Dracula

[Vertigo]

Here is another old character of mine, some of you may remember him. His time has finally come to be animated so I have to tweak everything out and prepare him. I added his cape to this one. I noticed that after putting the new render side by side with my initial sketch that I should probably bring the cape together under his chin. Also, I still have to do the textures of his face, so he has no eyebrows as of yet. What do you guys think?

[Vertigo]

And here we see the Count in his natural environment...

[RodrigoRosa]

Nice model Vertigo .... but like in the sketch, can u exhibit the tooth a little more?

Looking forward for ups.....

[Vertigo]

Consider the tooth exhibited. I also changed the cape a bit under his chin. I brought it more together, should I do that even more to it? Also changed the hairline a little in the front. Its more pointy now.

[Vertigo]

Extreme Close UP!!!

[Vertigo]

I changed the jaw structure a little. Do you guys think it looks better or worse. Or should I go somewhere inbetween. I think it took the cuteness look away from him by doing it, which is what it needed.

[Solidarity]

Very nicely made, he's cute.. and the teeth are pointy and good.. :D

I'm not much for his glossiness, but if that's your fancy. :)

[Daniel]

sweet, I really love your cartoony style (I think a bit part of it is how you make the eyes of your chars, which is original). Keep up with the updates.

[rubberduck]

Looks great man:) Maybe make some folds on the cape where it bends/fold/curve? close to the ground:dunno:

[Vertigo]

Thanks for the compliments guys. It really keeps me excited and wanting to work even more on these guys.

Solidarity - Do you really think the skin looks glossy? Cause I'm just not seeing it. Maybe its the the blue lighting thats making it look that way.

DanielB - I'm glad you like my style. I mostly just try and capture my 2d style as much as possible in my 3d work. I think I'm coming pretty close with htis guy. Though I think he needs a little more wrinkles to make him look a little older. Eyebrows will definately change his appearance too.

rubberduck - folds are a good idea, though I want to keep his cape relatively low poly so its easier to animate. I'll see what I can do.

[Solidarity]

The blue light, that could be it. :P

Not sure, but from where I'm sittin
it makes him look semi-metallic.

My monitor could just be screwy also... everything else on my computer is at the moment! :)

[Vertigo]

I hear ya on that solidarity, my monitor is getting worse and worse all the time. So it could very well look metallic to everybody else but me. I should probably check that out on another machine to see if its really off from how I want it.

[kuman]

i like the style a lot dude

love the bored look he kinda has, kinda bored and sinister

only crit/suggestion so far is to augment the eyes man. i dunno make them somehow preternaturally enhanced, like just a bit too bright or something you know. a bit too much color or depth. i think it will add a lot and be a great contrast to that overall soft shader you got going on the rest of the body

lookin forward to updates dude.

-k

[{dg}]

Hi, nice model...

I like the style, but think you could give him some eyebrows...

...the rest works fine for me...

...cheers

...{dg}

edit: D'oh! First thing you said was about him having no eyebrows because of the textures... sorry...

[geoMan]

you can surely make up for a cartoon movie....good stuff..i lika!

[CountZero]

Great work, I like the style and especially the eyes. No crits acctually.

[Vertigo]

Thanks for all the kind words.

Kuman - I'm glad you like my style. And I was thinking the same thing with the eyes. The texture I have for the iris was only a temp one. I really want to go in and create a really high res texture so I can get this really stylized lines that sort of radiate out from the center of the iris, if that makes sense. You can kinda see it in my sketch. I may even try to play with a specular map to see how I can make the eyes pop more. I already started in that direction by giving the whites of the eye some self illumination so they appear even more white than his white skin. I'll try to get something up soon and see how you like it.

{dg} - Don't worry about the mistake, its no big deal. I plan to start unwrapping his face in the next day or two so I hope to get a render with his eyebrows up soon, so check back and let me know if you like it. I'm glad you like the stlye too.

gerMan - That the whole idea. Well, not an actual movie, but he will be in a short film I'm working on. I want the short to be the center piece for my soon to be demo reel.

CountZero - Its always nice to get a thumbs up on the overall style of my characters. Thank you.

Here's a rather small update. I just tweaked some areas slightly to make it look just a little more like the sketch. I pulled the collar of his suit and his cape down on his chest more. I'm thinking of opening up the collar more and put the tie in there. I'm more interested in getting to the unwrapping of his face and putting the eyebrows in though. I'll try to get a more interesting update up soon.

[kuman]

sup vertigo

yeah i hear ya on your ideas for the eyes. i totally agree, i have some eye textures if you're interesteded in using photosamples. personally i prefer to paint everything but the photostuff might work better. they arranged in strips, not like radial but like horizontal you get better res that way if you can get them laid out without too much triangle distortion on the uv side.

one of my suggestions is to use a strong specular hilight, like almost as if you were trying to do a realistic eye. i struggled a lot with my opera performer's eyes but i finally found a solution i liked. i'll send you a max file with that if you use max.

basically my suggestion is that if you have a really realistic/strong specular aspect to the eyes, it would really make them stand out from the rest of the model. and i think that kind of specular hilighting though, in reality it blocks out a section of the irises actually create the illusion of this clarity in the eyes if you know what i mean.

i think that clarity would really make the eyes totally jump off the image since everything else is so soft.

anyhow good luck, lookin forward to updates.

-k

[Vertigo]

Hey Kuman,

I see where you are going with your ideas for the eyes. It wasn't initially what I had planned, but I'm starting to get intrigued as to how it would look. I think I may give it a try. You're right about how the highlights in the eye can breathe life into a character. I'm just not sure how much life I want Dracula to have you know? He is supposed to be a cold shell of the man he used to be. Plus I've also kinda grown accustomed to the almost 2d style eyes he has. But again I am interested in how he would look with more realistic eyes. Maybe I can even find some balance between the two. That may look quite interesting. I'd love to check out the file you came up with, or just see other eye textures you have. I'll PM you my e-mail address.

In the meantime, I've started on the eyebrow texture. It somehow wasn't looking right to me, but I think its because I've been staring at him without eyebrows for so long. What do you guys think?

[rubberduck]

Nice touch with the eyebraws, kinda reminds me of a gnarly branch with thorns on it, goes well with the style:)

[Superkid]

hey vert!, well i gotta say i am impressed with your huge cast of characters for your animation so far, i love the simple yet not style, are you planning on making him maybe go poof and have his body turn into a small bat and have the same head. i am just tihnking those crazy old school looney tunes horror parodes in my head. good job though!

[Vertigo]

Thanks rubberduck - I had the same feeling about the eyebrows resembling thorns, it really wasn't intentional. But I like them. I'm actually making the points, or "thorns," less prominent than they were. I'll put up a quick render to show you.

Hey Supes - I didn't know you were on this forum too. Thats great. Yeah, I was thinking of having him do the whole turn into a bat thing, but he won't do that in the animation I have planned so far. The animation is set up almost like a really short pilot episode introducing all the characters. These ghoulish guys are supposed to come off as scary at first, which obviously by the look of them they are not that scary. So it should set up some funny situation for if I ever continue the story. I love that episode from looney tunes where bugs keeps turning dracula into various pieces of bat and man. "abbra-ka-pocus!":) I think a bunch of looney tunes shorts are coming to DVD really soon, I hope that one made it on there. Anyway, thanks for the compliment.

Here are the new eyebrows. I hope to tweak out the skinning and model the props (the knife and glass with eyeball in it) this weekend. I'll try to keep you updated.

[saby]

;)
cool character. I can only admire it. I love your style.:cool:

[Papaya]

I really like how the eyebrows flare sort of like the cape. And the black eyeliner is faboo. And the little fangs... love it.

He'd look stylin' with a ****** mary martini-type drink. But only if it has a cool swizzle stick. Love swizzle sticks.

[sarN]

looks great vertigo! i love your character and cartoony style :D

[Vertigo]

Poor Dracula, I've neglected him for far too long.

Well, after showing my family my demo reel and seeing how excited they got over some of my characters (especially the kids, they loved it) I've now got a renewed interest in this group of rascals and want to work on them again. I've gone in and started on the texturing of Dracula here. So far I'm working on the bump map mostly. I'm giving him wrinkles and such to make him look older as Dracula should. I've also started to give him some noticable strands of hair instead of it being one big black mass. I thought I'd toss an image up here to see if you guys like the direction I'm taking him. Or if you have any other ideas that I can put in the textures to add more to the character.

One cool thing I've noticed too is that my animated the bump map turning lower, he seems to grow younger. So that could be cool to see him drink his "******" Mary and it makes him younger. We'll see. Oh, I've also restructured his face to make his morphs work a lot better. But you probably can't even see that.

Crits and suggestions would be helpful.

Later

[OpticalDeath]

Great character! Love the expression on his face, kind of a laid back, "you humans are nothing but insects to me" kind of look to him. ;)

[Desmark]

Its been said before, but this is a very cool character. I agree with what Kuman said about the eyes, I too think it adds some 'life' to the character.
No crits as such, just want to see more. I hope you're going to animate him :D

Des

[Corth]

I'm glad that you have a renewed intrest in this guy, dracula has always been a favorite character for me. I think it would be great if you got all you got all your characters together in one render ;)

[Vertigo]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I'm glad you like what I'm doing with this character. I have a few things left to do on his face textures then I'm gonna do some basic textures for the body. I've started on the morph targets now. Once I've gotten a majority of them done I'll post them for you to see.

[hells angel]

very nice style....love that expression.....but imo the eye txture needs to be worked on more...looks plastic as of now.....great work...keep the updates comin:)

[Cracadoo]

WOW, Vertigo... GREAT... Give us more pictures... I dont like to repet myself but i really like to see cartoon characters... and when they are so great like this guy i love it... keep up...

[Woody]

Really good work, Vertigo, I like this style. Maybe he has a little too much bump for that cartoony look (in my opinion), but nothing really to crit.

[Vertigo]

Thanks again for all the replies.

hells angel - yeah, the eye textures have been giving me problems for a while now. I like the new look I have better than the old almost toon shaded look to the eye. But I think its still missing something. If anybody has any ideas please pass them along.

Cracadoo - thanks for all the great support. I'm glad you like it. Here's another pic for you...

Woody - ha, if you thought that was too much bump, wait until you see this pic.... Actually, I've given the textures a lot of thought. Originally I was keeping my characters untextured for the most part because I wanted to keep the look of 2d as much as possible. I don't mean I wanted them toon shaded, just that I wanted to bring all the great character design elements established in 2d into the 3d world. I believe that animation has been so attractive to audiences because it offers a simplified world. So when we watch, our brain doesn't have to work as hard to interpret what we are watching. Now I'm starting to think that as long as you keep the main features of a character really bold and pronounced, that you can go in and add extra detail. I think that as long as the key elements are presented clearly, the audience will focus on them and the other detail can just add believability. Maybe I should post this in the General CG Discussion forum to get more opinions on this.

Anyway, here is a small update. After looking back at the concept I decided the 3d version is missing some appeal. So I'm gonna tweak a few things before getting back to the morph targets. Mostly its his nose, ears, and possibly the curvature of this eyelashes that I'm gonna tweak. Let me know what you think.

[ido]

lol :D this is cool Vertigo, your amazing models always make me smile.
5 stars

[Cracadoo]

thanks, man :) why dont you try give him some more wrinkles around the eyes or somepthing becouse now it looks too wrinkled on the forehead comparoing with the rest of his face, imo...

[rubberduck]

I'm glad you're still working on this character, love the little guy;)
I like the wrinkles and all, but I think there's a little too much bump on the forehead ones and don't think the vertical ones in the middle of the forehead looks right.

[Vertigo]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I've played around with the bump on the head a little. I've lessened it some and made the vertical bumps in the middle of the forehead not extend up so far. I've reworked his hands and have them all unwrapped and ready to texture. Before I do that though I'm thinking of remaking his body. Something about just isn't coming off as convicing to me.

Since I'm looking into remaking it, I'm researching some old suit designs to see if I can find something that matches more of the period where Dracula comes from. If anybody has any suggestions please let me know.

Since there haven't been any major changes I do not have anything to show this time. I'll try to get an update for you soon.

[dave12]

hey looking good, thats so my style. i suggest giving his eyes more depth. is that just a eye texture? you can find really good tutorials to acctually make an eye with little or no textures at all, just strickly out of polys. i highly reccomend it for this character, it would fit perfectly.

later

[Vertigo]

Thanks Dave12. I'd be interested in seeing some of your work since you say its similar in style to mine. And yes, the eye is actually modeled. The pupil actually sinks in quite a bit, but you can't see it in that render since that eye is looking straight at you. I'm pleased with the look of the eye right now, but if you have any specific suggestions, I'll certainly take them into account.

[FCR]

Show me a pic and I'll tell you if it's a Vertigo ;)
I really love your style. Nothing more or helpful to say.

[rubberduck]

If you're thinking about changing his clothes, here are some pictures, that I like, I know it's Nosferatu, but it could work on your Dracula too;) You could search google for Bram Stokers Dracula, it had some incredible costumes in the movie

[rubberduck]

Would help if I attached the picture:o

[Cyrenn]

Sup Vertigo,

I love your cartoon character. Looks cool.

As soon as im done with my robot girl, Im going to start working on cartoon type models.

I really enjoy your models on your site.

Keep up the good hussle.

WIP - Android 69
http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=195676#post195676

[Vertigo]

Thanks you again for all your great support. Its always good to hear praise from fellow artists. Its also good to get suggestions like my good friend rubberduck gave me. I'm going along with the look of Nosferatu in that image you posted rubberduck. I think it will turn out nicely. I also found this image from the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula that shown Dracula wearing this black suit with this golden lace design on it that looked cool. I may add that to the suit to add some elegance to the character. Since he is rich and all.

I still have to work more on the fluffy undershirt to make it look right and I'll probably add some wrinkles to the sleeves around the elbows. And he will still be wearing the cape, its just not in this render.

I just looked at the image again and I realized its probably too dark to see most of the body details. Oh well, you can get the idea at least...

[rubberduck]

The bumpmap on the head looks alot better IMO
I like the new outfit:)
Are you going to make the scarf/undershirt red?
On the jacket, are those buttons or holes? If they are buttons, they should be round IMO. I like the idea with the golden lace design

[Papaya]

You gave him a martini!!!

:dance:

He's looking GREAT!!

[nico3d]

hahaha awesome style !!! I love it

[Vertigo]

Thanks again.

Rubbeduck - I think the bump on the forehead looks better now too. It looks like his forehead muscles are relaxed now, as they should be seeing as this is the default pose. I think I'm gonna try and set up some controls with mix maps on the bump and wire it to the morphs that I have yet to do. That way, when I turn the morph up that will raise the eyebrow, the forehead should look like its wrinkled more. I haven't done anything like this before, but I hope I can get it to work.

Papaya - Of course I gave him a martini, its in my concept sketch after all :D. Though I like to think of it more as a "******" Mary.

nico3d - thank you very much.

Okay guys. I have him 95% unwrapped. Just a few more tweaks to do on the UVs here and there before I can go in an finish texturing him. I also still have to model the knife he's holding, but that should be easy. I started on the rig. I've gotten pretty far on it. I've made some stretchy bones for around his armpit and have bones for the chest to show him breathing if need be. I also have his hands and feet all wired up so I can control his finger curls and foot rolls with spinners. I'm planning on creating the Jason Osipa morph controls in max too and looking into creating my own custom UI for the hand, foot, and spine controls. So I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'll let you know how its going. Wish me luck!

[Avatar-3DT]

Awsome character!The old Dracula guy looks wonderful! All he lacks is some purple shadows under the eyes to give him the "dead look". I guess the collar would have looked better risen but it still looks ok now.
One thing 'tho:
Do not mix up Dracula with Nosferatu! Aldo both are undead, the second is more like a ghoul. But I guess this is cartoony and everything works. Goodluck and hope for updates soon!

[invert]

as everyone else has said awesome concept and final product...the only thing I think that would look good is maybe making the eyes more bloodshot color. like the count smoke to much wacky tabacky...but maybe not a red color though...like a greyish blue type.

[goat]

Great job man. that drac is pretty sweet. I dig it. ace job:D

[Vertigo]

Thanks again guys for the compliments and suggestions. A slight purple/dark blue under the eyes could look cool I'll have to try that. He does need some subtle hints of color in him doesn't he? And bloodshot eyes might work too. I was actually thinking of putting subtle blueish veins on his face. With his skin being so pale, seems like you'd see some veins. But I'd have to be careful not to lose the cartoonish nature of him.

I had to get away from the texturing for a while so I went to work on the Morph Targets. I got all the morphs for his face 90% done. I just have to tweak some things here and there. I also have to do morphs for the inside of the mouth still. Lower gums/jaw need to move forward, back, left, and right. Also need about 5 morphs on the tongue and I gave him a hangy ball thing in the back of his throat just in case he needs it. (I already have a scene planed with another character screaming and his hangy ball thing wiggling all about) I have to make the morphs for it wiggling side to side. And finally the most important morph, the K9 teeth coming down. Those should all be really easy and I should finish those pretty quickly. After that the morphs should be done, except for any specialty morphs which I might have to make down the line.

I'm leaving for the weekend, so next week I'm hoping to either finish the textures or finish his rigging/skinning. I'm not sure which one yet.

Here's is a screen grab of the morphs I have done.
http://www.adammcmahon.com/drac/dracmorphs.jpg

[FireJin3]

The morphs of his eyes twinkling look kind of fake, because it seems as if something is pulling them down.
Mybe make it a little less tense.

[Vertigo]

hey guys, I was putting this on my demo reel and thought I'd post it up so you can see. The clip just shows how I rigged up my dracula's face, but I liked some of the expressions I made with. Funny thing was I wasn't trying to animate anything, just move my rig around to show how it worked and some fun expressions came out of it.

I know this is a way late reply firejin3, but the forced blinking only looks that way because of a funky smoothing spot on the inside of his eyes, it looks better when meshsmoothed, so all is good.

http://www.adammcmahon.com/drac/Dracmorph01.jpg

http://www.adammcmahon.com/drac/Dracmorph02.jpg

http://www.adammcmahon.com/drac/Dracmorph03.jpg

http://www.adammcmahon.com/drac/Dracmorph05.jpg

[Cyrenn]

Nice work, Vertigo,

Ya I'm doing my facial morphs as well for my first character.

I love the last facial morph. Then one where his teeth are showing, great look.

Keep it up Man.

[Cyrenn]

I seem to be having a serious problem with using my morph modifeier.

Ok I understand how to use the morph modifier, and its basic principles.

But for some reason I can get them to work on my rig.

Does your rig character have to be a mesh and not a poly,

also my character is one whole mesh and he is rigged using a phsyic modifier.

Im completely lost on this subject. Does the head have to be detached from the rest of the body.

Gezz it just sounds so damn confusing.

[blaize]

first of all, the model is Looking GREAT ^_^

but my question was how you make that "morph menu", the things that controll all the things.
i know it's not very clear but i think you'll understand :P

Is there some kind of tutorial that explains how to make such a "menu"

Thanx.
- Blaize

[Vertigo]

Thanks alot.

Cyrenn - I'm not sure why you are having problems. Is it not working at all or are your morphs just not looking like the target morph? If it isn't working at all I'm thinking maybe you aren't keeping the number of vertices the same in your morph targets? You said your character is a single mesh, so to make your morph target you need to duplicate the whole thing, not just the head. Or you could try this way...

Select the polys that make up the head and detach them as another object
Duplicate the new head object and make your morph targets out of the duplicates.
Add your morph modifier to the original head and load all your morph targets into it.
On top of the morph modifier add an edit mesh and in the edit mesh modifier reattach the head to the body.
Then add your physique and meshsmooth on top of that.

Your stack would look something like this

Meshsmooth
Physique
Edit Mesh
Morpher
Editable Poly

If you do it that way, the morpher modifier only has to reference the polys of the head and not the whole body which will save on memory/file size. And remember, don't weld or delete any vertices in the morph targets, just move the vertices. Otherwise the morpher won't recognize the object. I hope this helps, if not let me know. Do you have Instant Messenger or something similar. Maybe we could talk through that. If you do, PM me your screen name. And by the way, my Dracula is poly so it sure does work on Poly objects. :D

blaize - I came up with that system myself. So I don't think there is a tutorial on how to do it :( but I plan on making one :D
My plan is to make two tutorials very soon, one on how to build your own IKJoe and another on how to make the facial setup I used on Dracula. I'm making IKJoe with that facial setup, which should be interesting. When I get it done I'll put up downloadable version on my webpage. So keep an eye on my internet site for updates. I'll try to get the tutorials and IKJoe with facial setup up within the next two weeks.

[Vertigo]

I guess while I'm on the subject I might as well post my progress on my IKJoe facial setup. I had to add more detail to IKJoe's face in order to do this setup, but I'm trying to keep the same basic look to him. Since I haven't done the morphs yet, I should get crits now on how he looks. Should I change his face any?

[blaize]

Vertigo, great to hear you'll be making a tutorial :D
I hope that tutorial will go from start to finish on how to make the morph targets till the facial setup menu.

I'm completely new to Facial animating, so it wouldbe a great help :D

- blaize

[Cyrenn]

Thx for taking the time to explain how the modifier stack should look.

I understand what you mean in your explination. I'll go ahead and try it out.

Also I'm looking forward to your tutorial on your custom facial rig.

Keep up the great work.

Oh ya also, I tried to put you on MSN.

You should get an e-mail.

Thx.

[Cyrenn]

LOL!

You rock man. Thanks alot Vertigo, It worked. I was about to rip my head off last night cause I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

But your explination on how the stack should look and work, fixed my whole problem.

Thx for hooking up another fellow 3d Max user.

HIGH FIVES for Vertigo! :D

[Daniel]

hadn't seen this little guy in so long, really cool. I love the cartoony texture and modeling style.

[Vertigo]

blaize - I wasn't planning on making the tutorial to cover the whole aspect of what morphs to make all the way through to the custom facial system. But I suppose that I could. It will take longer though obviously. I just finished work on my new demo reel and updated my site, so I think my agenda is clear to get to work on the tutorial now.

Cyrenn - I've talked to you already so I'm not even gonna reply here :D No, I'm glad you got it working. Have you made any morphs yet?

Thanks a lot DanielB. Wait a minute, its DanielB - 3DT now. When did that happen? I suppose congradulations are in order. Thanks again though.