The Griffon Rider and Steed

[Zaryin]

Went through my pc and came across an older project where I made a base female body (for something to work off from). So I decided to make my griffon project again which was why I was inspired to make the base body.

 

Here is the finished head attached to my base body. Might be pointying her ears, I haven't decided yet. This is my first female head ever after I don't know how many years of modeling. I think it looks pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good.

 

Next to build clothing and armor for my griffon rider.

 

Comments welcome .

[oakchas]

face looks ok in 3/4 view.

 

Head on... looks a bit he/she to me. And from the side, looks like a childs head. Hmmmm?

 

head's maybe just too big for the body. Just first impressions.

[Dhar]

The body proportions look really good. I agree with Charlie on the head. Needs a little downsizing and slendering of the lower jaw.

[jon]

the killer jaw is what's causing the sexual ambiguity... i'm not saying change it, just mentioning.

 

likewise for the head size. not your classic 7-8 head high woman, but then it doesn't have to be.

 

sally forth! ' ' )

 

-jon

[Zaryin]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

 

Well, I was going for a styilized look, but realize that I'm dumb and you guys are right . So I made the head more "real" in proportion, and softened the jaw.

 

Now I'll start on the clothing and armor, haha.

[oakchas]

Z,

 

I'm still having trouble with "her"... from the side is her face too flat? forehead, not sloped enough? Very oval head on, too wide?

 

I cannot pinpoint my disagreeability with her... but it's unimportant, it's not like I'm looking for a date... maybe jon has a better idea.

[jon]

i'll just say that people tend to look extremely freaky without hair.

 

-jon

[Zaryin]

Thanks for the comments, again. I have added a hair helmet with a ponytail for now just to see what see will look like. I also rounded her face more from the side. I don't have time to render it out just yet.

 

Thanks again.

[KenH]

Nice work. Jaw and brows seem abit masculine.

[Zaryin]

Here's a new pic in a new chor with the start of the boots.

 

Thanks Ken. The jaw and brow are about where I want them for now. I might tweak them later on when I get the project to a certain level.

[Zaryin]

Here she is with her finished boots.

[Zaryin]

Here she is with clothing. I probably put too much detail into the shirt since I was thinking about putting armor on her. I'm also thinking about adding a cloak with a hood (that should be fun ).

 

Comments Welcome.

[oakchas]

I think the "bra" should be the lighter blue.

 

She appears to be what we used to kindly call "plain", i.e., she's no beauty. (I hope she's not modeled after your mom, or worse yet, your spouse/significant other.)

 

nice detail on the clothing/boots (boot seam, great) a little "jesterish" on the sleeves.

 

These are just impressions... kinda like free association... you're getting my "gut feel" It's not that I like dislike the character, in other words... these are just the feelings I get looking at her.

[Zaryin]

Thanks again for the comments.

 

Please don't take what I am about to say as anger or anything, I really want your opinion. It's hard to get the right feeling through just words on a "page". Here it comes...

 

What exactly makes you find her unattractive? I myself find her attractive. Except from the side. I'm not worrying too much about that since she won't be seen fully side on in the finished pic. But otherwise I think she's attractive. I might be missing something though since I've been staring at her for awhile .

 

I'm posting a quick, 1 pass rendering of her from the modeling window. If you could point out exactly what you find unattractive I'll take a look and see if I can fix it.

 

Thanks again.

 

PS: She's not based on anyone, haha.

 

EDIT: Might it have something to do with the way my rimlight gradient material is set on my character? Maybe thats distorting her features?

[Dhar]

Well Jeff, first of all, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. That's as far as personal preferences go. If she looks as you envisioned her, then you're on the right track.

 

When it comes to public/collective impressions of what the beauty standards are, then that's a different ballgame. You'll have to look at what's popular and compare it to your model.

 

Look at Tanassi's models (the jazz singer and Ms. Santa), or JTalbotski's redhead model. What are the differences? What makes their models more "feminine" than yours? Look at the cheek bones, the overall shape of the face, the proportion of the eyes, nose features etc..

 

Classic beauty proportions are the high cheek bones, big wide eyes, slender jaw, tiny nose (a little on the pointy side), ya know what I mean? There are plenty good looking models in the forum or in the Libraries to compare to.

 

Hope this shed some light on the subject.

[Frank Silas]

Lovin' it Zaryin!

What material are you using on her skin in the first image you posted?

Looks very cool. Love those boots too.

 

Frank Silas

[Zaryin]

Thanks for the comments

 

Dhar: Thanks. Yeah, I just can't seem to see what look "masculine" about her. I just don't see it anywhere in her. There alot of worman with stong jawlines that still look feminine. Hmm... I just can't see it, and that's what's bothering me. Well, we'll see where she goes over the life of the project. Maybe I'll see it later. I just wish I saw it now.

 

Thanks, Frank. I used a nearly white base (peach, but very light) then used the skin shader by Yves with a pinkish color. I then used a gradient material for the rim look. It's the same material in all the images. Just the lighting changes and the rim gradient wasn't in the first image.

 

Here is another render with the rim gradient toned down and the colors on the shirt flipped. I think it looks better this way. Thanks, oakchas .

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Great work so far Zaryin! Can't wait to see her in full armor on that beast!

 

I personally think she is a little 'plain' too, but that's me reflecting what the public wants in a beautiful woman.

 

I personally found a wonderful 'plain' woman with more heart and brains than most women... I mean she's nearly a geek.

 

Go figger

[itsjustme]

She looks very cool, Jeff! The only thing that is bothering me is the base of the neck...I'm not an anatomy expert, so I may be way off. I would make it more abrupt than it is at present...a less gradual transition from neck to torso by keeping it thinner until closer to the torso. Like I said, I could be completely wrong.

[Paul Forwood]

She looks great, Jeff!

 

I would agree with David about the neck. Perhaps make the trapezius muscles less steep and increase the girth of the neck where they meet.

 

You might want to try making a couple of adjustments on a copy of your model. Try dragging the eyes and nose down slightly so that the eyebrows and the tops of the ears are about level with one another. This will also reduce the space between nose and mouth so that the mouth might need tweaking down slightly. Then see if scaling the head down, very slightly, helps. Her head looks a little heavy for her neck at the moment.

 

Just suggestions of things you might want to try and not criticisms of your very nice model.

 

Looking forward to more.

[modernhorse]

Hi Jeff - I too think she is looking pretty darn cool. My opinion (for what it's worth to you) is that her forehead, esp from a front view seems very broad. Coupled with the high forehead that you've given her makes her look more masculine, to my eyes.

 

edit - upon a further look and thinking about it some more, maybe what i'm seeing is not enough definition on the forehead and temples. Maybe if there were a tad more detail there it might "feminize" her a bit.

 

I love the lighting tests you're doing, in particular the one Frank commented on. Very cool.

 

..doug

[luckbat]

What exactly makes you find her unattractive?

Here are some points to consider:

 

1. Her jaw has very masculine proportions. I don't think it's too wide, but I'd suggest making it a bit shorter.

 

2. A little too much space between her nose and lips. On men or women, a large nose-lip area makes them look ape-like.

 

3. Symmetrical hot-dog lips. An upper lip shouldn't be the same shape or size as a lower lip. Find some photos of women you find attractive, and study their lip shapes.

 

4. No eyelashes. This is more of a cultural thing, but anytime you have a character without eyelashes, they automatically look male.

[zandoriastudios]

Face is a little too long. I made some tweaks in Photoshop to illustrate what most people are seeing:

[Zaryin]

WOW, thanks everyone! Thankyou for taking the time for helping me with this. I am now going to take all this advice and fix the face.

 

I noticed that neck area the other day and wasn't sure about it, but now I'll smooth out that transition.

 

Thanks, Will. That visual really helped me see where I was going wrong. The advice of the others helped immensely, but the visual really brought it home. I don't know why I didn't see it now that I am looking at it.

 

I did have a ref I was using, but it had an open mouth. I think that's where I went wrong with the nose, mouth, chin area now that I see it.

 

Thanks again, everyone. You support on this is greatly appreciated.

[Dhar]

Nice work Will. You're a master of Photoshop as you are of pencil. What a talent!

[Zaryin]

Nice work Will. You're a master of Photoshop as you are of pencil. What a talent!

 

That ain't no lie .

 

Mike: I was going to add aybrow placards on the next version. Thanks for reminding though.

[Zaryin]

Since I got some commnets on my skin setting I thought I'd post some screen grabe of the materials. I am alos posting the model in my original chor. Nothing has changed with yet though.

 

Thanks,

[Temka]

Very good.

[KenH]

Now that I look, the muscles at the back of the neck (bottom) seem strange. Too large? Maybe Will would know as he's more experience with the female form....from sketching I hasten to add! Ahem.

[oakchas]

We have a BINGO, ladies and gentlemen... Hold your cards while we check the numbers... Yes! That's it folks! Mr. Sutton has gotten a BINGO...

 

Will, "You! You're good, you!" That's it, the face was too long... Wish I coulda done that!

 

And, what Ken said, i.e.: The triangle of muscles on top of the shoulders that are holding her neck up. Drop the slope of them a bit, try leaving the neck the same length or shortening it a bit.

 

Z, I'm sorry I couldn't figgur out what it was that was off... I could only give you my gut... and couldn't pinpoint it. especially in text

[JohnArtbox]

Great little lady...I quite liked the strong jaw...in the context of a female warior. Somehow the barbiedoll warrior doesn't really work for me.

 

Thanks for the skin settings, I've only started looking at the skin shader recently and a "good" setting makes an easy starting point.

[Zaryin]

Thanks alot for the comments once again.

 

John: You are quite welcome. If I can help anyone by posting that, that's great. You have done alot of help yourself. I even used your cloud blur trick for an image, so thankyou .

 

Ken and oakchas: Yeah, I noticed that neck thing myself. I commented that I would fix it in an earlier post. Thanks for mentioning it though. The more people that say it looks wierd the more I know I need to change it.

 

oakchas: Don't worry about it. I couldn't even see what was wrong with her until Will posted that pic. I was just concentrating so hard on the parts of her I liked I didn't pay attention to her overall proportion.

 

Temka: Thanks

[Zaryin]

Here she is with her face fixed. I also fixed the jawline to the ears, that was bothering me. And the neck to shoulders was smoothed out more.

 

I also changed the color of the hair since it was too close to the color I was using for the "leather" (plus I like it better ). And I darkened the color on the pants to give it a more "earthy" tone. I also added eyelash

placards.

 

I will also post a closeup render of the model from the modeling window.

 

Now to get a better hairstyle. I'm going to try Frank Silas' method. I haven't decide if I am going to go with hair or decals for the final version of the hair, so Frank's method will do for now.

 

Thanks again.

[MattWBradbury]

Great model! It looks like something I'd expect to see in TWO. Or is it a TWO model? Either way, you have some great spline man-ship.

 

You would have to use a lot of hair in order to get it looking natural. Texturing (for rendering time) is your best bet.

 

Is this character going to be more chartoonish, or are you going to make at jump for realistic (all you need is textures)? I never really was the great at reproduced faces correctly (Probably because I've only made one).

[Shelton]

Very nice model! Her face has really transformed!

 

Steve

[dborruso]

Wow, those improvements really make this model stand out. Great job modeling. It is great to see everyone helping to make each other better. I think this model is very attractive now.

[Zaryin]

Thanks for the comments again, guys.

 

Matt: I really don't know if I will be adding texture maps to her yet. I probably will. I'm still trying to decide if I am going to go for the cartoony real look, or a real look with a little cartoony .

 

Dennis: Yeah, I love this community. If you really need help, people are willing to.

 

Thanks again.

[Zaryin]

Here she is with added faux hair-do. I still don't know how I will do the final hair, but I'll leave that until much later.

 

Now to the hooded cloak.

 

Matt: Forgot to add that this is just for a personal project for me. The model was made for this project.

 

Thanks again.

[noah brewer]

Looking really good!

[oakchas]

Now, I might ask her out on a date... She has really improved! A candiate for SWAN!

 

Great job Z... keep it going!

[Paul Forwood]

Yes, GREAT improvements there, Jeff!

Maybe too sweet for a warrior now.

Maybe if you give her a bigger chin and ...

Just kidding! Nice work!

[KenH]

Why can't you have a pretty warrior? Just as you're admiring her pouting lips, she draws her sword and cuts your head off. A perfect combination if you ask me.

[Zaryin]

Thanks alot, guys. I mean it, thanks alot. Without you she wouldn't look nearly as good as she does now.

 

Noah: Thanks very much. Coming from a modeler like you that is a compliment.

[Zaryin]

OK, I got the basic shape of the hooded cape done, sans hood, but here is my problem. I love the forest green color of the cloak, but it now totally screws with the color of my pants. What color should I change my pants too? I was thinking just a darker shade of the green I'm using now, then trim the cloak with that darker color too?

 

Any opinions appreciated.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Easy way out for me would be to make the pants the lighter blue and let the cloak and hood offset all the blue.

 

She looks wonderful... you are really making progress on this!

[Paul Forwood]

Keep on rockin', Jeff. You're getting great results!

[oakchas]

yeah, darker grn pants "okay" try it.

or maybe no pants?

 

The green and the blue... I just don't think they're so good together... maybe it's cause they have the same tonal value... green and red compliment... but then she'd be a Christmas warrior...

 

Need a complimentary color wheel.. to be sure what "goes with" the blue..

[nixie]

Have you tried with 'no pants'? It would sexify her a bit, if thats what you were looking for, else id go with the light blue also. Very nice By the way looks great!

 

Nixie

[Zaryin]

Thanks alot everyone. I purposfully made her with pants, because without pants it was just pushing it, haha.

 

The color scheme I was going for with her was the shirt represented "sky" and the greens and browns of the boots, pants, and gloves would represent the "earth" since she is a griffon rider. I will post a darker green and a lighter blue and see what everyone thinks.

 

Thanks again.

[dre4mer]

Nice work Zaryin! I'm not sure why I hadn't seen this WIP you were working on yet. She's looking good!

 

Keep it up... can't wait to see her with some weapons!

 

-Ethan