It has been a while since I created something for fun. Here is the first render of the new character I started.
I hope to have the head completed by Tuesday night.

Steve

That face could be very expressive.
I like it!

Looks like the makin's of a classic French tragedy about a clown.

Ok I am hapy with the shape of the nose. I will add the ears and then clean up time.

Very nice!

You know we will ask....

Wireframe please!

Got the neck in place and started on the glasses and ears tonight. Corrected all the bias tonight.

Here is a wire frame

Steve

I want to create a set of glasses and the lens part needs to be thick. However, I am having a hard time modeling the lens. Here are the glasses so far. When I extrude the glass portion and apply transparency the splines are visible in the glasses

Steve

That's a good looking head, Shelton.
It sounds like you are extruding central CPs, instead of just the edges, which will create internal patches that you do not want.

Copy a spline ring from inside the lens frame and extrude to the correct thickness. Then stitch both faces as you want them. Give the lens an Index of Refraction of, hmm..something like 1.3, if my memory serves me correctly. This will cause the lens to refract and magnify like a real lens. Adjust your transparency to suit your needs.

I would think about bevelling the arms on those spectacles. The edges are far too sharp to wear next to the face.

Hope that helps.

We could tell from the smoothness of your mesh that you had an optimized spline layout.
Your wireframe confirms that!

Outstanding modeling.

He reminds me a lot of Barry Zundel's work.
Do I detect an influence?

Thanks Guys.

The arms of the glasses have not been attached yet and I will bevel those guys. Ok on the patch of the lens, it should not be extruded?

Rodney I like Zundels stuff (especially the eye brows) but also Jim Talbot? Some of his stuff on the cd is really incredible. I have watch those tutorials dozens of times.

Steve

Got the ears in place and i am happy with them for now. I have started on the mouth and should have that completed Friday. I am trying to use Will Sutton's method on teeth.

Steve

Finally had some time to get the body, arms and hands into place. Here is a shot.

Reworked shoulders, arms and torso. Placed legs on the body and just playing with some color and sss.

Steve

Need some help on cloth. I have looked through the section on cloth simulations, but does anyone have a tut on placing clothes on a body?

Steve

Feet are in and now to start thinking of clothing.

Steve

Finally had some time to add some clothes

Steve

Sorry about that, here is the corrected sss settings

Steve

wish I modeled as good as you do.

Nice looking character, Steve!

I'm not positive, but the shoulders might need to be pulled outward some...I also may be looking at it wrong.

Hi David. Take a look at the previous shots without the top on. I had pulled the shoulders out. I thought I might have good movement with those.

Thanks for looking

Hi Gene. I wish I could model like your characters. Everytime I start something I tend to try to go to realism (which is bad because I can't get it) rather than a character like yours that has so much personality.

Steve

This may sound pretty stupid, but here goes. As I am creating groups for my character I noticed folders being created in the PWS called Groups. When I try to access them there is nothing in them. What are they and where did they come from? Has it been that way all along?

Your character's face has great personality - if you want to get away from realism a bit - you might consider stylizing the body as well - using exaggerated proportions - eg - skinnier legs, hips or more giant muscles, or longer torso or etc...something unreal which communicates the personality, intelligence, in a caricatured way.

As for the ghost groups thing - it's a mystery to most of us - we've all? seen something like it it in various forms.

Perhaps ? Delete all the phantom group folders, delete chor. Then save your models immediately (separately - not embedded) - close then restart A:M - bring models back in..still there?

Thanks Nancy! I have tried a couple of things, like skinnier legs and well I felt like I was copying the Bowler Hat guy from Meet the Robinsons or the Will character from Zundel studios. I tried huge muscles and I saw that it was going to be tough to weight the character. (not very good at rigging). I just might try a longer torso with shorter legs.

As far as the ghosting issue. I tried excatly what you said and they came back. And since the time of the Group folders appearing AM has been crashing. I can honestly say AM has not crashed on me in months until the mysterious group folders appeared.

Steve

Hm, I haven't seen those ghost folders myself. Does this seem to be a common problem?

Oh, Nice character!!

Great job, Steve!

Nice work, Shelton!
Regarding the phantom group folders, have you tried selecting the geometry, making a copy and pasting into a new empty model window, saving and then starting a new project with the new model? I'm not saying that it will definitely work but if you haven't rigged him yet you have nothing to lose. Sometimes, when things get bogged down while modelling in A:M, it helps to start a new, clean project and just bring in what is relevant to that model.

Hi Paul!

Thanks all!

I tried that the first thing. After the last note, I saved the model, shutdown AM, loaded the model and no Groups. However, I loaded a second model into the project and groups appeared again.

And it may have been this way as I am not complaining, but all my grouping folders disappeared when I reloaded the model. this may have been this way all along.

Right now during this modeling stage I am not too worried but I want to start on rigging (hardest thing for me) and want to make sure something is not going to creep in.

Steve

Well, I removed all the texturing and shaders on the project saved the files and reloaded and the mysterious folders have disappeared.

Steve

Here are the glasses. I am having trouble with the setting on the lense. I want it to magnify slightly / refract.

Steve

The glasses are in place. Clean up some other areas and just need to get the glass settings right

Steve

I love the character!

Weird. I'm wondering did you bring this in from another project? dif version of A:M? Have multiple windows (chor, action) open when modeling?

Gerry - phantom folders haven't happened to everyone - but it pops/popped up in some form or another on TWO, SO on occasion.

Shelton - Glasses on character look good, he looks like a more thoughtful character - the whole personality changed from how he looked before - I thought he was going to be a schmarmy type guy - now he looks more like a genuine nice mild mannered guy (clark kentish)

The image with glasses looks good, but it looks very dark to me (I thought? my monitor was calibrated)...how are you rendering this?

It is dark. I have a new monitor, actually a Sony Bravia XBr6 32". The settings on it were set to bright so I kept making things darker. I have reset it and hopefully some of the newer pics will not be so dark.

One thing I can say is that there were several models open while I was modeling him. Other than that I have done everything in 15e

The character will have different uses. One will be a spokes person for a website. So I am glad you said he has mild look as that is what I was aiming for!!

I started drawing out some ideas to modify his body. Hope to have that done tomorrow.

Thanks for the comments.

Steve

The rig is installed and now I am weighting the character. Took a break from him and started a new one. Here is the first render of him with the first run of the splines.

Steve

You do great work!

Put a big dimple in his chin, and he'd look like Kirk Douglas.

Your Right!!!

Are the clothes a separate model? Are they apart of the body mesh? I am trying to grasp the concept.

Clothes are seperate items. I added the chin and it looks good I will post an update later

Steve

Decided to rework the chin and cheek area along with the jowl area. Just need to clean up and remove some unneeded splines. I will have the ears on tonight and will work on the hair setup and then to the body. Here are the front and side shots before the ears

Steve

Nice model
Can I see a few different views of the wireframe for the first face in this post? I am struggling with making faces right now (I dont know why) and maybe a new way of setting up the splines would help.
Thanks

Here are the 3/4 and front of the finished character

Steve

Thank you
I just want to make sure i am seeing this right. Is the area where I have the red arrow pointing a 3 point patch with a hook? Are the 5 point patches I have outlined in blue connected directly to the outer nostril or are there patches where I have placed the yellow outline. If there arent patches behind the yellow line did u tweak ank bias handles? It seems like there would be creases the way you did this but the model is smooth. I like this patch setup cuz it will make modeling a character i am struggling with a lot easier to make.
Again thanks.
Click to view attachment

Do you add them in an action?

Yes the red arrow is pointing to a three point patch. There is a spline that goes behind/in front of the 5 point and there is a 4 patch hidden behind the nostril. I learned this from a tutorial from Jim Talbot I think.

The Clothes were put on in both action and model. When I finish the weighting of this character I will dive more into the cloth simulation. I will keep you posted. I have learned more from Vern and his rig with the stage.

Steve

great progress!

Yes. Excellent work, Shelton.

I got the ears in and now clean up on the face and ready for the body. I am going dress him business causal. May have some questions on textures. I still can not decal an object correctly without the decal being corrupted.

Steve

Good stuff Shelton. He has a lot of personality.

Thanks guys. I have finished the head and working on the body. Should have an up date shorlty.

Steve