Eyeshapes

                               Introduction

I've been getting into character design and paper drawing lately and I have always had a fascination with eyes and eye shapes. Eye shapes are easy ways to distinguish one character from another. You can also tell who is a protagonist and the antagonist from simple eye shapes, Such as if an eye is more slanted and upwards most likely they would be a villain character. So, when I was making my model I wanted to make sure my character has the eye shape I wanted to capture for their personality and character traits. 

Inspiration

My inspiration for this whole idea is mostly anime. I especially like the show "Lucky Star" display their eyes. Kagami Yoshimizu, the creator of the anime, You can tell the character's personality traits and mood easily just by their eye shape in his art. I can also understand that the breakdown of the character's eyes is just simple circles or triangular-like shapes to make a character look or distant or friendly. 

Brainstorming

As  I was working on my character and thinking of her design. I asked a few fellow friends how I should make her and what kind of personality does the fairy tale I base her off would fit. At first, I wanted more of a slender eye, mature, and feminine kind of look. anime eyes. Then the majority of my friends told me that due to my personality and the story a more rounded eye and bigger eyes would help, but having a heavier eyeliner could help the structure I wanted. 

Experimental

So as I worked to make the eye, I realized I was going for a bigger eye shape it made my process so much easier. Vertexes were easier to see and placements than if it was smaller. I am very much satisfied with me using Hu Tao's face and eyes as a template since her personality radiates fun and friendly which is just what I wanted for my character.

Process

Reflection

Overall this reflection for the week really help me understand what goes into character design and how characters are made. I learned a bit from this week's investigation of how eye shapes work.

Work Log:

Monday: 11/15/21 I made the neck of the character today

Tuesday: 11/16/21 Fixing lines to make it look better.

Wednesday: 11/17/21 Started the inside of the mouth and finished fixing the vertexes.

Thursday: 11/18/21 Finished mouth and started eye iris.

Friday: 11/19/21 Polished the character's face and started the eyeliner and eyelashes.

topography

                               Introduction

Topography of the face is a concept I had to grasp this week. What exactly is this? Well, when making character models you have to understand how the face flows, and how the face might bend. This is especially important when animating a character or you could possibly see edges and faces go into each other in a weird way. I had to understand the idea that major parts of the face that moves in animation (mouths and eyes) have to have flowed around the mouth. Also, the face is a separate part of the head. 

Inspiration

There wasn't necessarily a single artist I like for topography. I have watched a few videos and looked on google for topography maps to see how the face flows. The first video result on google for me was Daniel Kreuter and his 11-minute video really helped me understand what exactly was topography. He also was the one to explain how the faces work in relation to real-life faces such as how wrinkles look or when someone smirks how their face and lips fold.

Brainstorming

I'll be honest. I was just flowing along in my tutorial brainlessly, but as I work and make edge loops I start to understand it a bit more. And how exactly the flow is around the eyes. I also started to understand the tips on how it's all polygon with 3-5 sides shapes, and how quads would be the best which lucky most of my polygons are.

Experimental

My experiment was making the flow, my quads are there my topography is there. But it's just not as clean as everyone else's. My polygon is 4 sides, but they are NOT squares more like trapezoids. I tried to make them more pleasing and even, but for some reason, I feel as if I would mess it up more and more if I move it. 

Process

The lines are not as smooth as I want them to be. It looks straight but very rocky. I had little to no 3 or 5 sides only 4 sided polygons!!

Reflection

Honestly, I feel like I learned a lot from this week's investigation since I kind of had no prior knowledge. I understand how it works and I honestly believe if I make another character I could possibly make it work out a tutorial and understand how the face works.

Work Log:

Monday: 11/8/21 I started to understand how the face works and followed Shonzo's tutorial. I worked 2x as faster as before. 

Tuesday: 11/9/21 Finished the eye part and understand how making faces work.

Wednesday: 11/10/21 One by one selected vertexes to make faces for my face. I know there was probably a faster way, but I DID NOT want to risk redoing the face again for like the 4th time.

Thursday: 11/11/21 Finished selecting vertexes finished the face YAYY. 

Friday:  11/12/21 Started the neck working slow, but I want to make this as perfect as possible.

Heads Week 11/7/2021

                               Introduction

Modeling heads for characters may be the death of me. I practically spent the whole week trying to figure out how to shape ahead with vertexes instead of sculpting. Although I might have to use sculpting later in the future, hopefully keeping it to a minimum, but overall I just wanted to make a character face using vertex.

Inspiration

Any 3D Vtuber artist can work as my inspiration, they are amazing at understanding polygons and how every vertex lines up with another. I am going to use Shonzo as my main inspiration since I am following his time lapse on how he makes his models. He would start with the chin then work towards the mouth and nose, then he would full make the mouth and start one the easy, and if I blink he would be done with the whole body. He makes it seem so easy and quick.

Brainstorming

As I watch Shonzo I try to think of ways that can help me remember what I can do too instead of just copying him. I want to understand the face structure for the model such as how the eyes are parted, where the chin vertex is, how the nose is super pointy and it looks like a fairy's face structure. I want my final face to be as perfect as I can think of which is like Hu Tao from Genshin Impact, but I want the side view to look like any standard anime character with no defining features for lips. 

Experimental

Watching Shonzo work his magic I tried my hardest to follow along. I would struggle to do some simple lips, I have never been more confused in my life than redoing the lips at least 3 times this week, I watched at least 5 different videos from Shonzo all of them varies from the different time he worked on a character, some can be from the summer of 2021 while some were from last year. I tried to find ones that would tell me what keys he clicked to do what he does in the video, but sometimes I would still get confused. Even setting it at 0.25x speed he still went super fast.  **Update at 11/7/21 I found a tutorial by Shonzo for the head and I'm going to embed it here**

Process

*Insert photo here on Monday* I worked on my face, I like the head shape so far, and I finally figured out how to extrude the eyes outward, which was a sigh of relief this week. I'm still trying to figure out the mouth situation, hopefully, by early next week, I am satisfied with the mouth. 

Reflection

This week was somewhat stressful and confusing, but I know it's only the beginning, as much as I wish that someone did a full tutorial, step-by-step on how to make a face with vertex without sculpting my life would be easier, but for now, I am grateful that Shonzo even had the function of telling us what keys he is clicking, so I would know what to do even if I was confused.

Work Log:

Monday: 11/01/21 Finally started the front of the face yay!

Tuesday: Made the mouth, unsure if I liked it.

Wednesday: Did not like the mouth redid it. Started a new time-lapse from Shonzo that could possibly be easier. I also made the eyes today yay!

Thursday: Redid the mouth again to the way Shonzo did it in his recent video, it was just as confusing as the one before, but I think it worked better. Made the nose bridge from the eyes to the middle of the face.

Friday: NO SCHOOL