For the business cards I wanted to go for something simplistic, something that would be stand outish and at least grab a persons attention. I thought that if you pulled any of the first few out of your wallet for instance you would probably be curious to see what or who it is. Merely speculation though. I’ve no scientific theory to back up this tactic.
I do believe though it might be more suited to a graphic designer or fine artist and its not tailored quite specifically enough to my “brand”, profession or description. I know now at least how it looks and that I should continue to brainstorm.
After my feedback tutorial with Henry we discussed a few ideas and he pitched a few interesting concepts that I thought would work well, like the butterflies for instance. We also agreed that the boy with his mother would be a powerful image; it could be visually intriguing and insightful into the story, so I decided to incorporate these ideas as best I could. I’m actually really happy with the outcome, I tried my best to sketch out as many different variations of the boy and his mother as I could, as well as how the butterflies could work in the frame. I tried to incorporate a lot of negative space because I wanted the sky to be prominent in the poster, the sky is as much a character in the the film as the people are. I played about with composition and silhouettes, but consciously left room for the title in each one as well. I also included different variations of colour in the sky just to see what might look best.
I did a few sketches of what I thought might be a good starting point for poster designs. Trying to include important aspects of the story in the poster and really give as much info to the viewer as possible, keeping it intriguing and interesting.
Drew Struzan
Graham Humphreys
Originally my 2 biggest influences where Humphreys & Struzan. I wanted to do something similar to this. The characters on the poster, standing in the environment, hand painted with the detailed brush strokes and interesting light, colours and palettes. I was excited to do it, probably would have taken me roughly 5 days to do and I was informed that it was too busy, too noisy. This Idea, similar to the rough sketch I did in the top right was too cluttered and too much was happening so I sacked the concept.
I considered the butterfly also but Henry recognised it was quite ‘punk’ and I agreed that if I saw the poster I would think it would be for a music gig or something so I reconsidered that idea too.
So after I had my Characters Modelled, Clothed and UV Mapped, it was time to Rig them. Alec suggested that I use Advanced Skeleton 5 plug in for Maya and so I did. I downloaded the plug in and got on it.
First after you import the bipedal rig, you have to conform it to the form of the model. You have to precise when doing this, making sure you place each joint in the right position so that you don’t have any problems later down the line. Its a rather tedious process, especially when it comes to the fingers; especially at the angle my characters arms are at. Hes in an A pose rather than a T pose so I wasn’t able to use the orthographic views to easily place them, I had to use the perspective view and just be patient and meticulous.
After you have placed the skeleton you simply hit build advanced skeleton and it does in seconds what would take an amateur like me maybe a week. With IK/FK joints as well. A beautiful thing. I recommend the rigging tool to anyone.
I had some issues with the skinning in the beginning, I have to say the tool does a great job at skinning as much as it can but I had to go in with paint weights tool and fix up a few stretching issues with the shoulder joint and its influence on the T shirt.
Main Antagonist Character
So I did the exact same process as the other model and was getting the same issues basically. So I skinned the model as much as I could and used the component editor to revoke the majority of the influence from the effecting joints. But it just didn’t seem to be working. I wasn’t sure why. Alec had showed me some of the mistakes I was making like, not having imported the “reference model” into to the scene, using the component editor and resetting the paint weights tool. It still didn’t seem to be working.
I attempted to get around the problem but doing things that I thought might work; for instance, separating the t shirt and and jacket geometry. Didn’t work. Separating and deleting the hidden inside mesh of the jacket that couldn’t be seen, I thought this was my final and most painful thing to do and after I did it and re rigged t he character it didn’t work. I was still facing the same issue.
Time was creeping onward and I needed the characters to be rigged so I could animate them. I need to start animating soon so they had to be finished. I spoke to Jack a classmate of mine and he said that I could rig him without the jacket and animate the character then import him into Marvelous designer to simulate the jacket in that then bake out the animation from Marvelous. I thought it would probably have to be what I needed to do because I felt as though I couldn’t spend anymore time on this problem. Another character needed rigged.
I thought that because it went smoothly with the other character that it would with this one but I just couldn’t catch a break unfortunately. I was beginning to become concerned, I couldn’t figure out the problem and I felt as though I had ran out of options. I left it a couple days and continued on with some other work that I had to do in the mean time until my tutorial that Tuesday. I thought perhaps somebody could help me out and I could maybe resolve the problem if I was lucky.
I consulted with Alec about the problem and he made a few adjustments with the component editor, assigning 100% of the influence in the affected areas to the spine joint. It worked. Praise be, it worked. And after he showed me how to resolve the issue, with a little patience and understanding I was able to immensely improve the skinning of the model. I can at least say I’ve learned a lot from this experience and will know how to resolve similar problems in the future, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time I guess.
Rigging the Boy
Again just the same process as before and the same problems but thankfully after the mistakes I made on the last model I was able to quickly correct and skin this model.
I rigged the boy with the helmet and sandals so that I can just delete that geometry when I’m animating him at the beginning of the film were hes in just shorts, TShirt and bare feet. Saves me having to rig him twice. I can change the colour or pattern of his T Shirt and shorts. The references of the Congolese child soldiers that I looked at all have shorts and sandals anyway. Rarely do the militias acquire standard militarily uniforms so the kids can be seen in casual camo wear.
Below is the tutorial that I followed along with if you’re interesting in the full process.
Originally for the boy I was struggling to get the form correct. I just couldn’t seem to get the shape of a child, rather most attempts I had done just looked like a little man. So I showed Henry and Brian my issue and Henry very kindly gave me a base mesh of character of his and recommended that I import a reference image into ZBrush and shape the character like that. This helped tremendously and I was able to come up with a better looking character concept for the child.
Uldis Zarins
Similarly to the last character I referred to Uldis Zarins book on anatomy to characterise how a child’s skull differs from an adults skull.
Second & Successful Attempt
Marvelous Designer
Like the other 2 models I brought the boy into Marvelous to simulate his clothing. I did the T Shirt the same way I did the others, you can revert back to the older posts to see how I did it. With the shorts it was similar to the trousers except I just took the length off the bottoms a little. Because hes a main character and will be predominately focused on in the animation I decreased the particle size to get more wrinkles and interesting “more realistic” folds and creases in the clothing.
I downloaded a helmet from free3d.com to save myself more time and I fixed a couple of things with the clothing in ZBrush, using the Zremesher function and Zremesher brush tool to correct the triangular mesh and make UV mapping the clothing easier for myself in maya.
Using my original model as a base I wanted to sculpt more details on it; so that when I bring it into Marvellous Designer I can achieve that more realistic appearance and fit to the body that I’m going for. With Marvelous it simulates the textures of real clothing so I wanted the pectorals and biceps to be visible under the shirt. It will help create that buff, powerful look that will contribute to the frightening and intimidating characteristics of the main antagonist.
I perhaps spent longer on the model than necessary, fixing small issues but as well as the challenge I also wanted to consider what I can use for my portfolio and showreel. It means its closer to a finished sculpt now; I’ll not need to fix it up as much later down the line.
Uldis Zarins’ book on Anatomy of Facial Expression
Henry recommended to me that I go to the Library and check out Anatomy of Facial Expression, so I did. He had explained to me as you can see below that people in different parts of the world have different shaped skulls etc and that if I am to properly and accurately sculpt my characters I should consider what attributes an African skull and face include.
African skulls have more rectangular shaped orbits when compared to European and Asian skulls. The nasal aperture is wide and the nasal bridge is very flat. The jaw protrudes significantly from the rest of the face so I kept this in mind when sculpting my head model. That being said I could take artistic liberties and I had my reference photos of African males to work from too.
I modelled the head separately before I put it on the model. With the head combined with the rest of the body (so that there was no seams) it meant that I was losing definition in the face. So I wanted to separate the head from the body to get a more refined and detailed face so that after I clothe the model I can delete the body underneath to reduce the poly count and have a more detailed and refined face for the animation.
FiberMesh
After the head was sculpted I was just playing around with the fibermesh hair, for fun really. I thought that it was perhaps unnecessary and really rather more of an inconvenience to have to export from ZBrush to maya, exporting the curves recreating it on maya and then importing it to unreal. Its still a possibility if I have time and it looks really cool but I have prioritise my tasks and do what it is necessary first before experimenting with inessential details. Still a cool feature and one that I’m comfortable with, so I’d love to come back to it at some point.
Another thing I was curious about and experimented with a little was the AI Skin shader on ZBrush just to get a insight into what the character will look like with the skin texture before I have to retopo, UV Map it and texture it in substance.
Retopology with 3DWrap
I imported the high density model of the head into Wrap3D and using the node editor I synced up the imported “Retoped base mesh” and my high density one. I plotted the numbered points on both heads and afterwards I simply hit compute and the software Retopologised my model.
Marvelous Designer
After I had sculpted the character I brought the combined model into Marvelous to simulate the clothing. I hadn’t used Marvelous before so it was a bit of a learning curve for the first few hours but I quickly became accustomed to the way it worked, like most things patience was the key.
I originally sketched out the dimensions of the T-Shirt and sleeves to use as a template to help me out a little, rather than just eyeballing it. I’ve attached the video tutorial I followed below if you would like to follow my process, rather than me going through each meticulous step.
For the Cargo trousers it was a lot more difficult and time consuming, I wanted to make them look like actual cargo trousers and not sweat bottoms or jeans, so I had to humour the details a little like the pleating on the pants, the hem, the side pockets and most annoying and time consuming of all, the pleated pockets. Which was challenging but rewarding once I had finished them, I think they look pleated and I’m glad I took the extra bit of time to include the smaller details of the trousers. Again below I’ve attached the video that I used to follow along.
I did a variety of different T shirts for the model just to compare and contrast and see what would look the best rather than just going for the first one that I create. I also did the same for the trousers, I just had 2 different versions because I knew how I wanted the trousers to look but after playing around with the particle distance I was able to increase and decrease the the amount of creases in the trouser leg.
I did the jacket the same way I did the T shirt, I just increased the length of the sleeves and changed the fabric to Denim for more strength similar to a jacket. I also mistakenly omitted the trousers from the model the first time, so I had to go back in and re-simulate the jacket with the trousers on the model so it would rest over the trousers authentically, without having to manipulate anything in ZBrush.
The collar was tricky, there was no tutorials on how to do it so I had to figure out how to do it myself but I feel as though I was successful and I’m happy with the finished result.
Head Remodelling
After I sculpted and retopologised the head I decided I just wasn’t feeling the look of the Main Antagonist character anymore. Probably a silly thing to do considering the characters face will most likely be shrouded in shadows through most of the film I still decided to sculpt and retopologise another head. It only took me a day so I it didn’t hinder my progress too much.
Doing the exact same process as the other head model, I wrapped it on 3DWrap and after consulting Henry about the mesh, I was concerned it was maybe still too high and I might encounter some issues when I’m rigging. Henry suggested that I just deleted a few of the edge loops and it should be fine, so I just deleted every other edge loop on the face, it should help a lot with the re topology. And I can just smooth it out on maya before baking the animation.
I used Zremesher and the re-topological brush to retopologise the clothes. I can UV Map it easily on Maya.
I also uploaded the Model up to the Mixamo website to view the character in some different action poses before I rig him, just to get more of a look and feel to the character.
Originally I had a scene were the boy is hugging his mother but after I had started this model I was told that I probably could omit the scene from the animation. It would still make sense, be less confusing for the audience who might misunderstand the scene and it would ultimately be less work for me.
I had originally just modelled the body using a sphere for the torso and limbs. I used the “Default Female Head” as a base for the head in the mean time before I was ultimately going to do my own head model. Although I didn’t get to finish the model its still a good start, it diversifies my portfolio and it is a good foundation in my asset library now if I ever need a female body. It was interesting sculpting the female body and surprisingly more different from sculpting the male form than you might think. Its ultimately a development of my skills, an addition to my anatomy sculpts and another addition of diversification of form in my portfolio, not a total waste of time in the end.
Originally I intended on doing the background character quite emaciated looking, flat, retreating, stomach. Prominent ribcage, hip bones jutting out and long boney arms. Again the idea was to accentuate the prominent, distinguishing characteristics of the character but as I continued modelling I just wasn’t feeling that it was the right direction, that it looked good or that it was even how I was feeling about my character anymore.
So using the the foundations of what I already had, instead of starting from scratch I just built on the model and immediately it began to take shape, more realistically, appropriately and just better overall. I built the chest out more, gave him more of a stronger physique but was still able to attain those skinny attributes, like the ribs, the shoulder blades the thin arms, and the visible spine.
Again this is a background character and the details weren’t necessary but I was again thinking about portfolio and showreel and wanted to display a diverse catalogue of anatomical studies and models. Its what I want to do after I graduate so I’m keeping that in mind as well as the project. Under other circumstances I wouldn’t have entertained the details of the anatomy as much as I did in order to save time.
I again did the head separately to reserve more of the detail in the face and delete the body underneath the clothes like the other models to reduce the file size. I kept the retopology low because the character is in the background and his face will be far less visible. Again, the models, if not visible in the animation can be presented on my portfolios and showreel.
Staying consistent, I simulated the clothing on Marvelous and enabled the elasticated tool on the tshirt at the bottom so it would create a more “tucked into the trousers” look. When I simulated the trousers over the tshirt and used the pinching tool to try and recreate the “tucked in” look, it wasn’t working. So I had to improvise and be patient; patience is key a lot of the time with Marvelous Designer.
Thankfully with the trousers I didn’t have to worry about pockets or pleats because he’s a BGC. It was a basic simulation and I cranked down the particle distance to get a better, smoother simulation that created more wrinkles in the trousers, just to make it a bit more interesting.
I used Marvelous to simulate a bandana for the character as well. There are subtle variations in the two just for some variety. I thought it would be an interesting addition to the character and would also be more akin to the research I did. A lot of the soldiers cover their faces, similar to many rebel militias around the world so to give the animation and the character more faithfulness to my research and reality I would try include a bandana and a ski mask. I also modelled a beanie just for kicks, I’ll not use it but it was fun to experiment with different shapes and methods of creation on Marvelous. I thought I may as well get my “free trials” worth.
I also did a couple variations of Beanies, really just because I thought it would be fun. Its probably a little less appropriate for the African militia soldier but it was a fun experiment. If you would like to know what my process for creating these items of clothing I attached the video tutorials below.
duckinthesobriety 