Snake Woman WIP

[cj3d]

Hello CG Feedback,

I had to sum up my courage to post here lol. You're all major players in the industry, so it's kind of intimidating.

In any case I hope you guys wouldn't mind looking this model over and letting me know what you think of my progress. I don't have an industry job yet, but I'm trying to get there and ultimately my end goal would be a job at Weta (aint it everybodies?), so I'm glad to see a lot of Weta guys here.

The idea is a Naga type of character, but I'm bored with seeing human heads on them all the time, and thought it would be cool to make a snake headed Naga instead. I plan on mirroring the scales and then adjusting them as needed. I was just curious if I was going in the right direction with size and everything. I'm placing all of these scales mostly because I can't have them stretching like a normal or displacement map would if I sculpted them in Zbrush. Plus it's more fun this way :)

Thank you very much in advance for your guidance. And Avatar is the greatest movie ever and should have been longer. Just thought I'd throw that out there :p

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This image is where I did have the scales but I decided they were way to small and so redid them. Plus placing every single one that small all over the body isn't practical and would be annoying to rig.

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Thank you all again for any tips. You're crits will be most welcome and hopefully I can get better based off of them and work my way into the industry somewhere.

CJ

[PascalR]

:welcome: cj3d!

Cool stuff, I would probably go with the displacement solution instead of geometry for the scales. The thing is your model looks more like a stylized snake, a sculpture rather than a real snake.
Here is a randomn picture I found on the web and you can tell that there is a lot going on. The size and shapes are varying quite a bit as you can see.
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I am not too sure of how much you want to cover the body with scales, so might not be worth spending too much time on the anatomy.
One thing I would do though on the neck, is try to find some transition human skin / scales/ snake skin. Right now the close up makes me think of someone's hand in a snake puppet. ;)

Keep it up!

:beerchug:

[cj3d]

Thanks for the crit Pascal :) What would I need to do to push it a little further into realism? I mainly needed the scales on the head and neck to be modeled because I plan to have a cobra hood and the displacement just stretched all crazy and I wanted the scales to be consistent so I figured just modeling them would be best. I also plan to have the scales mostly on the whole snake body and just the back, and back of arms on the body. The front end was going to be like a softer reptilian scale like a monitor lizard might have. And then a few sculpts to kind of blend it together better in Zbrush. that's what I planned anyway :D I had also planned on going back and randomizing the shapes on some of the scales too to break up the uniformity once I got them all placed.

Any further crits would be welcome, and hopefully I can post some further progress as it comes. Actually I modeled the anatomy because I didn't plan on modeling the scales lol. Originally I was going to just do the displacements.

CJ

[tiktok]

if it's any help, I just had to do a really detailed snake thing. To get the scales really clean in zbrush I just rendered a displacement of a few hipoly scales I hand modeled out then staggered them all over the mesh in zbrush. I've attached one of the alphas I used as an example. It was a much cleaner as an alpha than just using a photo. obviously though,you'd want to render several different varieties of these to be able to make them all fit organically together.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/cgfeedback/attachment.php?attachmentid=278&stc=1&d=1263611904

-bayard

[cj3d]

Hey TikTok thanks a lot for posting! So I take it we're in agreement thus far that my major hurtle right now is the scales? I messed around with something like that although your method looks way cleaner and nicer. Could you possibly post a pic of this snake thing you modeled? Here is a pic of some alphas I made from photos and one I made in photoshop to play around with. The top pic is the photo scales, and the bottoms are the photoshop ones which I just made as a test to see what kind of results I get. How do you use your alphas in Zbrush? Do you stamp them, or just load them into the alpha and use the rectangle tool? Usually I try to get what I can with the rectangle tool because I get slightly cleaner results them stamping them. And by stagger you just mean kind of randomly placing them at different angles and sizes and what not?

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So basically right idea just needs to be refined? Still I need to model scales to get the appropriate look when the cobra hood opens and the displacements stretch and look bad. Any work around you guys can think of to get the displacement to work right? I guess maybe two displacements one for the hood open and one for the hood closed, with a blend between, but I would really need to think about how to pull that off since I'm not sure how to put the detail of the hood closed onto the detail of the hood open in Zbrush or something to that effect and get them on the same UVs.

Also here is a pic without the scales. I'd like to know what you think of the character just as the model base mesh. To be honest I'm doing the scales and detail this way because I thought it would be more impressive to get as much detail as I could out of Maya without relying heavily on Zbrush, and thought it would also be impressive to place all these scales. I figured that's what you guys would like to see in the industry, but a lot of the stuff I see here it looks like you guys are Zbrushing like crazy so my question is, how far do you take a models base like in Maya before taking it into Zbrush? I know asking to see pro base meshes is kind of taboo but I think that would really help me get a better grasp on the work flow. Do you guys generally model muscle forms like I have here and then define them and rip the characters in Zbrush or do you define your muscles in something like Maya as well and then just add skin detail in Zbrush? That's one of the questions that has always plagued me with a pros workflow. Just how much do you do in Maya, and how much in Zbrush (or whatever like software of choice?)

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Also I think I get you guys on the scale randomness and making them a little more real. Stuff like odd shaped scales, and scales with little dents and scuffs and broken bits right? I had planned on doing some of that with them once I had finished placing them. I'm aware that a weakness of mine is the lack of seeing some subtle details that I really need to focus training my eye to see, so I do appreciate you guys immensely for helping me to see some things that I miss :)

Once again thanks for the welcome and Pascal especially for jumping right on my post with some info. Only two posts so far and you guys have both already given me so much to think about. Sorry for the long post, and I hope you guys don't mind me really pickin your brains :D lol.

CJ

[PascalR]

Cool, I think before focusing on details, I wonder if you could revisit the deisgn a little bit. That neck is bothering me, it looks quite thick from the front view and mixing human and snake can be cool but I would try to get things less obvious (head= snake, torso= human, lower body = snake again)
Here is a very cool sculpt from Giovanni Napkil, I really like how the snake shapes merge with the rather human anatomy:

http://www.gionakpil.com/DIGITAL.cobrafish.1.jpg

If you feel like it, I'd suggest doing a paint over one of your renders and try to add some design features, just to try things quickly in 2d, instead of getting stuck with a high rez geo convered with scales :)

Keep it up!

Cheers

Pascal

[sebcravoisier]

very cool sculpt very interesting, isn't it cj3d!

[cj3d]

Sebcravoisier: Cool thanks :D

Pascal: Interesting image but not very beautiful lol. I see what you mean though. I can play with the design and try to integrate some human in snake and snake in human some more without going too crazy with it. Mr. Napkil's sculpt is a little extreme for my tastes. Awesome model! But not my cup of tea.

I'm open to any design suggestions then. I've kind of had my heart set on this particular design for this character for awhile, but I also want to make something that will impress you guys, so I'll definitely make some changes :) Cool if I post some of my paint overs here? And I did want it to have scales on it but maybe I'll stick to covering the snake body with scales and just do some sparse scales here and there on the human torso. It's also going to have a hood that maybe I can kind of run in with the traps down the back, but I was going to do a hood with blendshapes. I have some friends that want to rig and animate it, so that's why it's still in T-pose lookin kinda sparse lol.

Thanks a mill Pascal :D

CJ

[PascalR]

Oh yeah please feel free to post any paint over or 2d artwork here! I was just thinking about breaking up the silhouette a little bit more on the body.
But like you said that is a personal taste thing.

I like when people are able to throw away a lot of their own work if they think it will look better in the end. It is easier to do this in 2d (or even in 3dCoat) than in 3d that's why I was suggesting a paint over.

Anyways, if you had a clear idea of what you wanted for the final look, please go for it and ignore these comments ;)

Looking forward to the next update,

Cheers

Pascal

[cj3d]

Lol it's hard to throw away a specific design for sure, but I do want it to look better in the end while keeping it smooth and beautiful. I dislike putting it in those terms because I dislike what people might think of the purpose of this model, or my intentions but to be honest I like beautiful characters and beautiful creatures, and I try to make my models aesthetically pleasing based off of my tastes, but I'm certain I can make some changes without totally killing the concept or the basic design ;) I never gave it any thought because nobody else had brought it up until you clap lol.

But that's cool I want to be pushed into being a better artist, so your input is always welcome. Considering Weta is my eventual goal I think it best to listen to you ;) But I see what you mean about breaking up the silhouette and I'm spending a lot of time going through your amazing reference thread, and finding some really nice ideas for scales and where I can put the scales to look cooler without being cookie cutter, so to speak. Gaping Maws is the best though :D Where you found that I'll never fathom lol.

CJ

[cj3d]

I've kind of stuck this on the backburner for a bit to kind of gather some inspiration and reference and rethink what I'm going to do with it. I've been working on this project for several months now and decided I need to take a break from it anyway and mess with something else. I'll get back to the snake woman after I've revised some design stuffs but in the meantime I'm having some fun :D

I've thrown this character together just out of some parts that I already had with different stuff, to create the base mesh and then I'll go into Zbrush and sculpt it up nice and purdy and throw some fur on it (need to play with fur again). Wrinkles, and mange type fur, and scabby skin, and all the stuff that everyone likes to see lol. And yeah I know I haven't attached the little snake heads yet :p

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In any case this is based off an Erinnyes or Fury. In mythology these are generally described as old crones, with dog heads, blood shot eyes, bat wings, and snakes for hair. They harass people who have commited certain crimes and what not. Anywayz I thought it sounded like a cool design and I already had the parts lying around I just needed to put them together, so this is really just kind of a fun sketch type of thing to do to kind of relax and have some fun.

CJ

[mjackson126]

Pretty cool. Good Job.