Okay, here is the concept drawing (my sketch) for the head of Desiderada, one of Xenallure's romanceable NPCs: What changes could we make to make the model look more like the concept art? (Aly informs me that we can't change the eyelid until we rig the head for animation, but we can change pretty much everything else.) [Edited by - sunandshadow on February 9, 2006 3:30:02 PM]

alright, to start I like the eyes.

Truthfully the modeler wont get anywhere near that model. You have to understand that it is the very, very rare person who can get anime-ish looking things into anything near resembling a head, its just hard.

Human facial anatomy is hard to do, mix into that that your drawing is misleading, something designed to look good from only one angle.

Anyways, here are my suggestions. First, use poygons more accurately, the ears are a little less than inset hexagons while the curvature between mouth, cheekbones and cheeks is an impressive exageration that eats those polies like...something really hungry I guess.

Drop the cheekbones both down and in. pull the corner of the eye towards the edge of the face, then drop that edge backwards. the nose needs another polygon towards the tip, to suggest a curvature that goes under, not simply something that drops down into the lip.

the girl needs less of a chin, both height wise and length wise.

Something is wrong with the back of her neck.

the eyes are WAY to high

the forehead is to short

the ears are to high

the chin goes to low

the lips are fairly thin

Here's a tip for your modeler: google 'beauty mask'. If its gonna be pretty in 3d, its gonna have the basic proportions of that minus the eye size.

all in all I would suggest redrawing the figure to a more human proportioned size.

tell your modeler good job.

-slowpid

Well, just do a side by side comparison. I mean, it's visually obvious that the model is quite different from your concept. I took a screenshot of your model and messed around with it; you can see the differences.



The upper half of the head & forehead desperately needed to be elongated.

The eyeballs were too large and there were no eyelids.

The chin was FAR too square! I rounded it out and shrunk it.

The jawline was also extremely manly and very rigid. I softened it and pinched it together.

You only had bottom lips, and they didn't look like the concept at all. All I did was shrink the lip, then copy and flip it upside down, and warp it a bit.

The eyebrows needed some heavy work. You're a woman - you know something about keeping those eyebrows trim! :)

The neck was too thick and resembled a tree trunk. You need to emphasize a thin gentle slope. I emphasized the cheekbones as well.

Furthermore, the facial deformities really stood out when viewing the model from a 3/4th angle.. I'd suggest working on that. You're going to need to do some major revamping of vertices, both on the proportions of the skull and of the facial features. While my little refurbished picture isn't perfect, you should import it into your modelling program and try and use it for some sort of proportional reference.

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Original post by slowpid alright, to start I like the eyes. Truthfully the modeler wont get anywhere near that model. You have to understand that it is the very, very rare person who can get anime-ish looking things into anything near resembling a head, its just hard. Human facial anatomy is hard to do, mix into that that your drawing is misleading, something designed to look good from only one angle. ... all in all I would suggest redrawing the figure to a more human proportioned size. tell your modeler good job. -slowpid

Well first of all, I did tell my modeler good job, I'm very happy with how the model is turning out, not to mention the model of the body she did previously. I just want to do one more round of tweaks on it to get it as pretty as possible. [smile]

I agree that it seems to be difficult to model anime heads, and that anime drawings are often inconsistent between views if the artist is not careful; I did provide Aly with sketches from different perspectives, not just this one, and I tried to envision them in a consistent 3D way. I think that part of the difficulty of modeling anime-style characters also comes from the fact that modelers are generally trained in a more realistic or western style. But, I have seen beautiful anime-style game character models, so I know it can be done and I definitely want our characters to be anime-style, rather than going for a more realistic style as you suggest.

Here's a beautiful example of an anime-style face model:


Note that his eyes are also high in his face, this is a trait of the anime style and thus not something which should be changed. But I agree with your criticism of the chin and lips.


Salsa - Thank you for taking the time to make an image edit, in particular I like the way the chin and lips turned out. I don't think the neck in this model is intended to be the actual neck, I think Aly was going to do the neck when she attached the head to the body. I'll have to look at that 3/4 perspective and see if I can see what you mean about how the problems stand out from that view.

actually clouds eyes are in the exact middle of his head; but I agree with you. Like I stated, its possible, just hard.

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Original post by slowpid actually clouds eyes are in the exact middle of his head; but I agree with you. Like I stated, its possible, just hard.

Hmm, I guess if you figure out where the top of his skull is the eyes are in the middle, lol. The ones in my concept sketch probably are too, but you can't see the skull through all the hair. This problem may sort itself out when we model Desiderada's hair.

The most glaring thing for me is how flat the face is. Perhaps a good top view would help. On a real head, the eye 'sockets' end quite far back on the face, and the nose comes out well far from the eyes (close one eye, you can see the bridge of your nose). Everything right now is flat, on the same plane, across the entire face.

Anime heads and figures are generally more simple and primitive in shape than real human heads. Instead of starting the model from a box, or an eye-extrude, perhaps shape an 8 sided and 8 segment high cylinder for the basic shape. From there, adjust vertices to get the top of the head, brow, mid-eyes, cheekline, tip of the nose, bottom of the nose, mouth, chin, etc. Then start splitting polys where needed, but since the basic shape of the head is very 'pinched oval' (and far more elongated than cloud's face), you should get a good shape. Or tell your modeller to buy an anime action figure and see how his head is handeled.

My suggestions for the base head shape were a sphere for the cranium, a rounded spade-shape for the cheeks, jaw and nose, and a cylinder for the neck. That's what I think of an anime head being made out of when I draw one.

Without meaning ANY offense, are you sure you asked for critiques?
I can hear the ricochet sounds how the critiques bounced away... ;)

Now, on the topic. I think the original drawing (though it has its flaws, but not extreme ones, for example the right eye, our right, seems to be more placed deeper into the skull and a bit too far from the middle) was better then how it turned into 3D. The 3D one needs some more work (as Salsa advised) to start to resemble the drawing. Its not a big problem to motivate the modeller, but actually it might be a good job, it wasn't until now.

One more thing, Anime/Manga anatomy only a bit differs from realistic (okay there are styles when it differs more, like chibi). Only half-heads are the difference and the facial features becomes more cartoony. To feel an anime drawing to be "right" you have to keep anatomy in mind. Just calling it manga does not justify
mistakes.

You can find pretty good tutorials on anime/manga at http://www.polykarbon.com where all the differences between western and manga anatomy are described.

I hope I wasn't too rude, keep up the good work.

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Original post by Peter Szabo Gabor Without meaning ANY offense, are you sure you asked for critiques? I can hear the ricochet sounds how the critiques bounced away... ;)

haha, I wanted to say it, but I just couldn't bring myself to part with the rating points.

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