Sorry about the sound issues and my nerves, if i do any more hopefully they will be better quality over time.  

Hi all,

                I created this hair using Mayas Xgen.  The eyelashes, eyebrows and short hair sections I will use for the low poly later.  But the long hair on the top of the head I will delete later and recreate using hair cards.  Which will also be textured to look even better.

                After the hair creation i import to zbrush, polygroup it into around 4 rough sections per hair subtool.  This I will later colour as shown below to be varying base colours, which will allow the use of varying hair strand colour and rough values on the low polygon. 

                I was aiming for a quite stark, worn, soldier look, who has seen many things and is tired of war.  Hopefully that aspect of the character im managing to convey even though I feel it could benefit from a small pass at retexturing later in substance when low poly.

                For now, here is the head in the base.  Note I feel the long top hair cards will need to be removable to allow for the helmet, but it isn’t that much of an issue and also allows the character to walk around helmet free if needed.

                Thank you, I hope so far you are learning a little of my process for AAA game characters. 

Hi,

                Todays blog goes a little more technical into the process of head creation. 

                To begin I extract the head shape from the body blockout, and, choosing suitable reference, a combination of thin faced muscley men and worn torn soldiers, I firstly created a base ref to create from that I can set up on the floor planes, then sculpted the forms, until I was happy. 

                After I copied the mesh at lowest sub, uved, and used that as the base to place some texture xyz textures and displacements.  Below is a link to a full tutorial explaining the process.

texture xyz zwrap tutorial

                The texture edit software i used was substance painter, therefore allowing cloning of the base color, then the displacment and utility maps with the same setttings by dropping in the map to the base channel.  

Interesting to note, i made a morph of the face for the texture projection with mouth closed and eyes closed, which i opened again after.  I will in the end close the mouth after retopo, or high poly posing, but it simplifies the bake process.

I then polypainted the rest of the face and used pour alphas and micromaps (bought from texture xyz) to create and edit out the hair texture and add the neck details.  Added slight variations of color to the eyes and sculpting in more finer details.

                I did a similar process for the eyes, again using texture xyz maps, but extracting the pupil area as a mask then texture, that I used in photoshop to place the maps, which I imported back into zbrush for displacement and conversion to polypaint.

                These renders I created in keyshot. 

The next step is hair, as you can see hes very bald, even his eyelashes.  For this step I will use xgen and again will either give breakdowns of the process or show where I learnt the process myself, as above. 

Hi,

                I did a few hours on my Roman tonight, adding simple blockout geo to the model to highlight the general shape and form. 

                I was slightly concerned I had created him too bulky, however I felt it led to the idea of a powerful Roman.  Perhaps this is questionable if its historically accurate, im unsure, but it certainly lends to the aesthetic I wanted. 

                Most parts were created by duplicating the main mesh, clay tubes an area out to give it the same form as I wanted, then masking, polygroups, and deleting the unneeded areas and then some zremesh.  Later I can sculpt into these forms more and push the detail until im happy.

                At this stage it could be tested by the whole team, concept artists, art directors and even in game to make sure it works in situ, and could even be sent to rigging to begin testing the various elements.

                I think the next stage I would like to work on is to create the face for the model and begin adding more life to the project!  For that stage I will endeavour to add a breakdown and short tutorial of the facial sculpt and construction.    

HI,

                I got a few more hours done today, only about 2 but it was enough to finalise the base mesh to a stage im happy to begin blocking out the rest of the structure to the character.

                I could detail the whole body, but at this stage there is no point when most will be covered by clothing.  Therefore to save time have opted to block out to a stage the shapes are pretty much defined, then begin building the main shapes.  This way I can ascertain if the model works, the silhouette is decent enough, and the forms themselves play against each other aesthetically. 

                Later, when refining the body after the main forms have been decided upon, I will detail up each area needed, and build upon the form.  But only in areas that will be exposed in the final character.

                For the next few days I am doing a reinstall of my pc, so won’t be posting any new updates for a few days.   

Thank you, i hope you are enjoying this series of breakdowns in the series of the creation of a AAA roman soldier.  

Today I spent about 4 hours on the sculpt.  I could have started with a old base mesh but I wanted to start from scratch to show the full process.

I used reference from 3D.SK as well as a two anatomy figures from 3D Total of the male figure which I bought from the Kickstarter when they were first published.  I have a solid understanding of anatomy, however  I refer to the anatomy figures or reference to help create my own base.  In the end reference will help create more realistic work.

Here below you can see i began initially with a 3d.sk model in zbrush in the back and side view, and drew a zsphere skeleton, which I converted to polys to shape more, divided, and sculpted away more until I felt the general proportions were working.

I have used this method many times in studios when they need a fast output of characters, producing with Zspheres anything required in the concept and can test the scale and proportions before creating the smaller details.  it also allows the concept artists and Leads to check the work throughout to be sure you can nail the concept quickly.  

I feel there is still some areas of improvement, and I want to reduce the cavitys in areas when adding the smaller details, but for tonight im happy with the progress. 

I want to try something new, that I feel could be beneficial for other artists interested in character creation for games.  So from tonight I’m aiming to create a Roman character, and will blog about the process, showing breakdowns at stages throughout.  It might be a long process I also work full time.  But will devote my spare time to it and detail the creative process so others may learn some techniques in character creation.  At some point through the next few months also I hope to begin a youtube channel with short tutorials on the creative process, to again help, with bitesize tips that will help the reader/viewer also grow as artists as well as myself through this journey. 

So to begin - 

Last night I spent about 3 hours researching what I was after in my character, using google image search and Artstation.  I have been quite inspired by Ryse, as well as other unique roman soldier characters found on Artstation, and the uniforms typically shown on image searches.    

I use PURE REF, for my reference hunt.  I can happily copy and paste images into it, organise them, and zoom in and out into the various images.

Initially I was imagining a roman riding a chariot however I also want to really go a little wild with the detail, which would be lost if you never get to see the character up close.  So cut down my vision to a soldier again.  Which this morning I went back to, and selected the images that pleased me the most, that I could be inspired for in the creation process. 

That's it for today, more over the next few days....