Low-poly head (Will Ferrell)

[peirix]

For which Engine - Coin3D
Current Polycount - 1116
Max Polycount - not sure yet. but hopefully not a total over 10k
Texture Size - not applied yet
Description of background information on piece - A friend at work is using the 3D engine they created, called coin3d, to create a small game. It's called Cowbell Hero. I think you all know where this is going. Anyway, he asked me if I could make a Will Ferrell as Gene Frenkle 3D-model for him. Initially I said no, but figured it might be fun to try to make a human model. It's my first attempt at a human head. And I thought if the head went well, then I'd go for the rest of the model.

And I'm not sure if I should try to make it look like him, as that seems like a very difficult task, I will probably aim at a more cartoonish style, maybe more towards the style they're using in Clone Wars... Any thoughts?

Where are you looking to receive criticism - Basically I need pointers at what makes the head look awkward. Where to look for special details and such. And also if anyone knows a good tutorial for creating low-poly hair, that'd be appreciated.
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[Pencilninja]

The proportions are a way off, particularly in the side view and the perspective view. Can I see the reference you used to model Will Ferrel? Your geometry flow is on the right track, but still off. Here I recommend using this tutorial for defining edge flow on the head, I still use this tut as a reference to this day.
Joan of Arc

I would do a sketch before I tried going off and characterizing his head or he may not be recognizable.

hope that helps.

[peirix]

Thanks, pencilninja. I've been getting more reference pictures to get the head proportions right. And it's starting to look a bit better. I've also started on the rest of the body. The body was modelled off of a drawing I did, since I didn't find any good images of Will Ferrell..

I used a backdrop of the vitruvian man to get the body proportions right as well.

Please let me know what you guys think. And any good suggestions will be appreciated.

I will hopefully start texturing soon...

[Craig Lewis]

I think you'd really benefit from using some reference images. The proportions of the body are all off.

you don't need to find reference images actually of will ferrel for the body. Just use some generic front and side view modelling reference images.

[peirix]

Yeah, as I mentioned I used the vitruvian man as a backdrop. I think it looks off as well, but I haven't really studied anatomy, so I just thought: "well, I guess that's how it's supposed to be, then". But I'll try to find something more "similar" to Will Ferrel's figure and re-model for that.

Thanks for the comment.

[Tiros]

I think you've confused his hips with the stomach

Anyway, don't go for the vitruvian man.. Sure, he were a great artist, and the one who developed techniques and systems to draw the human body, aswell as studied it a lot... but it will only help you to the extent of your own understanding of it.

As here, in your model, you didn't think about how the body were actually built up, with the hip-bones poking out at the sides, you just saw a buldge in the wall, am I right?

Try to think a bit more of the actual structure of the skeleton and muscles while modeling a character, it'll help you a lot. And no, you don't need to know exactly every muscle, its name and all the parts of the skeleton, just having a basic understanding of it, ie.. something like these:

First, don't be confused by it, it's a simple stickman, with a slightly more developed head, ribcage etc.



Then add a little bit of volume to it, and some basic understanding of what the body looks like, what do we get?



It's a man



Don't get me wrong here though, don't start doing stickmen in 3d. What I mean is basicly, that the ribcage, hipbones and so on play quite a vital role in this matter. So try to think a bit about what's actually going on inside of the model, rather than just following the outline of your ref pic

Hope this helps, Cheers!

[peirix]

Thanks for a great post, Tiros.

I've looked up some better reference images, and followed them to the extent they can be followed (as my character is a bit chubby).

I think it's starting to look a bit better, as the joints are in their correct place.

I know the legs look a bit skinny, but Will's legs are rather skinny. I'm basing this as much as I can from this: YouTube - more cowbell at 2:29 there is a good image of him as I want the character to look like.

[Dekard]

needs more cowbell!