Senior Thesis II: Masks and Blocking

Probably the biggest accomplishment in the past week or so has been the modeling of Treville's masks. Smoothed, they look almost exactly the way I had drawn them in the concept art. I may bring them into Mudbox for some minor tweaks such as furrowing of brows and wrinkling of foreheads.

The overall blocking of the model is all but complete, with attention paid in particular to the frills in Treville's coat. Also, detailing of the head has progressed. I have created illusion detail (parts that are not connected to geometry but simply hover in place) which is easier than creating complex geometry and edge loops.

Senior Thesis II: Modeling Tweaks and Critique

Overall I've been fleshing out Treville's model to get him ready for texturing. Some minor tweaks, such as creating more detail in his feet and head have been the focus lately, along with creating his spikey frills. I'm also paying attention to the basic modeling of his masks, which I will then take into Mudbox to sculpt.The critique on Wednesday was very helpful in learning some of the aspects of the design I should be pushing. Shaun suggested that I increase the size of the masks to make them more recognizable, as well as suggesting I develop blend shapes for them, which is a very good idea. I also picked up some tips from Joel on a few ways to create Treville's massive feather, since Joel is working with a bird-like design in his project. For his method he combined hair cards and a small piece of geometry to create a feather, which looked very convincing, but he also suggested that I utilized Fur in order to create the desired volume for my feather.

Senior Thesis II: Treville

 

 For the beginning of the second half ofSenior Thesis, I've decided to shift my focus to my Persona character, Treville. I've been working in Sketchbook creating better poses and elaborating on his overall structure, which will help with the remaining modeling process. The three mask in particular need to be well polished, as they represent different personalities. Treville will rely heavily on texture mapping for his clothing, so I've been working with his color palette and researching textures. I also recently found a very good example of an industry standard character model online, in the form of Gabriel Belmont from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Seeing how the character is constructed, from the idea of many separate pieces of geometry to the mapping of textures, blew my research wide open. This inspires me to be less apprehensive about splitting my models up into pieces. These concepts will definitely transfer into my current and future modeling procedures.