Making a 3D anime model.... (critique - NSF56K)

halkun

I'm working on an anime model, and a recently re-did the head and shoulders. It would seem that I was following western modeling philosophies and screwing up the "Anime-ness" of my model. I was corrected very recently by some Japanese modelers who gave me some great tips on making Anime in 3D.

Old Head


New Head




The problem is the new head doesn't look proportional to the body anymore. It just looks odd and I can't quite pick out where the problem is.



Her head seems small, but it's exactly the same size as the one before it. You think I need to poof the hair out a little bit? Is the head matching the proportions of the body right? I think the boobs might be too big... I don't know.

The head is just a rough draft. I'll be cleaning it up/Quading the polygons when I have the basic shape right.

Pointers?

Doctor Pain

it probably doesn't matter now, but use a better reference picture next time.

117Lei

Anime chicks typically have larger heads in comparison to their bodies, I think. I'm not exactly an expert or anything. Also, the head looks like that of a young chick, but the body looks like it goes on someone older.

Belruel

its a little bit to small. also since you don't have subsurfacing on it it looks really out of place because the rest of the model is subsurfaced.

tweek her body a bit, it now doesn't match the head to well in my opinion. anime heads of stat style normally go with very fragile young looking girls, her body type is to mature (in my opinion)

TM2 Rampage

The hair on the sides of her head looks too thin, I think.

Wilhelm_III

Why do people who use blender always do anime stuff? Anyway it looks to me like those smoothing groups are out of whack... On the jacket in particular. Mind posting a mesh? It would be easier to tell what's going on that way.

And as for the head and the anime-"ness" as you put it, I'm not sure. It seems like rather too much work to get the model to look like anime (or any cartoon type for that matter) characters then it's worth to me. But, I mean, really it's just like any other art. Get some reference, compare that to the model you have, and see if you can spot what's wrong yourself. Generally you learn things better if you figure it out yourself. If you still have trouble I'll see if I can get some more in-depth pointers. Not like I'm any great 3d modeling guru anyway but I'll help if I can.

Mayday

Wilhelm_III wrote: »

Why do people who use blender always do anime stuff?

hey

halkun

Wilhelm_III wrote: »

Why do people who use blender always do anime stuff?

Because Anime fans spend all their money on cartoons and don't have any cash for Max or Maya.

Those programs are incredibly expensive. Does Autodesk turn a blind eye to people using pirated versions of their products. I see so many apparent 12 year olds trying to use it on the CG forums. I use blender cause it's cheap and I get the most bang for the buck.

Belruel

blender is free, so yea, most bang for the buck.

Synthetic Orange

The head's too small and the body proportions are off. Lower the waist or shorten the legs and arms and scale up the head.

lilchingch0ng

try to avoid triangles or anything that doesnt have 4 sides when your modeling. It creates a "poling" effect, which basically makes it look like the shadows aren't hitting it right. It should help alot with the rough looking areas.

Bomb edit: you should know better

Creambun 007

Or you can buy it.

Mayday

Cut it out guys. For everything sans a full-scale CG animation, Blender is just right.

Raslin

lilchingch0ng wrote: »

try to avoid triangles or anything that doesnt have 4 sides when your modeling. It creates a "poling" effect, which basically makes it look like the shadows aren't hitting it right. It should help alot with the rough looking areas.

Bomb edit: you should know better

I don't quite agree with this, Quads are all good and well, but tri's are there for a reason :P

NakedElf

Her body/head proportions look approximately like what I'd expect for a 40-50 year old housewife in an anime.

So if that's what you're going for, the only problem is that her facial features are too young. For starters, you'll want smaller eyes.

peterdevore

She has a ridiculously small pointed nose. I know it comes with certain forms of the style but right now it looks like she is michael jackson, lacking a nose bridge.
If you're going to animate the mouth and/or eyes, you might want to think about the modeling rules that come with the animation method you're going to use. But that might be a bit early, being a draft and all.
Also, when browsing for side-views & close ups to compare, I found this (HUUUGE 3D close up), which might be interesting.

lilchingch0ng

Raslin wrote: »

lilchingch0ng wrote: »

try to avoid triangles or anything that doesnt have 4 sides when your modeling. It creates a "poling" effect, which basically makes it look like the shadows aren't hitting it right. It should help alot with the rough looking areas.

Bomb edit: you should know better

I don't quite agree with this, Quads are all good and well, but tri's are there for a reason :P

the number of sides doesnt matter, its all about the positioning of your vertices and edges, however, for beginners, its far easier to focus on quads.