Refining the Sculpt
In my last devlog I talked briefly about how I wanted to work more on the feet of my sculpt because I had a new idea on how I was gonna do them. I modeled the foot in Maya and took it into Unreal. I like the look of it and I think it helps bring the sculpt together. I think it also looks cool connected to the mech part of the leg. I still need to figure out a way to clean up the edges around the ankles.
I ran into a problem when trying to make the bead wires. I froze the subdivisions of my sculpt because an inset mesh brush doesn't work on a mesh with multiple subdivision levels. I think when I unfroze the subdivisions it threw a fit and tried to map things on top of the beads, so I had to go back a few steps and remove the subdivisions on my mesh and then work with the beads.
The beads worked after that. One issue I can see in the future is that the beads will become poly-heavy and retopology on them in the future will probably end up being time-consuming. I think I'll probably want to look into a solution for that before retopology.
I also took some time this week to do some refining on the cloth and the face. I just wanted to make some aesthetic improvements on the face and clean up the cloth. I keep having issues with the cloth where every time I try to use dynamics, whether in cloth simulation or with a cloth brush, the cloth would immediately throw a fit and start clipping weird even with collision turned on. I don't have a picture of that, and a picture of the cloth so far can be seen earlier in this devlog in the photos with the mech leg and foot.
Modeling Props and Stand
I took some time this week to start modeling the additional pieces to this character, which include the model stand and the Nokia cell phone. I started with the model stand.
Because I knew I wanted this stand to appear more rock-like, I started in Maya. I blocked out some stuff with cubes because there will need to be some jutting rocks on where the character will prop her foot. After I got it where I wanted it, I migrated it to ZBrush.
It's still looking a little lumpy, but I'm enjoying the way it's looking right now. I eventually want it to have a Utah desert/canyon rock look. I also started making some indentations in the center because there will be a shallow hole where I will put some phones.
I started playing around with the edges. This still needs refining, but I think it's a good start.
I started modeling the cell phone! There were going to be more props added on but I decided that for the sake of time, I should just make the phone for now. I got started on it in Maya and I still need to add on the buttons but I think it had a good start.
Next Steps
I need to make a few finishing touches to the sculpt itself, including some more wrestling with the cloth, and work and refinement on the belt and jars. I also need to do more refining on the model stand and the prop. Things are moving along on schedule so I'm not particularly worried as of now. I do think I will need some help making my model stand look more like rock. I also think for rendering I want to try to do cell shading, which I saw a friend do. That means I will need to render in Unreal, but I was already planning on doing that anyway.