3D Reflective Journal #3 - Continuing Face Model

 

3D Reflective Journal #2 (+ Feedback)

My starting point with modelling on Monday went like this (I connected the eyelid and lip shape together with faces, carefully ensuring that I was using the correct amount of faces shown in the Maya modelling guide / documentation for Joan of Arc):

From then I kept extending out the faces to form more of the cheek and the shapes around the eye.

Eventually I got to the stage where I could add the eye and make sure it fit in alright (still yet to shape the eye more like how a real eye should be shaped). I also mirrored the half-face, allowing me to see what my final result would look like a lot better. The rate of progress increased more and more from here - I have found that the more you have to build off (provided it's done well), the faster you can go. Starting with those original planes with no context around them and defining the base structures was both difficult and not particularly motivating/tangible in terms of progress.

Aesthetically speaking I am happy with the progress and feel it is working well. Cross referencing with the face of the character in the production bible, this should be a solid fit with slight proportion adjustments, and while progress is slow and painful at times (because accuracy is required), having the topology of the Joan of Arc documentation to follow along with is very helpful to assure me that I am not completely bungling everything.

Group status:

It seems that every group member's progress is slower than anticipated, which makes sense as all of us are either relatively new to Maya or 3D in general, and this is a decent undertaking. Gabriella has just about finished the legs/lower half of the body, Max says he is unwell but has apparently been making progress on the vehicle (but I have yet to see/confirm anything visually), and Mila says she is currently learning the basics of Maya/up-skilling, which is fair enough (and which I'm not too concerned about considering that the task she has been assigned is smaller).

Feedback

I got both help and also feedback/advice on my progress this week, which I worked to address.

I had several potential mesh issues pointed out by the workshop TA's - such as poles in unwanted spots causing shading and deformation issues, and also the one area where an N-gon happened to be. The advice that I received was that 1 or 2 triangles tends to be unavoidable and it's fine - better to have triangles than N-gons in general. There is some showcase of me working to remove badly placed poles in the screenshot below.

Another thing I had help with was successfully mirroring the half-face, as I got the mirror axis wrong and also temporarily forgot the default scale value is 1.0 and not 0.0 (duh), meaning that my duplicated mesh was just disappearing completely. 

In terms of artistic feedback, I was advised to ensure the cheeks contoured enough that they looked realistic, and just to ensure the face wasn't too dimensionally flat in general.