Major Project - Hand and Gloves

My process of making the gloves. The hands where first sculpted in Zbrush to give me a base for the position of the gloves. Gloves where then sculpted over the top and retopo'd in Topogun. The whole process has taken over a week and still need to fix a hole in the index finger. I wanted to model all the details into the glove as to practice modelling, and I think the inside of the palm is not correct, but still happy with the result.

Below is Sol so far. The base mesh is nearly ready to take back into zbrush so I can start on all the details for my texture maps and get him ready to take in substance painter to make the maps that I need and paint him up.

Major Project - Hard Surface Retop Test

Trying to figure out how to retopo the helmet, I made a basic render to see how smooth I could get the geometry. It's not quite there yet, as need to make edges sharper in certain areas. But he is starting to look quite cool actually rendered in Maya and not Zbrush.

@ Alan - Shoulder Topology

Hi Alan, Do you think the shoulder and armpit topology will work like this, I'm trying to keep the sharp lines of the shoulder pads, but it makes a pole right in the middle of where the armpit will bend. 

Major Project - Final Snood Test

The last test I needed to do for Sols head, was to make sure I could skin the snood as a separate peice, so have the ability to take of if needed. The only thing I worry about is that the snood will not follow the blendshapes of the face when they are plugged in. But as this is all about learning, I'm excited to see if it works or if it does not, and then plan a alternate method if this way fails. 

Major Project - Model Template

I have worked out the major forms, though still not happy with the boots and bottom of trousers, so this is subject to change. But knowing how the head and helmet work together, I can get working on rigging the actual head.

Though this is a zbrush model, the topology is not high, I want to use this to test certain pivot points on the rig I intead to use. then can I start retopologising and texturing the model.

Major Project - FlexiPlane Rig

Used a tutorial on digital tutors to make a flexiPlane, so that I can have a bit more control in my characters limbs. I do remember a student using this last year and saying that if you do a scene cleanup it deletes nodes that are used and breaks the rig, so need to speak to Alan about this and what is needed. But really interesting to make and all works OK at the moment.

Major Project - Sculpting

Still got alot of bits to make, like gloves, helmet, chest plate and textures. But the base is starting to get somewhere, and not just a floating head.

Major Project - Eye Rig Test

Before I start on my actual model, I wanted to see how my geometry for the eyelids behaved, and if it needed to be altered. I chose to do this test now, as if I hooked up all the blendshapes for the rest of the face and then the eye did not work, it would of cost quite a bit of time.

I have only rigged one side, and not really smoothed the skinning to much, but it does seem to work and there is quite a bit of flexibilty to the rig, there are some extreme moves that a eye would not do, but just testing to see. Also the movement is quite floaty but for a test I'm OK with that. I will put all my workings up when I do the final model, but this was quite taxing to do and wanted to concentrate on making it work before I try to explain.