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Athena Parthenos


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I got a quick gig modeling a statue of Athena. Yippee! The head and helmet is almost done, just have to add more hair and a few details.

Then on to the rest of the body.

I've spent three days on it so far. I'm going to try to finish this by next Sunday. Wish me luck.

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Wow, that's nice. How about a wireframe? The bridge of the nose may need some tweaking?

 

Thanks Eric. Here's a wireframe. For some reason, a lot of Classical Greek statues didn't have much of an indent at the bridge of the nose. Here are some faces I'm using for a general reference. But, because you pointed it out as looking odd, I'll try to add a little bit of an indent and see what the client says. Thanks for the feedback.

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For some reason, a lot of Classical Greek statues didn't have much of an indent at the bridge of the nose.

 

So far - Looks great!

 

Those noses are called Roman Noses (I know, I know - Greek statue - same thing) - they are very typical noses for people of mediterranean descent (my kinda people). I would leave it to look like the classical statue style.

 

No nose jobs back in those days...

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Thanks Eric. Here's a wireframe. For some reason, a lot of Classical Greek statues didn't have much of an indent at the bridge of the nose. Here are some faces I'm using for a general reference. But, because you pointed it out as looking odd, I'll try to add a little bit of an indent and see what the client says. Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

 

 

 

 

MOST classic Greek cultural artist didn't craft the nose nor eye detail closely.

For some reason they paid most attention to the facial structure and body features but never nose and eye.

 

Just some input,

Case

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Newbie question, Homelice. It appears that creatures on the head are separate models.

If they are:

 

1. How are they "attatched"?

2. Are they modeled separately and then imported in?

3. Do. . . Ah, that's enough for now

 

Thanks, Myron

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Good looking stuff, Holmes! What's it for?

Thanks Mr. Big Bootay! I think it is going to be used for illustrations in a book. I will definitely not be animating this one. When the details in the cloth start taking shape, you'll see why ;)

 

 

It appears that creatures on the head are separate models.

1. How are they "attatched"?

2. Are they modeled separately and then imported in?

Thanks, Myron

Hi Myron,

The creatures on the head are separate models. I am assembling everything in the chor. The creatures are constrained to "Translate To" and "Orient Like" Athena's head bone. All of them had to be boned and weighted so I could pose them "just-so" on the helmet.

 

 

Is the hair around the ears modeled? It's hard to tell from the wireframe.

The hair is semi-modeled, sort of like the wings on the horses. I modeled the outline and some basic contours, then I slapped a displacement map on it. I think the displacement map makes the wireframe disappear in a shaded-wireframe render.

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Day 4

 

I have to make some tweaks to the head area, but it's basically done.

Put together a quick body. The arms are a little large, but not by a whole bunch. I was amazed at how big boned those greek goddesses are when I really began to study them!

Made a rough pose for the body. I'll tighten the arm poses up when I get a little farther along.

Made a rough outline for the cloth. The cloth is going to get a lot more complicated, but I had to get the general shape of it first.

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The cloth looks fabulous - you crafty guy you

 

My only crit so far is that the model is looking too copy flip attachy in the head - a real statue (person) would have asymmetry - perhaps that will happen later when you are almost doneish - add some variations in the face, etc? Or perhaps your client wants it that way? The asymmmetry, imo, would take it up a notch.

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Day 6 - More cloth.

I got another gig animating on a low budget flic (when it rains, it pours) so I'm going nuts trying to juggle everything.

I have four more days to finish the cloth, add a spear, some sandals, a palm-sized Nike, an insane shield decorated on both side with painting and bas relief carvings, a large base showing the birth of Pandora in bas relief, a couple of stylized Medusa heads, a giant snake and various doo-dads. I don't know if I'm going to make it, but I'll give it my best shot.

 

The cloth looks fabulous - you crafty guy you

My only crit so far is that the model is looking too copy flip attachy in the head - a real statue (person) would have asymmetry.

 

Thanks Nancy. This statue of Athena was done in the Classical period. Although those Greeks had a maddening fascination with convoluted cloth and body postures during that period, pretty much everything else adhered to the principles of harmony, balance and symmetry. All the faces I've studied from the Classical period, other than a few centaurs and non-religious busts, were symmetrical and showed little,if any, emotion. In the Hellenistic period, a bit of emotion (aka asymmetry) starts to appear, but that was later. I'm definitely not a Greek art history expert though ...

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Thanks Nancy. This statue of Athena was done in the Classical period. Although those Greeks had a maddening fascination with convoluted cloth and body postures during that period, pretty much everything else adhered to the principles of harmony, balance and symmetry. All the faces I've studied from the Classical period, other than a few centaurs and non-religious busts, were symmetrical and showed little,if any, emotion. In the Hellenistic period, a bit of emotion (aka asymmetry) starts to appear, but that was later. I'm definitely not a Greek art history expert though ...

 

I am definitely not an expert in greek or roman statues and I wasn't implying that the statue should show emotion.

 

I was implying that asymmetry crops up unintentionally just due to the fact a statue is carved or sculpted by a human. Computers do perfection. Human sculptors using real media, no matter how proficient, will introduce "imperfection". Thats what distinguishes "one of a kind" art from looking like manufactured art. It's subtle - but makes a difference to me.

 

What you are doing is wonderful, and far surpasses anything that I've done, and most likely suits your client wonderfully...but to illustrate, I've posted an image of Apollo statue head (which to me shows no emotion)

 

Ignore the hair, shadings for now - but notice the differences in the features in the left and right sides - especially lip curves, eye slants, nostril openings/slant - they are probably unintentionally asymmetric.

 

If your goal is to go for realism (ie, looks like a real statue) - then just tweaking the face a tad (after you're done) to introduce imperfection - could give it that ever elusive added "believablity".

 

EDIT:

I got another gig animating on a low budget flic (when it rains, it pours)

 

Hey Congrats ! - do try to remember us in your prayers... ;)

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notice the differences in the features in the left and right sides - especially lip curves, eye slants, nostril openings/slant - they are probably unintentionally asymmetric.

 

OK, you convinced me. Thanks Nancy. I'll try to add a touch of asymmetry if I have any time left at the end.

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Day 7 - more cloth

I'm almost done with the cloth. Man that left leg was a challenge. Holy cow. ... but it's done now. Whew!

I have to add a doo-dad on the other side and make some adjustments here and there. Then I can move on to the Shield :)

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Well I didn't finish it by Sunday but I gave it a good effort. This is my 46th model that has some kind of crazy Greek cloth in it, and even though I underestimated the amount of time Athen's dress would take me (it's still not done), this is the fist model where I actually feel like I know what I'm doing. Everything I've encountered in this model so far are things I've encountered and solved before. On the 45th one I still felt like I was figuring it out to some extent. I've tried all kinds of different modeling techniques and combinations of bump, normal and displacement maps in the past to try and save a little time and work, but the results from simply modeling every fold are soooo much better than trying to fake the folds with displacement/bump maps, especially on something like this that will be the center of attention. The downside is that modeling every fold is SLOW and HARD when you are trying to at least come close to another source such as photos or a live model. I estimated 2-3 days on the dress and it will end up taking me 6 days (just for the Dress).

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I'm very impressed! Awesome job. Can you explain how you did the detailwork on the shield?

 

Thank You!

The outer shield was a displacement/Bump map. Modeling that would have taken me longer than the dress :o

Luckily, I had a rough sketch of the shield design to start with. (shield_design)

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Then I divided the design into areas depending on how much each area lifted off the surface.

I painted the base a neutral gray (128,128,128)

I painted each of the areas (castle, rocks, ladders, and figures) with a slightly different shade of gray, each on a different layer in Photoshop. (Shield1)

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Then for a little more detail, I extracted just the lines from the original drawing and cleaned them up a bit.

Then, on a separate layer in Photoshop, I filled certain areas with white, then selected all the lines (the lines were on a separate layer), and deleted all the white areas that were behind a line, so what looks like lines is actually just empty space. (Shield2)

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Then I blurred the layer so the white areas bled into the places where the lines should be.

Then I saved a displacement map of the blurred white layer and the layers painted with different shades of gray. (Shield3).

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Then I made just the layers with the lines visible,blurred them a little, and saved that as a Bump Map. (Shield4).

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The displacement map is applied at 400%. The bump map is applied at 100%.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's the final version. It took 14 days to complete. I might have been able to do it faster if I had worked on it full time, but 14 days for something like this is pretty good for me nonetheless. The dress alone took about 7 days. Whew!

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