My little pilot

So. The good news is that I've finished most of the character (even more than I thought I would). The bad news is, obviously, the "most" bit. The poor little fella doesn't have his hands retopologized, he's lost his gloves, and he is destined to be stuck forever in this one pose (i. e. no rigging happened). I also skipped half of the goggles tutorial and finished it on my own (read: they look like crap). But, on a more cheerful note, it's finished! Not finished-finished, but good-enough-to-call-finished-since-I-have-run-out-of-time-and-frankly-I-have-no-other-choice-than-to-call-it-finished. *huf* *huf*

Perhaps the most challenging part—one that drove me nearly to tears—was... hair. I know, it sounds silly. It is such a minuscule part of the character, I hear you say, how could it possibly have such an effect on you? Now stop over-reacting, and— Well, it was hard, OK? The method introduced in the tutorial was to create a convex plane (or half a tube, if you like) and pair it with a curve that affects the plane's shape when edited. It sounds weird, but stay with me, it gets better.

Now imagine that you have to take these two objects (separate objects, mind you) and position them in a place of a single strand of hair. You have to match the location and rotation of the head and make sure it doesn't intersect anything. Then you have to enter into edit mode of the curve (which means that you have to find it first, so you either go to Wireframe mode, or you desperately search for it in the Outliner). Ha! You've got it. Now you edit the curve and the plane starts looking like hair strand. But you want it shorter. So you go into object mode of the plane and scale it. Hmm, but the rotation doesn't really work, it should face this way instead. OK, select both objects... now where is that goddamn curve again... Ahh, here it is. So, rotate it like this... Oh no, now it's intersecting the head and it's too narrow in this section. Back to the edit mode of the curve—

There are 28 strands of hair in the scene.

No monitors were harmed in the process, but it was close. Very close.

Anyway, I had much better time working on the character after this ordeal was finished. I somehow covered part of modelling, all of texturing, AND presentation in one afternoon. I wonder what I do in the rest of the week. Given how little planning went into texturing, I have to say I'm quite happy with it. I even made a mask for the pants, so that I could mix two materials. It didn't look right without the patches highlighted. And I had a go at painting a face. It would have been a lot easier if I got the main colour right on my first try. Re-painting it manually when I already had eyebrows and mouth in place was not much fun. How much easier it could have been if Blender had layers. Two clicks and the colour would have been changed. But nooo, I had to go and create Mr. Patchface. *sigh*

Well, that's one thing to look forward to when / if I get Substance Painter. (Yeah, yeah, I still haven't got it. But I've been busy, alright?) This character would be an ideal test subject for my Substance playtime, but as I know myself, I'll probably focus on some other prey. Still, it would be nice to have a direct comparison. OK, I'll think about it.

Next week, as I'm sure I've mentioned here more times than needed or welcomed, I'm going to jump right into the character modelling class on CG Cookie. Wish me luck! (If I don't post anything next Sunday, there is a good chance I've encountered some more hair.)

Ohhh! I almost forgot! I was quite proud of the retopology work I did on the head so I made a render just for you. Isn't it cute? So... square... Must... resist....