Casting

[stereoman]

Hello everybody,
I´m a newbie with the forum, I´m currently working with the casting for a graphicnovel, and would be pleased to hear seasoned experts advise, I´m quite sure this is the place.
Of course, all characters have been done with MH, but not all heads, some have been sculpted.
Well, let´s start with Arakné, my view of the mythycal character
Since Marco requested some more info, I plan to add a small coment to each character.
The character is purely MH except for the spider arms and the boots, also, there´s a diamond in is head, even if the material needs a more serious work.The material applied to the head has just an opacity map I drew, just black lines over white background
Was the first character I modeled in MH, I had a good time creating the face, was stunned by the results and this encouraged me a lot.

[punkduck]

Welcome to the forum!

You start with a quite modern interpretation of the Greco-Roman mythology

I don't know if we have a lot of experts for this topic in our forum. It looks so weird, that I'm interested in the other characters

Only thing I would do is to add a subdivision surface for the hair ... but it is complicate to judge that because it could also be your intention not to take it (as a part of the composition)

[stereoman]

Hi Punkduck, many thanks for the welcome.
Well, this one is a special character because the story develops between two worlds, I think the others are more, "earthlings".
Youre right with the hair, as is it fits the style of the face, but depending on the composition will probably need some fine tuning, or even a new mesh.
Also there are other options, like this one´s hair.
I did most of these bodies with a previous release of MH, and must say it has improved a lot,but they stayed in stand-by for a while.
The main characters, however, are being done with the new release
Another MH model with some details added, I created this one to make some proofs with clothes , jewels and hair.
Notice that the leg is cut, I often delete parts of the body that are not visible, but a small move in the camera, shows the trick, this is done to reduce weight in the scene, so you can add more things to it.
It was also fun to create the hairdo.

[stereoman]

This character belongs to a culture living in a great bamboo forest, so their garment and clothes are made of it.
Now seriously, I have to find shortcuts for everything or I´ll never end the story, so, the same outfit, smoothed and with some changes in maps, can be used more than once.
The first episode has some 80 pages, and I did it with just a generic male mesh and some modeled heads, since the male mesh was scanned at the origin, it was a hell to deal with that amount of vertex, so I´m delighted with MH.
A good MH body with an added head, I wanted something stronger than the average MH head, I feel well with it, looks like natural.
The clothes are a standard wardrobe I modeled for them all, I did short and long pants, a skirt, , shirts and some overall, closed and open, and three kinds of boots, combining them I have all I need, I must say a lot of people in the story only wears a skirt and shoes.

[stereoman]

An underwater warrior.
This head, like the previous one was sculpted with Mudbox.
By the way, if there´s anyone interested, this is the link to the main character site, where you can take a look to the first episode as well as to the three previous short stories, http://www.sargodeatargatis.es

When I model always look for strong and neat characters, to be sure the better way is to look at the silohuette of the model, just a black spot over white background, I never saw such a profile, I took it from a pic of a carving, but had no idea how it would look in 3D and was impressed by the results.
The body is MH, but the head is a sculpt, then there are some added details

[stereoman]

This one was an attempt to give a body to a moai head, but seen the results it will most probably need a shorter and thicker one, I will try, maybe, but those characters are just extras and the time and effort must worth it.
As usual, the body is MH, but the head is a polygonal mesh I did some time ago , as I need a lot of extras coming from several countries, I must use almost anything I have just to fill empty spaces, fortunately, they fit the story because I work with the same main idea from a long time ago.

[punkduck]

These characters are really great. A lot of ideas, which I really admire. Especially the moai head ... *fantastic* ...

[stereoman]

Many thanks for the kind words, Punkduck, I feel flattered.
This insect man has a lot of friends, I hope they don´t meet in my story.
The first time I drew this character was in a comic a lot of years ago ,in a second try I painted it for an illustration, so, when 3D software become available, I was ready to do it again, but I did just the head because had not the skills to do a good body.
Now, with MH, this has become easy to do with the added fun of countless posibilities that were impossible without computers.

[stereoman]

You need a lot of characters to populate any story, and each one must have a believable background, that´s what I love about creating characters in 3D, they have its own kind of reality, often stronger than ours.
Another MH body with a polymesh head, this one has no story at all, I just picked a body and the head from my files, just because I saw it for a second in my mind, the result is good enough mainly because in the crowd, this head suggests something higher, I don´t know why.

[stereoman]

I finally did it , for your pleasure, and mine, of course.
Since the head was stored some time ago, I´ve done some research about the moai bodies and found some special features I was not aware, like the long and delicate fingers seen in some of them.
This gives the character an unexpected twist, and makes it more believable, because we often find these unexpected details in nature.
These hands are able to delicate and intricate work of art or science, these creatures were wise artists by nature, as their statues show, also, they were of a big size if we assume the statues are 1:1
Another MH body,there´s not too much work on it, the pose is MH standard, so I don´t have to rig the character to have an image.
Anyway, all characters are exported to obj. in order to create a scene with clothes, accesories, lighting, etc.
By now you all know the skirt the model wears, is the same for all of them, but must be fitted to each character.