DEVLOG 4 - building my base

 Unedited base -

Last year I created this human base of which I used to make one of the 3D sculpts [the one of the character named Princess]. Its quite rough, with some spots of poor topology [mainly the face region] but I thought it would be interesting to try to tweak this model to fit my design. I will need to completely rebuild the face, split the torso and pelvis to allow me to better pose my model [i intend to dynamesh these two together in z brush, I also need to change the proportions of these elements to better suit the frame of my character], as well as rebuilding the legs. I basically will need to almost completely rebuild this base, but I can salvage some elements such as the basic head shape and arm shape. I prefer to use this base over the Zbrush human base as I can more comfortably play with proportions and get a more stylized model.

Modelling details -

The first thing I tackled was the head as this needed the most drastic changes. I got a lot of use out of the mirror tool here as I extruded the scalp then moved some faces to create the crest of her helmet. I realized there was some overlapping geometry at the bottom of her helmet, so I removed it and bridged the hole up to help reduce the amount of errors later on in the pipeline. Her horn and hair tufts [I chose not to model the back hair at this point as I have a feeling you might not be able to see it when I create the fur trim on her clothing] are made from extruded cylinders that I then used the smooth function on to give myself more topology to work with in Zbrush. Here is how she looks so far, I used my face reference that I made in the previous post to ensure my proportions are correct.

Side profile

As you can se previous image, I also began sculpting the base of the fur trim around her neck, I ended up making this a bit bigger as I intend to use the pull function in Zbrush to form each individual spike. I also used the smooth function on this to give me more geometry.

Neck fur

I followed a similar process for the belt

An issue I came across in my original base was that for some reason there was a hole in the leg region, I think this might have happened when i mirrored the two leg meshes and they met towards the top. I was able to fix this by using the target weld tool to weld together the vertices.

The hole before being patched

The hole after being patched

On the topic of legs, I had to remove the bottom half of the base's legs for two reasons. The first being that when it comes to posing my model, it is easier for me to move the legs in two separate parts than moving it as one base. [I could have rigged the model and posed it like that however from previous experience this technique didn't work too well for me] and the second being that the bottom half of her legs have a much different shape as she is wearing flares.

I also split the torso into two parts for similar reasons.

Here is the rebuilt torso and pelvis.

Here are the rebuilt legs that have been smoothed to add more geometry.

For the base of the fluff at the ends of her arm sleeves, I used an extruded cylinder that I then smoothed. To make the fluff I will be using a similar technique to the fluff around her neck and belt.

Base for the wrist fluff.

To make her heels I first made a vague foot shape out of a cylinder, then I moved some of the faces upwards to form the sole of the shoe. On the back edge I extruded some faces down to make the heel, then for the main boot section i moved some faces and then bevelled them to get the rough shape.

Step 1 - Base of the shoe

Step 2 - Forming the heel

Step 3 - Making the boot

Final boot shape, this will be smoothed out in Zbrush

Final Base -

Here is how my final base looks, my next step is to pose it using the reference provided in my orthographic. I will also need to model a base and ensure my model is the right size in relation to its base.

Front

Back

Side

Posing my Base-

I simply moved the different parts of my mesh to get my base into the correct pose. Something I did change was how big the handles for her nun chucks are, I wanted them to be clear and separate to her hands, and with a larger size I think they will retain more detail in the final print.

Turnaround of my posed model

I also made a turnaround to show off my model base.

Trello progress:

https://trello.com/b/r2pzodtd/my-trello-board

I am hoping to now export my model as an OBJ and bring it into Zbrush to begin adding in details and refining my model. I might bring my model in first, clean it up, then bring in my base last and finally dynamesh them together. That way I can sculpt details around the lower leg region without the base getting in the way. Looking at my model's pose, I can already see that I will need a lot of supports around the arms and cape as both of these are floating elements. I will make sure to remember that later on down the line when I have to bring my model into Chitubox.