I will be starting this in a day or so, I just wanted to finish up my Image Contest entry. I will start with the Skinny Farmhand first.

I have some questions before I start anyway:

1: What kinda of lighting set up should I use to showcase the texturing work that I do?

2: Shoud I make their skin shade blue...? I can't remember, but aren't Winkies supposed to be blue? Or should I just make them in the normal human flesh range?

3: Am I just doing the flesh, or should I be doing cloth textures as well?

I should state that I will not be doing the hair. I seem to have absolutely no skill in that area, haha. It would take me a month to get anything that look anywhere near good, so I will be leaving that for someone else.

Thanks for reading!

Whatever you're used to.

Normal human flesh tones.

You're doing everything. Let's see what you're made of, Jeff.

Okay, for now.

Posted this to Dot Project as well:

All Flatten Groups assigned.

Last night I started working on the flattend face mesh. Still needs alot of tweaking since he has a such a large nose before I start the texturing.

Should have a base texture sometime tonight or early morning.

Here's the Skinny Farmhand with the template applied. As you can see I was right, that nose area is going to be a problem. It still looks fairly good for a first run at the template.

What size should I be making these textures at?

Basic Skin Color.

"Beauty" shot of where I am so far. AO and 1 light for diffuse, 1 light for spec.

Last update until sometime tomorrow . Added blush to the ears and a beard shadow.

I'm relieved to see how much the texturing is bringing this character to life. I was unsure of the design, and even less sure of the model, and now I feel guilty for doubting. The artistic talent behind this character was indeed true.

This is looking great. This guy have a lot of character for just a background character.

he's a fabulous character - coloring is bringing him even further to life. I like the beard - good idea.

Looking good, Zaryin!

Thanks everyone. The nice thing about having modeled this character is I had a chance to think about his personality as I was making him. So texturing is going about where I thought he would be .

He will be the older of the two, so expect some wrinkles in the future .

Just for the heck of it, I rendered one with the Skin Shader on, and a rim gradient.

I think I am done with the Color and Bump Maps for the head, but I have a few questions.

1: Do you think he needs more? I mean he is a bg character after all.

2: Should I make a Spec Map?

3: What about the inside of the mouth?

I think that's it for now.

He looks goooood.

I'm not sure how much time he's on screen or how close up the camera gets - but given that he's a farm hand - I would expect him to be sunburned & weather beaten (leathery skin). Or is he a gentleman farmer, who never goes out without sunscreen ?

Could add some rosy red sunburn blushing to that big honker nose and cheeks, forehead (that would read well even at a distance). More dried out wrinkles on lips & rosier color. Spider veins might look charming (close up). Brow wrinkles, perhaps?

Try a specular map - see if you like it.

Even if he is a background character - have your way with him, he can take it.

I agree. Push it. Don't be affraid to push it.

Yes... push him as far as you can.
He may get additional time in the movie... and there are always the cut scenes in the TWO game.
Because of their outstanding character already its easy to imagine the two farmhands having an increased roll in the game.

I was going to go for the sunburned look, but didn't know how far I should go. He does have brow wrinkles, they're just harder to see.

Thanks everyone.

PS: "Have your way with him"? Now I feel dirty.

Did I go too far with the sunburn look?

I tried using a spec map, but It doesn't seem to be working correctly. I used the same map for the size and intensity. For some reason I had to increase the intensity to get the spec to be less -- of course this can't be right. And anything over 200% caused "hole" artifacts in the mesh when rendered.

This will be the last update until tomorrow. I will add more bump mapping if people think I should.

Starting to look sunburned. More pronounced wrinkles on the forehead and around the eyes. Also, the skin could be much redder on skin surfaces pointing up than on skin surfaces pointing down. Uneven skin color will help make his skin alive.

This is what I had in mind this morning when I woke up. A technique to get the redish sunburn distribution on the skin:

The idea is to take render an white-only AO of the character on a solid ground plane. Renders full-front and full-side. Apply the renders as a color map, go to the flaten pose and render the flaten pose to file. This will produce a gradient map of how hard the sun would hit the skin.

About that second post. Um...huh?

About the first. He's not supposed to be "sunburned" He's supposed to look like he spent most of his life in the sun. So I figured darker skin, a little redder on the forhead, cheeks nose, etc... I definately agree about more wrinkles. It's just that i don't know if I have the skill to make it look good, but I'll be trying.

Thanks for the comments. I hope I get some mroe opinions. The more the better.

Ok. I added some more red to the skin tone. Made it look more "leathery". Added more wrinkles. Now i really do think I'm pushing it. This character is so toony, it's hard to come up with any textures that don't seem to "push it".

I will be adding some small veins to the nose and ears next.

It is getting there. I can feel the leathery skin. You could force the bump percentage quite a bit IMO.

Yeah! I like the idea.

Whoa! What's with the red again? I liked him just as he was....or maybe the red toned down/more brown. I know it's a different topic, but there's something bugging me about the outside rim of his ears. Too straight or something. No matter. Can't wait to see him with hair. Anyway, good work!

Ken, most people think I should push the weatherd, outdoor, sunburned/worn look. I actually agree that he seems to be going a little too far. But I'm taking my ques from what comments I get in this thread.

Yves, I can't believe you think I could up the bump map even more, haha. I'll give it a shot and see what I can get.

Jeff, I hope you're having as much fun working on this guy as I'm having watching.

The amount of redness in his skin is up to you and how sunburned you want to make him. Color-wise, I think the image in post #19 looks more like weathered skin. Skin made leathery after years in the sun tends to be more dark-brown than red, doesn't it? Adding redness makes it look like sunburn (fell-asleep-in-the-field sunburn).

The intensity of bump mapping in post 23 looks like he's got some good 5:00 shadow. The bridge of his nose catches my eye, though; it looks like too much.

I'm just armchair-texturing here. You're the one painting him so in the end it's up to you how he looks. I've liked your progress all along so I think you'll deliver a great looking model.

Another thing I notice is the lip bump lines. They seem too parallel. It's like they're all starting from the "south position" rather than rotating round the mouth in a fan.

Thanks for all the critiques everyone. I agree about the red color. I think I need to bring it to somewhere in between those two options. I also agree about the bridge of the nose. I didn't see that before. I did fix the exeedingly heavy bump that was on the eyelids though -- that I noticed, haha.

Ken: You a totaly right. I need to redo those. I just threw them on to see how it would look and forgot.

Thanks again, everyone. I appreciate the comments.

Added a Rim Light to so everyone could see more of the detail of the bump map. It also showed me that I need to fix the nose area in my Flatten Action to get rid of some of that stretching.

Toned down the red hue. Toned down the pore bump on the bridge of the nose and the ears. Fixed the Lip Bump. Added veins to the ears and nose (might need editing). Added more wrinkles.

I think this is about it -- except for the needed fixes to my Flatten Action.

He's great. If we had seen a model of this quality just three years ago, it would have been one of the best out there. But now, isn't it interesting how fast you need to run just to keep up with the rest of the TWO models? There is a lot of talent swirling around this project... It's exciting - like watching the Universe form.

Thanks alot, Martin. I hope he's good enough for the movie .

I fixed the stretching about as m8uch as I can possibly do without actually eidting the decal within the program. Here's my question: Am I allowed to edit the Decal within the program? It would really help me tweak it better.

Here's another one. Won't be updating until Sunday, or Monday (depending how bad my hangover is from partying on Saturday, haha).

If find it quite scary that with each iteration this guy looks more and more like one of my colleagues back at the office...

To my eye the horizontal wrinkles on the forehead look too regular - very straight, the same length, and equally deep. Otherwise this is really nice - I like the bump and colouration of the 5 o'clock shadow particularly.

He's coming on great! I took the liberty of editing your image just to show what I mean. Wheather you want to do anything is up to you. I think he's too saturated looking and tweaking that makes him seem more realistic. Of course, it depends on how he blends into his environment too.
Are the ear veins bump maps? Maybe just colors would do it....I think they're distracting and not really necessary either way.

Outside of the very over done pore bump map this is a fantastic looking model. So much character. Is it possible to give twelve thumbs up?

Great job Jeff. I wouldn't worry about the saturation until it is lit in the scene he's in. I'm sure it will be fine. Ives' light rig is probably using a higher intensity light setup than you are.

Thanks everyone. I have to agree with Ken in that he looks way too saturated, but I think your example Ken is too desaturated. I also don't know what he's going to look like in the actual lighting so will probably worry more about that later. I'll bring that vein bump down a little.

The pore map might be a little overdone, but I don't know how it's going to read in the actual lighting so will leave that alone for now also.

Thanks again, everyone!

Just a little update until I come back from the weekend. All I did with this one was make sure all my lights were white in color. I should have done that from the beginning.

he's looking really weather beaten - I like it.

yes, lighting makes a difference. If you think he's too red - try just toning down the general skin color by adding some deep orange/yellow/olive tones or just desaturating the red a tad - but leave cheeks/nose/forehead blush the way it is.

I think you're doing a great job. Love the weathering/leathering effect.

He is looking really good Jeff. You have done a great job on him. The only thing that comes to my mind is that I think his forehead wrinkles are a bit to straight (but that is just my personal opinion)

Thanks Nancy. I might tone him down a little more, but only a little .

Thanks, Stian. The forehead wrinkles aren't actually straight. It's just that he barely even has a forehead, so that's all I have to work with, haha.

Skin tone is about where I want it now. Think I might move onto the arms now, do those, and hit any touch ups later.

Very nice work Jeff, are you still using the skin shader on there?

Hummm... Then I think I need to explain myself here.

My observation, is that there is a general tendency, on the TWO project, is to be way more retained or restrained or shy with exageration or caricature than my own tendency would lead me. The comments and feedbacks often goes in the "tone down" or "more natural" direction than I would personally go. But that is me.

Personally, I would make all characters have something that the viewer could observe as being somewhat funny or at least characteristic.

You already have a very nicely modeled character. It is already very caricatured in his basic morphology. So why would it be OK to exagerate the basic morphology but be more restrained when comes the time to add maps, colors, surface details, etc? If that is realism that we are aiming for, then why the charicatured morphology in the first place?

I say let's not be afraid to push it. Let's not be afraid to go wild. My biggest issue with "realism" is that I feel it is missing style, strength, individuality and personality. A realistic character is just like any other realistic character.

Personally, I'd like all characters to have a little something that make them more than just an unnoticed background character. I'd like every character to have a sort of hidden comment on something. For instance, a comment on the observation that people working outside do have very aged skiins due to long exposure to the sun and wind and all sort of weather conditions. That is what a charicature is for. The charicature takes an observation and paints it red so that it is now unavoidably obvious to the viewer.

So, Yes. I definitely think the facial lines and wrinkles bump maps could be pushed farther than that. The latest poses bump maps seems to be right. But the lines and wrinkles need help. And as for the skin tone, I say, Yes. This guy fell asleep under the sun. That is his backstory.

Notice that all of this is my own personal point of view. I am not a director on this project and my comments, feedbacks and opinions should just be counted like any other person's. In the end, the person who is doing the models and the maps is the one who chooses and decides where to go, which comment is to be integrated and which comment is to be ignored, etc. That's the way is is and that's the way it should be. Personally, I will keep on pushing to go wilder. But now, after this diatribe, you know why.

Will slowly start updates again. I have strept throat, but am starting to get over it.

Ok, I'm slowly getting back. I got pnuemonia again on top of the strept thoat, but am well enough too start working on this again.

I once again changed the hue of the skin to give it more red. I am fairly certain I will not be changing the color anymore, haha.

Now I will start on the arms and hands. The hands are the tricky part. Especially since i have to redo my flattening better on them.

Good to have you back, Jeff.

He looks terrific - I like I like

(also I loved your entry in the image contest - phenomenal! - as well as extra creepy)

Yeah! Looking good.