Texturing the Angel

 Since the Angel's character doesn't have that many clothing pieces or accessories, I had more time to focus on the skin and getting just right and as detailed as I could.

I wanted the Character to really shine through his imperfections, adding pigmentation spots and depigmentation ones considering the character's age. 

The workflow was pretty straightforward, using a bunch of ill layers, with hand-painted masks, for more control over the areas that were going to be affected. 

I added lots of damage and imperfections to the clothes, to showcase the downfall of the angel. The corruption happening from the extremities was a detail I really wanted to include, making them with an initial masked folder and then stacking up layers inside of it for more variety.

To keep the ethereal look. I added emissives to the crystals as well.

Texturing the Streetfighter

 Texturing the streetfighter was a very fun experience. The clothes were relatively easy to make, but I still tried to pay a bit more attention to them, adding more details and damages than in the past.

For the skin I mainly used the approach that Magdalena Dadela is showcasing in her tutorials, which is having a bunch of fill layers, stacking them on top of each other in order to achieve the desired result. 

Texturing the Ork

This Character is the first semy-stylised one I have ever met. 

Texturing the skin took a bit of a different approach than what I am usually used to doing. I still used a bunch of fill layers, but instead of painting in the masks with smooth textured brushes, I have used lots of smart masks to achieve sharper transitions.

After the main base of the skin, I made a bunch of polishing layers, adding more details to do areas that need them.

My main inspiration for this project's texturing is Dishonoured 2, which has a more stylised approach with the base colour, but still has quite textured materials height-wise. 

Making and placing the haircards

 

Ever since the start of the project, I knew I wanted to give my character hair cards. The only problem was I did not know how to do it. There are so many different workflows online, and it's quite hard to figure out which is the best one, or which one is the most efficient.

After some research, I got to the conclusion that there are 2 steps that I need to go through for the hair cards process, which are: making the hair cards themselves, as in the textures, and then placing them onto the model.

There are various techniques for both of the steps, but essentially they have the same outcome. Most people tend to use XGen in Maya to generate the hair cards, but I find that process to be quite complicated. My tutor Will let me know that there is this software called Fibershop, that is very intuitive and easy to use. 

I ended up using it to generate the hair cards, and I confidently say that I love it. It is really pretty straightforward, and it has spared me a lot of working and learning time in Maya.

For the placing part, I chose to do it in 3DS Max, considering it is a software that I have quite some experience with. The workflow is basically having the cards with textures ready and placing them with the move path modifier onto splines.

This process took a lot of trial and error, having problems with the normals that were getting flipped while the path modifier was active, and also the bend modifier not working on the Y axis, which I solved by rotating the pivot of the modifier itself.

Placing the hair cards can be relatively easy, obviously subtracting the technical problems, but it can be quite time-consuming. 

For my Ork Project, I was planning on giving him hair and a moustache, that is the reason why I already generated the hair cards for that, but unfortunately, I will not have the time to do that in a proper way till the submission... So this is a sacrifice I need to make.

Retop for the Ork

 Retoping the Ork was honestly not really difficult. I tried to keep everything as one single mesh as much as I could, just like with my other projects. 

I was able to keep the body, pants, and bandages onto one single mesh, having the belt, accessories and shoes as different objects.

The way I approached areas of high detail and irregular shapes, like the folds on the pants was by making the basic leg topology first, and then cutting in the details.

Retoping the Angel

 The retoping of the Angel was pretty straightforward. I kept the body generally simple, being mindful of the deformation loops and trying to keep the topology consistent. 

The cape was a bit more difficult to retop, because where it was tucked in by the chain, the folds were very irregular and aggressive, so I made the geometry denser in that area. The bracelets were cut into the body's geometry. for deformation purposes.

Finalising the sculpt for the Angel

After finishing the sculpt for the body, I went in 3DS Max and modelled the ambulette and crystals for the bracelets. I tried to keep the shape as close to the final in Max, so that I will not need to retop the objects afterwards.

I am very happy with how the sculpt turned out, and I can confidently say it is quite close to the initial idea I had in mind for this character.

Progress on the scupt of the Ork 4

 After some further feedback from my tutor Teodora, I took a closer look at the muscles of the Orc in the concept and tried to get the accuracy closer. He has very specific shes for the pecs, and also the abs, so I do wanna stay true to that.

At this stage, I have also started to add the skin wrinkles and details. From what I am able to see in the concept, the skin is quite similar to someone over 60 years old, mostly prominent in the low pectorial area.

I have also added some more details and polished some more things such as the bandages, shoes, etc...