Final Outcome

Here is the final outcome of the character, rendered in a variety of poses.

The rig works well to provide flexibility in the mouth, eyes and neck area and uses bones to control the eyes and nose as well as blendshapes to deform certain areas such as the eyes and mouth.  In the final rig, this allows for such detail as the rolling of the lip, which wasn't implemented in this character as the cartoon style lends itself to simplicity.  There are some flaws around corners and joints but the polycount on the character was relatively low compared to the test example used.  Smoothing solves many of these issues but it may be more prudent, in future, to look at the concentration of vertices in crucial areas

It's eyes move well enough, but the lack of controllable eyelids limits the extent of the facial expressions that can be achieved.  Again, although colour was not necessary to create this model, it would have been a nice feature to see.

Final Design and Model Sheets

I have narrowed down the final design of the character.  I think it successfully captures the likeness of my friend and manages to look quite stylish at the same time.  I will begin modelling as soon as possible and aim to have the rig working as quickly as possible.  I attempted to do an expression sheet to use as reference when creating the final poses for render.  Most of these are successful, but it will depend on the complexity and the ease with which I can use the rig to create these expressions.

Rig Practice

I have been working through this rig example from Digital Tutors again to re-familiarise myself with the process.  The rig involved here includes a mixture of bones and blendshapes to achieve a flexible rig and is the vital hole in my knowledge which will be necessary to complete the task.  It may prove ultimately more complicated than is necessary, as simple feature manipulation would be enough to achieve some facial expressions, which is the ultimate aim of the project.  It would be nice to have it as a tool of reference when designing characters or even beginning to rig them for animation.

As you can see below it is a very useful rig, so I will develop my character based on this and not worry too much about creating a unique tailor-made rig, as this is ultimately not what the project is about.

Sculpts

I did some 3D Sculpt sketches to see how it would be possible to create this character in 3D.  I find one of the hardest things to be transferring a 2D design into 3D whilst maintaining the style and integrity of the drawing, so this will help inform the modelling process rather well and was a useful exercise.

Character development - Boy

I like this one for the oversized head. It's based in part on the drawing I did of my friend Alan, who often wears these large hats and has very distinct features.

As a character, he'd be either like an energetic kid with cute, round geometric features or with relaxed, droopy features he could come across as a young punk/skater teen.

I feel the style with the slightly more realistic facial shape will offer more in the way of interesting shapes when it comes to creating facial expressions, perhaps even incorporating the ears as a feature in themselves.
I tried to use colour in a bit of a more interesting way to do away with the flatness before and even develop a bit of a style.  It still looks a little flat but the cartoony nature lends itself well enough to this as a feature.
I think this will definitely be the one I take further to completion.

Character Development - Others

Initially I liked the look of this character's hair and face, but it turned out a little dull.  This was one of my first attempts though so I it's not too much of a loss.  Perhaps a different approach where I would spend time developing the silhouette first, or even an overall character; the head on its own is pretty limited in conveying much of the details about the character.  Here I made an attempt at using colour which, unfortunately, just turned out a little bit lame and flat looking overall.

I liked this as a development of a previous character I designed once in a story about Limbo.  His features are very simple and would probably be quite easy to rig up for some easy facial expressions once I have investigated the rigging process.  The benefit to this design is the simplicity as it would be capable of a wide range of stylised expressions.

Character Development - Rabbit

The rabbit was one of my favourite silhouettes. The top ones feel very much like they would suit a children's story or cartoon.
I like the bottom one for the way the ears are a part of the character. I think how oversized they are would really make its shape quite distinct and recognisable silhouetted.  It would be excellent to do but my lack of experience with rigging in Maya will probably make it difficult as it is radically different from a basic human face. It would be a lot of work to rig up the ears as part of it.

Real people

I did some drawings of real people to get some practice. I felt this would be useful for gaining an understanding of muscle structure and how faces deform when engaged in different emotions.

I spent a lot of time on this one, it is drawn from a photo and I've managed to be quite detailed in some areas. It took a lot of time to create however, probably about 3 or 4 hours, and I would like to be able to capture expressions and overall detail a bit faster, without becoming too precious about detail.

This one was a lot looser. I limited myself to two hours maximum here so as to negate my habit of being too precious.  The marks are perhaps a little too vague and loose, I definitely need to build my confidence in working in this way, so perhaps some of the necessary detail is lost, but it still successfully captures the expression of the subject.

This one is a composite image created from a collection of two or three images of the subject.  This may have taken a bit longer but the point here was to try and capture the likeness of a person without copying any direct expression and the shading was composited as well. Ultimately, this was successful but I would comment on how the face is held in quite a neutral pose.  I think this shows a good understanding of facial construction when the character is generally expressionless, but it would have been a lot more difficult to produce expressions using this method and keep the resemblance of the person. Some more study is required.

I was able to produce this one in about an hour and a half and was back to using photo references. I spent most of the time focusing on the highlights and shadows and you can see how clear these areas are.

By the time I finished this one, I was down to about an hour overall for the process. I felt I was getting a lot more comfortable working in this method, and it definitely seems like it is a good mix between the photorealism and loose texture, and I am becoming more comfortable with making marks and it almost feels like a bit of a personalised style is beginning to emerge somewhere in the process.

Silhouettes

I need to make a character, but I'm unsure where to start.
When I don't know where to start I scribble! So here are some scribbles that I have pulled some random shapes from.

It's perhaps not the most reliable method for getting ideas but it certainly can yield some different body/head shapes for development.

Real Expressions

Obviously these character sheets are all well and good, but it will be useful to look at real expressions.
The internet is a wonderful thing, and plenty of people have taken some excellent photo references!

Expression References

Further to the reference sheets in the last post I have been looking for a few more examples!





http://skimation.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/hu-doy-facial-expressions.html






The only problem with a lot of these kind is that they are a little flat, being face on.  I prefer the one's that show a bit more personality, which is what I am really wanting to develop in this project.
Any characters that I have done in the past are pretty lifeless so to make them believable and inject a bit more character and life into them will really improve my overall designs.