Part1 character design
Reference
According to the script, Abilene is a child who was born in a rich family, kind and loving. At first, I thought she was a girl about 15 years old. the reference style I looked for was tend to be mature and rich, and I liked the shape of the characters’ faces and the extravagant clothes they wore.
The draft
In fact, I am good at realistic style rather than cartoon style, so I tend to be realistic style when I build character model at the beginning. I built a preliminary model according to the draft.(Apply a flat projection map to the head）
Feedback and modification:
At the beginning I established the general model and character style, but in the group meeting, when I showed it to my teammates, the group members very clearly express their opinions. They pointed out the place that I need to modify: Abiline is not a 15-year-old girl, she is a 7-year-old girl. The model I made is too mature, and the style of model reference is not close to the overall style of the work. So I had to go back to the draft, redesign and change the style of the model.
Character design
I’d like to highlight a few characteristics of the character
Hair: cute ((No sure)
Dress: skirt, vest, sleeves, European aristocratic style
Face: big eyes, small mouth, eyeliner and eyelashes
Figure: cute, short hands and feet
Based on these ideas, I redesigned her scale, enlarged his head, shortened his hands and feet, and made the character’s body look fatter and cuter.
New Reference
Part2 modeling
The tutorial
Maybe it’s because I haven’t made a model in a long time. At first, the process of modeling was very slow. In fact, my modeling approach starts with a basic model in the Maya library. it helps me save a lot of time. In Maya, I actually only made half of the character model, and the other half was made by mirroring, which will also keep both sides symmetrical.
During the modeling process, I was always unhappy with the modeling result. And I didn’t think the model was exactly the same as I wanted. These questions of whether the characters which I made are cute enough to look like, and whether they fit in with the character style of the book, has always bothered me. I included the reference image in Maya to accurately determine the proportions of the character’s body structure.
Girls need to watch their eyes and eyelashes. This time I used the form of surface to make hair. It’s because I want the feel of a strand of hair. At the same time, by using it, I can create hair with the hair system later. It is more convenient.
At first, the eye was an oval sphere. But the eyes move, so I left out half of them for the convenient of rigging and eye movement.
Since the eye is a standard sphere, somewhat distant from the model of the face, I spent some time adjusting it.
Part 3: Feedback and updates
During the discussion with my classmates, they gave me some suggestions:
- For example, by showing them my work, in the process of discussion. I find that the current character has no distinctive features and lacks personality, so I want to add personality or special point to the character’s hair.
- For example, as mentioned before, suggestions from team members on my role design style and production direction: the style of model reference is not close to the overall style of the work. This advice helped me adjust in time.
Part4 conclusion
For body modeling, I have saved 14 working files.
After I had a rough scale design, I started to build the model. I hadn’t used Maya to build a model for a long time, and it was a little stressful at first.
I would like to thank my teammates for pointing out my mistakes and shortcomings when my design direction and style are different from the overall style and direction, so that I can change the style of the model in the first time. It helps me realize my problem in the first place, thus avoiding a more waste of time.