HazylDreams - The quest for Game Characters and other assorted scribbles!

[hazel.k.webster]

Hi hi Cubebrush community!
After a brief hiatus and some significant practice from when I'd done some commission work as a teenager, I'm now looking to move from being more of a hobbyist and generalist to focusing my future on my passion for 3D Characters in games. I hope to learn a little more every day and gain all kinds of new skills along the way!

Any and all constructive tips, tricks and critiques are very welcome!

A few brief details about me -

• Entirely self taught starting from my early teens in Blender and other freeware

• After a hiatus and some time taken to brush up on drawing and other skills, I will be building my portfolio and social media presence from the ground up

• I have taken some small commission work over the past 13 years but I'm hoping to some day break into the industry proper

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Some contact info/places I may be found at include -
- Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/hazel.webster.12382
- Twitter
https://twitter.com/HazylDreams
- Email
hazel.k.webster@gmail.com

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With that out of the way, I'll begin with my first full character asset project -

Finding myself inspired by Blizzard and the sci-fi style of Marc Brunet, I felt drawn to create something in that area, I quickly scribbled some ideas down and landed on a future-medic who acts as a form of guardian to the denizens of the greenwood bio-domes that she calls home.

I gather together some reference and begin my journey!

References -

Lots of scribbling and a day later I have a concept illustration I feel comfortable in taking forward!

When I'm fully happy with her I intend to give her a fluffy companion to nurse back to health, but for now one thing at a time.

I have since spent a little time creating a suitable highpoly basemesh for the project that I can carry forward for the full space-suit outfit and hopefully if my foundations and fundamentals are good enough, get even more use out of in the coming years -

This is where I am at right now, tomorrow I will begin sculpting the rest of her outfit and planning out the best way to approach a clean retopology of the asset along with any more tidy up and additions the design needs to pop.

Thank you all for joining me and once again, feedback is very welcome. I hope you have a good day! ^_^

-Hazel

[malcom]

I can't really do a paint over at the moment but I would suggest to keep working on the basemesh anatomy. Looking at the 3/4 view the forearm seems wonky.

the brachioradialis muscle is whats bother me. Besides the arm, I think you can still work on the face some more to get it closer to concept. Keep up the good work. You have something really cool here and I look forward to seeing more. Lastly welcome to CB

[hazel.k.webster]

Thanks for the critique, I've made more progress than I was expecting on the outfit but I will take the time aside right now to re-study arm anatomy and try to correct the problem.

• Current progress from the time I've spent tonight
  

Having had it pointed out I certainly think there are some troubles in that area, the forearm itself is probably too narrow from front to back by comparison to it's width and also remains roughly the same thickness along it's length rather than tapering in toward the wrist.

As for the face I will take time to experiment and see how close to the concept I can get. I think the eyes/eyebrows could use some work along with the face maybe being made a little wider and softer.

Thanks again for the critique, I'm always happy to learn the things I'm blind to!

[malcom]

Nice work on the clothing here. Looking good so far. Look forward to seeing some of the changes you make later on.

[hazel.k.webster]

After some technical difficulties, a fresh install of Windows plus some time to reconsider details in the concept and study the weaker areas of the basemesh anatomy, I've arrived at a High Poly sculpt I'm comfortable bringing forward to retopology and texturing -

I'll give it the night over to see with fresh eyes and hopefully a little feedback for any changes required before continuing on with the project.

[malcom]

I think it looks really good. Nice and clean

[hazel.k.webster]

Hi once again everyone! It's been a little while!

I'm happy to report that I have finished my first game character project and I'm just giving myself the evening to think over any finishing touches before I post across my social media channels.

I've had a bunch of fun with this project and learned a whole lot along the way that I plan to carry forward into my future work.

As always any critique and suggestions would be super awesome and I thank you all for taking the time for me!

[echoriel]

Damnnn, this is awesome!
I can't critique much on it as I'm not quite familiar with 3d
but as a 2D artist, I'd like to complement you on your colour choices and I love the overall design

[hazel.k.webster]

Awww thanks! I really appreciate the kind words.

The colours took me a little while to land on and I feel that's one of the areas I really learned a lot with on this project so I'm really glad to know they came out okay!

[malcom]

This is awesome. Really nice finish in the end. The topology looks great as well. Nothing much to add. You did an really good job on this. I look forward to your future characters.

[hazel.k.webster]

Hey Malcom!
I'm glad you enjoy the end product, I'm really thankful for your advice earlier.

The topology came out okay in the end though I think that's one area I can really improve on for next time. My next project should make that a focus.

More to come!

[hazel.k.webster]

Okay! It's been a little while, I've been super busy and I'm back with several projects in the works but for today I'll just focus on one. Let's go!

First of all, I came across an incredible concept drawing by Den Rodichev (artstation.com/ixtian) redesigning Tanya Degurechaff from Youjo Senki and It wouldn't leave my mind

Here is that piece

I had to reach out and request if I could do it in 3D and as soon as I got the green light I started gathering together a whole page of references for the character, lots of fun ahead and some new and interesting challenges I hadn't considered -

Very quickly I settle upon what I anticipate to be the biggest difficulty with this project: trying to get a good likeness of both the redesigned concept which is an older-looking take on the character... and the highly stylized, soft and round little-ball-of-hate original as seen in the show. I want to stick to the concept design as closely as possible while still trying to capture enough of her childlike nature that she remains recognizeably Tanya

I set about blocking out a first pass for her proportions and landmarks, once they're all in place and have been refined properly I'll start working through the smaller details

Right now I'm pretty happy with the progress the blockout is making, all the edges are still very rough but the more problems I solve early on the easier the process of refinement will be.

My next big concern is if I can capture her evil grin...

Thanks for checking in, I'll probably post progress from other projects soon so I hope to have a lot more to bring to you guys!

[malcom]

Good to see you on here again. Hope your staying safe and healthy. I love this character. The grin will definitely be the hard part.

[kanoxes]

I love your sketch of the greenwood medic! its soo good!

[hazel.k.webster]

Thanks for the kind words, It's been a rough ride for us all lately and I hope you're all taking good care of yourselves too.

So I figured I'd share a smaller project that's a little closer to completion, I love Chibi characters but I've always found the more abstracted style to be particularly tricky to translate into 3D so I occasionally return to this problem to see if I can expand my understanding of how to manage shapes and superdeformed characters.

A long while ago I did a cute little sketch of a space explorer type character imagining that they could be used in a stylized sci-fi adventure game. I left the sketch to gather dust but revisted it recently and decided it'd be fun to see how I could bring it to life!

I also occasionally start scribbling out little vignettes that may be in the same world, I'd really love to find time to expand on these more even after this project is done -

So with that, I started blocking out the character asset as a highpoly while refining the design along the way -

A lot of the other design iterations were done on paper in my sketchpad, I may upload those in later updates, once the base was done I moved onto hair, additional features and started my retopo!

And now I'm blocking out some props and accessories to go with before I get to baking, texturing and presentation...

Lots to do, but I'm feeling good about the proportions and shape flow I ended up with. I'm allowing this design to evolve a little overtime and opening up aspects to being customizeable, different hair, different heads etc. I may tweak it to rely a little more on hair-cards to add some finer detail to the final design.

I'm pretty excited with all the projects I have going and I look forward to keeping you all updated as they progress!

[cedricgo]

That's pretty cool! These sketches are very nice and the sculpting seems to be going well. I look forward to see more progress.

[hazel.k.webster]

Okay! so while I go through the process of baking my lil chibi character and ironing out Tanya some more, I decided to expand on the world in my head, starting from the Greenwood Medic...

I decided that I'd look at that model and see what flaws I felt were the most important to address in an apples-apples comparison, designing a new character with a fresh new backstory that I can have as a re-occuring fallback for whenever I draw, and to work as a centerpiece for a world to spawn out from. First of all, I really liked the distinctive Deer Antler silhouette so I'd keep onto that idea and make it more of a thing.

So then, flaws to improve upon with the original Medic -
- Eyes are spread too far, having now had time to look at it fresh the face needs a lot of work
- Design is fun but ultimately a little scattered and unfocused
- No distinctive personality of her own, doesn't tell much of a story
- Presentation is super bland, I can improve this aspect a whole lot

So, I got to drawing...

A much more focused design, Moeki here is one of a series service androids built as human interfaces, work assistants and botanical/medical maintinence. She loves plants but lost the knowledge for how to care for them after being repaired in a small hidden colony in a quiet forest world... An outdated, lower-tech model that escaped decomissioning, she relies on wireless power transmittion to her antlers, limiting the distances she can travel on her own.

I have plans for how to work the story into her design and presentation, but first and foremost I need to block out a sculpt that captures the proportions and basic intent of the character well enough, so here's the start!

I think she's coming okay so far, I've also taken to testing my work in VR, as you can see in the tweet below

Hazel K W (HazylDreams)

Lots more to do, so thanks for checking in everyone!

[malcom]

Looking good so far. Excited to see where this goes in the future.

[hazel.k.webster]

Quick update!

So much more to do!

[maddy_paddy]

Gorgeous work! Awesome to see some more 3d art on this forum!