WIP cowboy

[Pericolos0]

I wanted to learn me some character modelling so i decided to make this cowboy i drew. It's my first ever try at character modelling... still very WIP ofcourse, at about 1400 triangles now. I'm gonna try to make it fit in the requirements of this: http://www.cgchat.com/forum/showthread. ... adid=24171 and might even submit it if it turns out good

front view:

back view:

head:

hand:

concept:

I'll probably draw out a better concept when i start skinning it

[st0lve]

Awesome

I need to model more characters, or atleast try some of my own concepts and such

Can't wait to see it skinned

[Minos]

Looks good bram!

[Evert]

really nice~~!

[Grinwhrl]

Model is looking good...........prince hehehe

[Pericolos0]

i started working on this one again... gonna try making it into a nice model with a more modern polycount

ive been working on the face now, and would love some feedback on it ... am i on the right path with my edge looping etc

[I3yG-MaK]

Nice one, keep going ... i dont like the eyes

[Steppenwolf]

Nice cowboy. I'm sure some people will critizise the flow of the edge rows tho.

I learn character modeling myself currently and find that the hardest part yet. I end like you with a lot of triangles instead of quads.

[Gaz]

Sure edge loops helps, but some times its just a waste of polygons and time Imo.

Good face mesh though Peri perhaps give the eyes more definition, I think thats whats bothering I3yG-MaK, looks like lids, but theres no roundness to them.

[Acumen]

i think the biggest problem is your overall usage of polygons. its like you have many polygons on a rather small area of the face and other areas have very few. like on the forehead and the area above the upper lip its many many rows of polygons but they all don't really add anything to the overall silhouette of the face. or on the nose the tiny division in the middle doesn't add anythign as well.

i think most of the things can be heavily improved by just movin the vertices a bit further apart, so it's not dense in some areas but in others very flat. it needs to be more balanced, mainly the eye socket, forehead and upper lip area. another thing. on the forehead you have like 5-6 rows of vertices but on the right outer side theres only 1 edge connecting to them which ends up in like a 10-sided polygon (hope you know what i mean)

i think the eye socked area was pretty much done on this first wip:

http://insurgencymod.net/team/upload/Us ... y_head.jpg

there would be no need to put in thaat many polygons as you did in the latest wip. it gives you a mixture of a really good low poly body with a head that has too many polygons in comparison. you can save quite some polygons in there, so to speak. but its really hard to explain things like that only in words

hope you could understand at least some of the things i tried to explain.

i know you want to make something with a modern polycount but i think that is not the best approach right now. i would finish the good low poly version and then not until you're happy with the result, start to work on the more higher polygon version. what you tend to do when you don't have too much experience with modeling organic stuff is putting the polygons in the "wrong" places, just like i tried to explain above :/

it's much easier to add detail to a model when the base is done, clean and nice to look at

anyways, hope that helped a tiny little bit

[Pericolos0]

Thanks loads for the comments everyone , they are really helpful. I guess the main problem with this model is that i started it out as an older style lowpoly model, and tried converting it to more detailed edge loops later, ending up in a weird mix. I'm going to redo quite abit now.

I'm going to go for a rather highpoly version with proper edge loops, because i'm making it for the source engine, and a buddy of mine wants to try facial animations on it.

The forehead is abit weird i admit, i wanted to try out some more definition in there but yeah it's not really worth the polies...

The eyes are made like this because of the hl2 eye shader, they are modelled very similar to this in the hl2 models so i went from there. I think it'll work out even though i need to redo some parts around the eyes.

Again, thanks for the comments , i'm learning alot from this. I'll post an update asap

[Steppenwolf]

Sure edge loops helps, but some times its just a waste of polygons and time Imo.

I have read just yesterday a thread about that in a character designers forums and everybody agreed that modeling in edge loops is very important. Has to do with animation afaik (texture stretching?? im no expert). Also lighting and smoothing is afaik better on edge looped characters.

[Gaz]

It has its advantages, but sometimes it appears to be a waste of polygons, as long as it has a good silhouette, and animates well its a good model.

Alot of the time, ELs are viewed as essential, I just don't think that they are always necessary. Higher poly characters need them I admit, especally in the face.

To me poly counts are getting thrown around more and more and people don't really care about them, sure next gen consoles can throw more polys around on screen, but they all have their limits.

[Acumen]

i don't really understand the problem there ^^

to me edgeloops or edgeflow is just essential for any organic model. it doesnt matter whether it is hipoly or lowpoly. to me it just means that i can pick an edge and i can follow it around the arm, or face, or whatever bodypart and it just feels organic/alive/natural - like following the muscle structures. in lowpoly models you can always get away with some tris here and there and it still has that natural and flowing feel. to me, it's not necessarily a "oh you better only use quads" thing.

in the end that's what makes a model outstanding, and making it look alive and real instead of dead and stiff or however you may call it. this is what makes good modelers only be good in comparison to excellent modelers. this certain feeling what is natural and whatnot, how to describe shapes. like for the eyes and mouth area it just looks weird, when you don't have that edgeflow going on. it's what gives a model character. it's the difference between modeling a pistol/crate and a creature (of any kind)

i don't know, that's just my thoughts - sry been carried away ;D

guess we don't have to discuss these things in here. For me I always save model renders with nice edgeflow in my refpic-folder to study these things and help me with making better organic models - just incase i should make another character model in the future

[Pericolos0]

update:

cleaned it up more, added back of the head + neck and smoothinggroups