Mousey

[Epoch]

Hello

Been such a LONG time since I've had time to work in 3d and post here..but here I go again. I've put a hold on my bunny character (snowball, dont know if you remember her) and began this new character for a small client.

Instead of my normal 2D work I've been asked to create a nice little mascot for a logo in 3d for possible animated introduction and stills. This is my progression so far after about 2 -3 hours work. I'd love to hear some critiques in terms of my spline placement or anything else...

The character is to be a stylized mouse, slightly cartoonish, and realistic blend. I plan on adding fur to him later.

Thanks

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Excellent start Epoch! now it just needs those tiny feet!

[Paul Forwood]

Nice start!

 

One thing that I would keep in mind with characters like this is, 'Will he always walk upright'? If this character will move between human poses and natural mouse poses you may need to rethink the hind legs and proportions of the body to better fit the mouse poses. If he/she will only use upright, human poses then it is probably alright to proceed with the current spline arrangement.

 

I look forward to seeing the results.

[Epoch]

MMZ_TimeLord: Thanks - I plan to tackle those today along with his hands. I'll show some of my concepts a little later but I can tell you this: he will also have a vest, bow tie and some specticals along with an old time photo camera.

 

Paul Forwood: Thanks for the suggestion. I had planned for him to walk upright but it will be nice to be able to place him in typical mouse positions as well. Re-thinking my splines I also think I need to shrink down his legs a little to match my concept. Thanks again

 

Two questions - in terms of spline usage, do I currently have too many patches? I ran into trouble with my bunny character -Snowball- with her having so many patches that some places seemd not as smooth, or is there a trick to smoothing out besides manually adjusting or using the magnet tool for adjustments?

[luckbat]

Two questions - in terms of spline usage, do I currently have too many patches?

From the looks of it, you've got a reasonable patch count, though you could probably go higher, especially if you want to reduce the size of those 5-pointers. The trick is in figuring out where you need the geometry and where you don't. At the moment, the placement of your splines seems somewhat arbitrary. You've got some bunched up around the chest and hips, despite not really needing any extra detail in there.

 

Try to smooth out some of your spline paths by paying attention to "spine flow." For example, the ring around his belly is quite crooked, even though I imagine you probably want that area to be fairly rounded, not lumpy.

 

In the long run, you'll probably want to train yourself to smooth your splines manually, but in the meantime, you may be interested in Steffen Gross' Smooth plugin.

[Epoch]

The trick is in figuring out where you need the geometry and where you don't. At the moment, the placement of your splines seems somewhat arbitrary. You've got some bunched up around the chest and hips, despite not really needing any extra detail in there.

 

I understand and will try to improve that

The reason I had bunched them up is because I needed 5 point patches when attaching the leg but couldnt place two fives together... So my thinking was that I needed to add a little extra geometry there so that I could have a 4 between the 5

I'll have to rethink this approach now. It is quite different creating these stylized cartoons than a human...oddly enough it seems tougher

I'll try to reduce here and there and follow the flow of deformation so that they will be more useful splines. Thanks for the advice

[Epoch]

Hello again,

Here is the latest update on the mouse character.

I still have tweaks here and there to do... smoothing some areas and decreasing/increasing splines

I also need to do the interior of the mouth, then I'll move to his clothes and model his camera.

Thanks

[Dark_Jedi]

oo those are sweet do they dance