Joan of Arc Tutorial

[Tr-Anssi]

Hi y'all!

I wanted to learn some character modeling and chose to do this tutorial as my first character. I chose this tutorial because it pretty much covers it all (modeling, texturing, rigging, skinning'. It is superb! I hope I have the motivation to finish this one.
Here's some WIPs, very basic material just to liven it up a bit. I will post some wireframes/claymodels when I have the time.
Some parts of the armour could use some more meshsmooth iterations, I'm aware of that. There's also some idiotic bump map on my armour material.. just in case you notice it - it won't stay.

The tutorial link:
Joan of Arc Tutorial @ 3DTotal (http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/joanmenu.asp)

WIP Renders:

[Tr-Anssi]

And close up

[MonteCristo]

Well, it looks like a pretty decent stab at the Joan of Arc tutorial to me. Where I think you might need to focus your attention is the mouth area. Here the lips are jutting out a little bit too much. So work on that. Other than that, I could do with seeing this rendered with some basic rendering techniques, at the moment youu are hiding the most straightforward part of modelling behind Radiosity. The problem with that is, we don't get to see how the mesh really is. If you could do a couple of shots: 1 wireframe, and one, standard render, with a slightly shiny blinn shader I could tell you a lot more. :)

Oh, one other thing, I'm not overly happy about the place ment and size of the ear. It loos a bit stuck on. A side and front render would help me to tell you exactly what to do. :)

[Tr-Anssi]

Thank you very much for you C&C, posts like that are really useful and nice :)
Like I said, this is my first character so I really can't see the tiny, yet so important details that more skilled modelers see. This is why it's important to get comments :)

[MonteCristo]

I think at this stage, some front and side shots, would definitely help here. 3/4 shots tend to give more useful info later, but for now we want to see exactly how things are in relation to each other. I think the Joan of Arc tutorial is an excellent piece to learn a project, but I would counsel you next time to make an anatomically correct, normal human. Joan, is a bit of a freak in this respect, I've negotiated with Tom here at 3DT to make a proper anatomical modellers guide in the spring so stay tooned. :)

[rjsmal]

like the armour but the head is a little less but still nice modelling

[Tr-Anssi]

Ok here's some wireframes etc.. As I was composing these pictures I found many spots that need a lot of tuning.. upper chest&neck, ears too thin.. shoulders.. guess I was just going forward too fast :) But tuning is cool ;)

[Tr-Anssi]

body:

[Tr-Anssi]

smoothed body:

[Tr-Anssi]

smoothed head:

[Tr-Anssi]

These are all without armour because I thought that the anatomy would be the smartest thing to start fixing.

[kikimora]

i really like the armour you nailed it much better than me ;)
.....also the shoe.

[Daniel]

damn her breats are small, lol I agree you should fix the proportions, but it's on it's way

[Tr-Anssi]

Well in the tutorial the breasts aren't too big either..
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/body5.asp

But the ones I made are more pointed up.. so their volume is smaller. I guess I could make'em to fill the armour better.

[MonteCristo]

Ok, my main feedback as far is to look at the mouth and the ears particularly. The ears are a little high, and are also pressed flat against the head. You need to angle them outward a little bit. The mouth juts out to far, bring it in, and round it out a bit. Remember, the general volume of the mouth wraps around the teeth below, try to keep this in mind, and make the mouth follow that curve.

Also, I noticed on the back of the legs, you have made some cuts. Thes help shape the buttocks, but I can tell that where these cuts appear on the legs, they are not doing anything, they are not helping to define the curvature of the leg. If you have a vertex, it should be doing something to define or refine the model, otherwise get rid of it. :)

[MonteCristo]

Another more overall crit. Look at the curvature of your verts. There should be a language to a mesh -- the way the verts form a smooth curve in all directions. This will make a smoothed item work properly. See the attached image, I have draw lines to show how your mesh follows a curve, but does not do so neatly. Yopu need to get all of these edge transitions smoothed up. It will improve your organic work a lot. :D

[Tr-Anssi]

Yep getting those verts lined up in curves would be ideal.. I have to see if I have the time to fix them. It's kinda important but pretty annoying to move them all in three axis :(
Ears and mouth will be dealt first. And those cuts in the leg.
Thanks for these advices and nice to see that people use images as a part of their explanation!

[kaej]

why would you build the same character that someone else has already built instead of making your own character using the same techniques

[JDPCreations]

Kaej,

The same reason in life drawing classes the teacher makes you all paint the same nude model, using the same techniques.

Learning with others work as reference is the best way to learn. Copying someone else is a good way to learn the tricks of the trade, then once you have them down (via tutorials in this case) you can start working on your own projects using the techniques you just learned and you'll know you're using them correctly by comparing yours with the original.

Hope that makes sense.

[kikimora]

btw anssi suomen ööö epävirallinen 3d foorumi.
http://www.3dolphin.net ;)

[Tr-Anssi]

Kaej: in addition what JDPCreations said, I really didn't have any good ideas/sketches of my own.

Kikimora: jeps täytyy poiketa :)

[Tr-Anssi]

After a long long break, a small update
http://rmk.hamk.fi/~moilaan1/3d/joan_of_arc_tutorial/joan_of_arc_170904.jpg

[ChrisNO88]

You really got to shape up that butt, it doesn't look right.
http://home.no.net/chbjerkn/Annet/Joan_of_Arc.JPG

My version.
I have updated it, fixed the feet and so.. I'll just wait a while and finish up the rest and then you guys can se the result. ;)