sophie

[jon]

it started out with me wanting to make some wings... then someone said 'sphinx'

 

sophie was conceived!

[attachmentid=9457]

challenges:

• balance between chibi and paedo-creepy (beware baby bratz!)
  
• push the stylistic (as little detail/realism as possible)
  
• articulated wings (scary!)
  

wish me luck!

 

-jon

[Kalroy]

Goog luck Jon,

 

I think you'll enjoy it.

 

 

Kalroy

[jon]

that same someone came up with her version of sophie:

 

[attachmentid=9564]

 

i really like the animal feline part and the head , but have a slightly different take on the humanoid torso... still you steal inspiration where you can ' ' )

 

keeping as low spline as possible... i hope to keep the limbs at 4 splines, but that might be impossible for the rear haunches.

 

-jon

[ZachBG]

Freaky...

[jon]

i need at least a little 'freaky' for a project to interest me... the more the merrier.

 

hexapods (centaur-ish creatures) are a rare, but popular theme in the furry art i was exposed to in the early 90's. i don't see to much of them these days.

 

The chibi style is as old as anime, and i'm starting to embrace elements of it in all of my work, but i want to explore my tolerance to extreme chibi with sophie.

 

people can deal with freaky cute more than just raw freaky. ' ' )

 

-jon

[jon]

legs, and a torso... yay!

 

[attachmentid=9701]

 

-jon

 

added: looking at this shot now, i'm happy with the beastly splinage overall, but i think i'll loose one of the belly loops on the torso. the feline booty needs work, but i'll address that when i add the tail.

 

because the torso is so small, the breasts might seem too much now, but the oversized head will be a much bigger eye-draw.

 

i really want to add toenails, but that's counter-chibi. i'll be lucky if i can get away with fingers!

[jon]

a simplified upper humanoid body -- from earlier anime experimentation -- fused with feline body.

[attachmentid=9840]

the head is too spliney, but i'll prolly skip further culling to work on hair and (gulp) wings.

 

-jon

[jakerupert]

Great modell but....

in my opinion the chibistyle requires the catpart to be chibi as well.

I would make her head much bigger and the catbody much smaller.

Otherwise its more like a regular sphinx.

 

Just my two cents

 

;>) Jake

[jon]

thanks jake! yer dead on with the head. i already sized it up to around 150% but it could easily be twice again as big.

 

while i initially fought against the current human/feline body size ratio, i couldn't make a proportionally larger human torso (i.e. smaller cat body) 'work'. let's see if the big-headedness helps. ' ' )

 

i think i'll have to make the hands plumper too, and prolly remove a finger on each as well.

 

-jon

[Zaryin]

The proportions might not be exactly right, but your modeling is great. I would love to see a shaded render if you got the time.

[jon]

her head didn't double in size, but i'm trying to keep it real... real chibi, that is:

[attachmentid=9892]

i had some ears lying around, so i tweaked 'em a bit, and there they are.

 

-jon

[trajcedrv]

Cool model so far, I think she needs more detail on the feet part (It feels that upper and lower half don't match)

 

Keep us posted

 

drvarceto

[jon]

Cool model so far, I think she needs more detail on the feet part (It feels that upper and lower half don't match)

 

my impulse to to usually strip away detail, especially for this project... but i think some toes might be nice, since i'm having a hard time keeping the face and torso as simple as planned.

 

good advice!

-jon

[thejobe]

man that looks cool nice work jon

[Gerry]

Yes, and nice fix on the body proportions. Definitely consider a bit of detail in the feet. It will be cool to see this shaded and textured.

[jon]

i'm not too worried by adding detail in the model, since my chosen render style (toon) tends to strip away a lot of the fine bits anyway.

 

i've been working on sophie's face and hair, prolly to keep from working on the wings:

[attachmentid=9972]

 

interesting fact: big cats don't have slitted irises. their eyes look very human, 'cept for the color.

 

-jon

[MattWBradbury]

The model looks great, but it doesn't look chibi enough. Every part of the body needs to be exagurated. What kind of style are you looking for in your model? The things I notice the most are the small arms.

[jon]

well, matt... chibi is my intended goal, but i guess i'll have to settle for "chibi-influenced".

 

for those not in the know... here is the chibi-est character i could find:

[attachmentid=9986]

chibi mink from dragon half

 

i'm not going to get there, but i want sophie to be as cute as possible, and still be something from me.

 

raw chibi just ain't me. ' ' )

 

-jon

[MattWBradbury]

Here's some chibi that shows that you can make chibi detailed. It's from naruto. If you want somemore naruto based Chibi just google "Naruto Chibi"

[luckbat]

Everybody knows about this chibi tutorial, right?

http://www.polykarbon.com/tutorials/chibi/chibiart.htm

[amarillospider]

Hey Jon it's looking good. If you want it more chibi I think you'll have to sacrifice that hourglass figure. I think the human torso needs to be as thick as the front of the feline torso, and come back to about the back of the front legs, without getting any taller. I think you should chibi-fy the feline body also, and make it more kitten like, fatter stockier legs with big feet. Head bigger and arms chubbier and not so long. But then it looks good how it is also, just not super chibi.

 

By the way why did you decide to use 4 cp rings for the legs instead of more? It looks fine, but I think I would have been chicken to use so few.

 

-Alonso

[Rodney]

jon,

I think I like your current sophie more than one more Chibi version'd.

Looking mighty good thus far.

 

You can always make a Chibier version from the the one you have now at a later date.

Rodney

[jon]

i'm officially recanting the super-chibi title for sophie!

 

i like the way she's turning out, and while chibi was my original goal, i'm happy with meeting it halfway.

 

the dragon half pic was posted to show i really do understand what chibi is, but that's not where i see this model going.

 

i appreciate each and every comment here, and ask that you keep it coming... but sophie won't be radically changing from her current form.

 

she'll have fingers, prolly blobby toes, and will stand a gigantic five heads high. ' ' )

 

-jon

[jon]

i found a new way to avoid those wings: color!

[attachmentid=10043]

due to my hatred of decals, i had to tweak the breast and face splines to get the belly color contours right, as well as rework the face to support the obligatory triangle nose.

 

amarillo: i started with four cuz i didn't think three was possible. ' ' )

 

a four point circle might not work for her legs either -- especially when i add in some toe shapes -- but i'm sure i could keep them if i believed in bias handles.

 

sadly, i don't.

 

what a grouchy ol' spliner i am.

 

-jon

 

her arms are looking a little long to me now...

[MattWBradbury]

Why do you hate decales??? They're my best friend. They make fake CG looks like Real with just a few more seconds of render time. Feed the need for TREE (Texturized Reality Emmitted Environment). Is that a good Acronym???

[Kamikaze]

Nice model, I to avoid decals that require flattening.....and there seems to be such a process involved, isolate the group you want decaled flatten it in a pose render a image take it to P.S. etc....maybe now there is a easier way. Still I NEED to learn how to do decaling and properly...I will need to do some on my C-130 aircraft model......

 

Michael

[jon]

well, i've had some trouble with applying distortion-free decals myself, and that's part of my aversion.

 

i've only applied decals directly or to a flattened pose, but the new uv editor might make things easier, if i can wrap my head around it.

 

i've been thinking about this issue a bit more, and i do think that i could use a simple decal to roughen up the edge of the color change a bit.

 

i'd want to stick to a simple color change, and i'd like to use alpha to mask a simple white fill.

 

i'll give it a shot -- but after i get some credible wings!

 

-jon

[nyahkitty]

This model is turning out quite nicely.

The style looks very polished and consistent throughout the model.

The use and efficiency of splines and patches is exceptional, especially for the four animal legs and white mouth and torso.

 

Of course, perhaps one day we'll have a 3D paint program for Hash A:M which will make texturing much easier:

 

Hash A:M 3D Paint Program Thread

[jon]

don't get me wrong... even if i was a decal master, i tend to like texture-free toony goodness on my characters.

 

the wing is coming along nicely:

[attachmentid=10159]

 

it might be a little detail heavy for sophie, but i think the simple coloring will help it fit stylistically.

 

my biggest fear now is that i'll have to bone every single feather (in a synchronized roll) to get the wing to bow properly at rest.

 

-jon

[DanCBradbury]

That's an awesome wing. I dont think it's too much detail for what you're goin for.

[micheldani]

very cool work.

I think what you're doing is pretty well balanced modelling wise.

i'm surprised to see how far you've come from the original sketch (literally )

 

Keep it up and i can't wait to see the final thing.

[jon]

michel,

 

i'm a better at splining than sketching, but since i'm miserable at drawing, i just have to be a passable modeller to show improvement. ' ' )

 

progresswise, i had to re-copy/flip/attach the body since attaching the wing to the feline body caused me to seriously rework back and shoulders.

 

i'll have a new snapshot up tonight, once i reattach the torso.

 

-jon

[jon]

now sophie is a manx, but otherwise complete:

[attachmentid=10261]

 

i need to rework her flanks a bit, as i have too many hooks and 5 point patches fighting amongst themselves, but i'll prolly have to start rigging this weekend.

 

i hope to skip the 'bone-every-feather' approach, and just create a few bending wing poses instead.

 

-jon

[jon]

so, if you missed the finished product, here she is:

[attachmentid=10692]

 

i rushed the wing rig, and clipped her butt with one for the final contest render, but i'm very happy with this image, and really do appreciate all the comments on this thread.

 

thanks!

-jon

[jon]

as promised in a recent rant, here's sophie, in version 12 format.

 

if you have any trouble figuring out my simple rig, feel free to gripe. ' ' )

 

-jon

Sophie_v12.zip

[Rodney]

No gripe here. That is one fine model.

Beautiful character.

 

Thanks!

[case]

cool charcter nnice work

[total noob]

Most of your model is coming all well enough, but I can't help but point out one thing you should fix. On Sophie's rear legs, you've forgotten to give her some knees. That CAN be easy to overlook in a 4-legged character (especially since you've been trying to keep Sophie a simplified character), but if you're ever going to ANIMATE her (specifically, a walking animation), you'll spot the lack of knees then. I recommend looking at some house cat's rear legs for a guide, although a REAL house cat will have pretty long legs compared to the chibi style. The knees on most 4-legged characters is a VERY short distance from the hip joints, so don't bother trying to get Sophie's rear legs' proportions PERFECT if you're going to chibi-fy them.

 

On a different (but related) note, here's 2 EXTREMELY chibi pictures of Ayanami Rei (from Neon Genesis Evangelion), so you might want to use HER "extreme chibi-ness" as your guide if you're still trying to make Sophie look EXTRA chibi. & I didn't draw these pictures, I just found them online a long time ago.

 

[attachmentid=21078]

 

[attachmentid=21079]

Ayanami_Rei_10.bmp

Ayanami_Rei_9.bmp

[jon]

thanks for you comments! if you look carefully at the final image, she really does have knees.. her right rear knee is partially visible directly above her foot.

 

[edit] for her forelegs, technically she's missing the mid-foot articulation that i gave to her rear legs.. but i might lengthen her forepaws a bit and add it... one day.

 

in the standing pose, her knees not visible at all, just like the chibi rei images you've uploaded.

 

chibi was the goal, but i'm happy with the results, even if they were only about half way to chibidom.

 

thanks again!

-jon

[trajcedrv]

This os one really cool character! Thanks for sharing, Jon. I am itching to download it an try it (I just hope that it will work with v11.1).GREAT WORK!

[jon]

thanks for the love, trace. ' ' )

 

i'll be using sophie with ha:mr in the near future, so i sure hope she plays well in later versions.

 

-jon