Final Results

Well with the Winter quarter over, I have the final results of my classes.  At least, that is, I have final projects.  In all honesty I don't have as many this year as previous years, but I will be posting a little more in the near future from my Action Analysis class.  It was all drawing, and a really great and fun class, but I have to get together from images first before I am willing to show them.
The biggest project I did was actually the scenes I did in Autodesk Maya 2012, which I posted earlier.  However, I do have something else to show from that class which got me an even higher grade, and an A for the class (YAY!).  That would be a character modeled in Maya using "edgelooping" to follow the flow of the muscles of the character to allow for better animation and rigging.

Originally my design was a lot more... conservative than this... and it was boring as a result (boring as in my teacher said it looked like a men's room sign and required I change it).  So with some help from teachers and colleagues, I *ahem* enhanced it.  This was supposed to be a modernization of Annie Oakley... and I did quite a bit of research on her.  In the end, she should have an another layer of clothes at least.  That and I didn't model a gun.  So for now... screenshots of "Annie".

Oh... and if you are averse to nudity... 1) grow up... 2) avert your eyes.  But really... no details or anything, but the clothes are removable (which means I should be able to make better clothes later) but some of these might be NSFW.  Also, all of these are using the smooth preview so they are not renders, just screenshots.

Overview Front Shot

Upper Torso Shot

Face with Edgeloops turned on

Face without Edgloops

Upper torso Dynamic Angle Shot

Closeup of buckles around boots

Closeup of medals on coat

Closeup of gloved hand

Closeup of ear

Money Shot :P

Back with Edgeloops (without coat)

Back without Edgeloops (without coat)

Front with Edgloops (without coat)

Front comparison to character design sketch

Side comparison to character design sketch

So I made her body first, then duplicated the faces of her body to make the jacket in pieces and merged them together.  I actually used a cloth dynamic in Maya to let the coat and skirt rest on her body better, but the coat is so tight it didn't move much.  The gloves and boots are part of her body and don't come off.  Her hair was made one "strand" at a time, with about 2 dozen modeled individually.  The hat was modeled separately, as well as the buckles around her boots and the epaulettes and the medals. She was a LOT of fun to build, and I am working on fixing up her modeling a little, especially in her coat.  Maybe I'll add an undershirt option as well.  Her face isn't perfect either, so I will go back and tweak it some more till I have a better shape.  But all said and done, I made this model in about a week, and it is my first character model ever!  Pretty impressive for a first I think.

I will post more pictures later with better lighting and so forth, but I am having an issue where the coat is under "stress" (apparently a few vertices are poking through unnoticed...) which results in a funky artifact where the clothes are full of "banding"...  Check it out...

So I'll be fixing that at some point and posting more images later.  I'm pretty happy with it.  And yes... I've noticed she has a large chest.  Everyone keeps reminding me.

So next time I'll post some more on my Action Analysis class, as well as a review of Arriety.  I also got a request from someone to compare GMU and SCAD, so I will be writing up a comparison, although I think it will end up being more about the differences between my experience, a typical public college, and a specialty school like SCAD.

Aloha!