iris size down instead of the whole eye. As for a collab, that'd be interesting, but currently I'll keep this as a solo project. At this rate though, once I finish batgirl I'll probably take a break and work on something else instead of continuing on with another character.

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(edit: there should be an image right there ^, but it's not appearing...)
(edit edit: until that one appears, enjoy the one below)
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Brilliant! Can't wait to see more progress. Good work Scott, Cheers!  

Unhurdof wrote:Brilliant! Can't wait to see more progress. Good work Scott, Cheers!  

Thanks Dave. I haven't had much time to work on this piece though. I'm kinda in the mood though to wrap this up at some point. So my current plan is that when I have time, rig her and then figure out a suitable pose. Currently I'm leaning towards maybe having her ride a tricycle (batgirl themed of course!) or something to that degree.

Other updates:

New scarf - A while back I started a Legend of Zelda scarf. Unfortunately, much like Batgirl, I haven't had much time to work on it, so I only have a little of it done. Basically, it'll be the symbol on each end, and then the pattern down the side continuing for the full length.

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Next Project - Why yes, I do have issues with constantly coming up with new projects, but never doing them.   Anyways, I have a new project idea for a game. I've started fleshing out the ideas for it and I like how it's going, the big issue will be execution. I'll be updating this with more info once I have more time and a more solid footing in the project.

School - Yeah... school... blech. It's been busy. On the graphics side of school stuff, I'm getting the logo I made (BTXPERTS) printed onto polo shirts for group presentation purposes, those should be in around next Wednesday. So hopefully I can get a photo of one once it comes in. Next few weeks I'll be working on a poster for a poster session so I'll probably be posting that.
Also, not sure if I ever shared this or not, but this is what I've been working on at work for the past year or two:

I... I... I want that scarf   
Great progress on batgirl!

finkgab wrote:I... I... I want that scarf   
Great progress on batgirl!

Thanks Gabriel, as for the scarf, it's already going to a friend.   If you really wanted to, you could probably be able to make one yourself. It's not that hard to do, just takes some time.

Batgirl update! It's getting there. Currently she seems a bit stiff... a bit to formal for riding the tricycle. So I may change her position slightly to loosen her up.

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Update:
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So, as the end of the semester approaches, we have presentations. One of which is a poster session. Here's the poster we are presenting (designed and made by me in gimp/blender):

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Looks really professional, great work! What was your time investment in building it?

BnBGobo99 wrote:Looks really professional, great work!  What was your time investment in building it?

Thanks! So the project itself has been going on since January, spending about 8 hours a week per team member. The poster took me around 2-3 hours I'd say (need to put that time management script on my computer again ), and as for the model in the middle, maybe 3-4 hours of gathering references and then modeling everything.