Relevance of Topology

Topology in play

The topology in my work is of a certain standard where as every piece of work made in Zbrush is true to my art forms in every way i've developed a technique where the workload is almost doubled i know i can put the effort in and get through it eventually the angle i taken my work pace at initially is kind of stupid but the end results speak for themselves where in the end i'm seeing people having a 'fairly' true form i've got always a perfect form to where my art is identical to the model and in this case thats the key.. so laid out on paper in my sketchbooks each of the arts are measured up and ready to sculpt the process of making the character 'Yukiko' in my case started with the initial direction of anything is maya from the beginning i've image plane traced all my art in the X and Y axis on the front and side leaving Zbrush to fill in the Z space by using the divide mesh tool.


The reason why it's a longer process is that i had to do everything in maya          
before i even touched Zbrush i've already got a character with great typology resulting in a perfect 3D representation of true topology (Based on art) laid out in front of me rather than the messy see how it looks and change it traditional perspective on the work

It's been risky but so far so good and i have a body of a female created that very nice and true to my art in every way her distinct waistline and legs make it far superior with the other method of topology my colleagues have used, I think my way is better because it still means i'm learning Zbrush but the messy human error style legs aren't correct size stance is incorrect muscle displacement issues and dealt with before a computer is even turned on. of course this does have it's limitations the work load is double my peers i won't possibly get to texture my model but holy S*** i'm willing to stay up all night to get to that stage because i day i stand up there with the best model i've ever made i'll be proud. Proud that i took something else away from the tutorials of simon and made his work way my own.  

Check Out Yuki

Made a quick YouTube upload of the head at the moment better than images i guess..
More will be uploaded to this project and posted on this POST.

Enjoy .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2cCVHowUWA


        SECOND ONE COMING SOON!

Head Re-make

 Here you can see the remaking of the head. The poly count is displayed in the preview of the tool because my layout in Zbrush is not default so thats how i would see the poly count on a display

QUARTER VIEW

           Secondary view



      SIDE VIEW 

              View from above



          TOP DOWN

Collection

Side View

Here's the collection of armour pieces for the head before i take it into Zbrush

Quarter View.

Armour Maya Work

Cheek Protectors

Samurai warriors use different plates hinged onto various parts of armour to protect vulnerable places from attacks this certain part of armour is a Cheek protector it hinges on the helmet and protects the neck to the cheek area. 

JHinge  

This is the hinge i will be be using to connect the cheek protectors to the helmet and if i need to use hinges anywhere else on the character this will be the hinge i use.





Horns

These are buffalo horns they act as a symbol of a samurai's village these horns are buffalo horns these the animal in which the horns are vary to the village and the meaning in which each animal brings to a culture.

Tri Plate

The tri plate is a section on the head used normally for mantras and motto's samurai's have from their village or sometimes from the samurai himself.

On Yukiko's tri plate it has three japanese characters on it. (Right to left)

COURAGE.
STRENGTH.
HUMANITY.

TRI PLATE WITH CHARACTER RENDER. (LIGHTING)









JAPANESE CHARACTERS (LIGHTING)

Gray Stuff GIF

The gray stuff model at the moment is half good and half bad to be honest in this GIF you can't see the chest very well but as you can tell the chest is very thin i've done the head wrong with the wrong head shape and with pretty much no neck i don't really think i've done very well but to honest i'm still proud of it because the work i've done is good from a FRONT perspective it looks the part but from all round it looks pretty bad i'm not happy with it but to be honest at least my gray model doesn't have eyes bigger than it's head and things wrong with like some other peoples.  

ART.. Meet Yukiko

Yukiko

The final design of my character, a strong individual women who joins the bushido in order to restore order in her village in a remote mountainous japanese village, This individual female character is called 'Yukiko' meaning 'Rare-Child' which fits nicely into her life scenario

Her Armour is Inspired by two influences Geisha and Samurai even though they are both two very different styles they are mixed together with Yukiko in one fashionable Revival!

                                  Mixing Styles.

 Geisha

The two styles i have mixed together really do meet at a 50:50 point because half of Yuki's body is Geisha whilst the other half is samurai oriented. On the picture to the right you can see half of Yuki this half is the geisha inspired side of her body all of her clothing and layers of armour (Under the clothing/Invisible) are inspired by the traditional japanese entertainer. I've also tried to keep the body purely for combat but the style for me i felt was important to keep such a profile for the her as she is of course a women of fight, she isn't exactly going to have her boobs out on display like some kind of... i don't know you catch my drift.

     

Samurai/Bushido

in the samurai side of Yuki you can see the difference in style with this side being solely armour with a stricter look on the bushido ways visually represented on this side of the body the mask conveys this with it's visually fearsome design, made solely to strike fear into the enemy which is why i didn't crop the mask in this image.

Real Men Don't Read Maps.

Halo 3 is Super Cool.

MAYA BEFORE ZBRUSH

I used maya before getting anything into zbrush as a way to keep metal like things solid and not so smooth many of my fellow students thought it was bad idea but to be honest. Screw 'em.

Using this technique is going to good so i get the best detail out of it.

many people didn't take anything away from the tutorial simon gave about head creation but i've taken what he's said and adapted it to my own style of work and used it in a way that can benefit my model.

Here you can see me using maya to mask a simple mask trying to keep as many quads as possible. around the teeth area.

Exploring the Seck-Tours of Zee-Brush

Digital

To begin i made a head in Zbrush as a way to get used the software it wasn't very good the chin was pointed but the head shape from a glance was believable from an artists perspective. the idea was to make renders from zbrush exports in maya in different perspectives and draw over them to visualize what it would look like where everything would go from different angles not only for peace of mind but for a 3D artists eye a detailed picture from different sides i can use to make a pretty great model

       ANGLED RENDER WITH NO ARMOUR.






   A Quick sketch up in photoshop in different colours to differentiate overlapping parts from each other. the helmet is listed here as RED, the horns, tri-plate and mask are GREEN.





        ANGLED RENDER WITH ARMOUR

Here is the side render you can see now more clearly that the thing isn't that pretty and that it should be a better head shape so thats something i'm going to revisit.



SIDE RENDER WITHOUT ARMOUR.






Here is the side of the helmet with it's colours on top of the render this sketch isn't as pretty as the last one but as it is a sketch i don't really mind.



SIDE RENDER WITH ARMOUR.

The Japanese Mask Decision.

A Hard decision for me in this project was to pick a route of mask.. i have a pre-existing knowledge on the bushido and i knew for a fact i was come across a similar issue, Now my issue is that japanese culture has a split in it's armour direction. Let me explain, Visually.

  

Here's a bunch'a gorgeous hollow samurai dudes..

                   Take a long hard look at his mask..

Now thats all well and good but we all know that cultures take aspects of their stories of dragons and Foo dogs..but this has only one little hint of that on the mask.. thats on the helmet and even that is a small detail.

The rest of the mask is based on just basic patterns and the face plate itself has little representation of the old japanese tales of courage and honour the only symbol of which on the face plate is nose with the big flared nostrils.

and i want more Bigger, sexier and most importantly theatrical!

So since i was looking for theatrical i researched japanese theatrical masks

and i got all this..  

    Nice nose.. wow didn't see your see your chin yeah nice chin OOOW my eye..

         I see this when i close my eyes.. HELP ME

I couldn't care i stole an image off a company but as i was saying common japanese theater..

So left with this weird world i then moved on yet again to .. 'Japanese Mythology'

Where i was met with..

WOW SEXY!!

This is certainly an aspect of art i want to merge with my mask.. amazing i want one.

 This is not really a side i would like to move towards in my art directions but hay.. every ghetto farm gotta have a golden but on fire black with gold detail and seeming like solid gold hoof Horses with clearly enough time and ability to buy and apply gold hair dye to it's hair and main and what the hell it has a beard and chest hair and leg hair and a horn what the hell this is so clearly a unicorn well whatever it is it ain't gun'be part of my work

..

Not as sexy as the first one but this dragon seems more real.. the real side of a dragon.

kind of like super models..

So beautiful.. 

..but they do smelly shits just like the rest of us.

Topic Exposure

The first time i got my hands on the project i wasn't sure what i wanted but for some reason i kept dreaming of this female great character with an isometric hair cut (as if there wasn't enough already) from a japanese background, making characters before learning about cultures is fun and great lesson and after some thought about different ways of life the bushido, samurai was an instant awakening to me it's a sensational place to work on.. The masks of the samurai and the fear of the horse back samurai with a drawn sword is like.. OAWH man gimmi!! The fear and skill of a samurai i wanted to combine with the beauty yet delicate japanese geishas.

The first time i got my hands on the project i wasn't sure what i wanted but for some reason i kept dreaming of this female great character with an isometric hair cut (as if there wasn't enough already) from a japanese background, making characters before learning about cultures is fun and great lesson and after some thought about different ways of life the bushido, samurai was an instant awakening to me it's a sensational place to work on.. The masks of the samurai and the fear of the horse back samurai with a drawn sword is like.. OAWH man gimmi!! The fear and skill of a samurai i wanted to combine with the beauty yet delicate japanese geishas..

I've watched both movies and memoirs of a geisha EWWWW i didn't know they did dirty things.. nasty but anyway as i was saying delicate and beautiful.

My art based exclusively on the female to begin with came out like this i didn't use these art pieces and decided to scrap the art directions i was taking but still kept the samurai female idea's. here they are some are scruffy as it's kind of shabby art the idea was sketch.

Isometric Hair.. So over used.

               Helmets and horns..

             Nose's and crests..

 The beautiful katana.

Another head.. another set of horns..

Pretty nice head..

 Some Arm Plates and haha i wish i knew japanese

Me stupidly jumping into a High detail art piece.

The Gray Stuff

Here's a beautifully defocused shot of my
grey stuff model, in this photograph i got screwed sideways by the A-F and it thought i was taking a picture of the eyeless pedo behind my female samurai. The piece is pretty nice and is pretty close up to my art work as far as the Zbrush model is concerned and the hand drawn art is concerned, The  Design work started on week one and through half good luck and half voodoo ability i pulled out a pretty nice model..




Oh and this wasn't my first attempt stupidly i was trying to listen, honest i was.. but i didn't hear anyone say you had to mix anything.. and i fully used up a golf ball worth of soft clay and didn't realise i had to mix it and only realised a day later when i came to get my model back that it.. was.. still.. wet. I got the total mickey taken out of me by the games dev crew, cried a little then restarted so actually this photo is of my second attempt. So... Drew if you're reading this sorry i screwed your resources and if you're not Drew haha your not Drew..

..Here's a few pictures that i didn't muck up!

                     Nice..

    Should have used manual focus....

Wish i had cut the piece of clay for the helmet longer the visor was meant to reach over the the eye level but it fell short.

I'll be next making 'Cheek protectors' to cover the cheek area also the neck will be covered from attacks (if it was real) head looks very round cheek protectors will rest on the face as a support feminine head shape will be necessary near completion

    The three ear things are 'crests' traditional samurai men have them on their helmet as a representation of their village keeping traditional trends are a vital in my art

Katana

The Blade of a samurai is very important to the individual the sword of a samurai (katana) has been the most significant part of a samurai for centuries the samurai follow a way of the samurai called 'Bushido' Which is most incredible system i've ever seen involving rituals of death poems before suicide and beheadings and honour.









  The Poorer of samurai would have to settle of a hard steel sword whilst larger icons and political leaders would get the luxury in this case (Soshu Kitae) to have a 7 Layered sword containing different material densities resulting in lighter stronger and more agile swords of samurai to work in to there ability with as one.