Vegeta from DBZ
 

This is/was the first real Mesh I ever started (apart from the tutorial stuff) I have 3 WIPS going, the Apache tutorial a housing complex and Vegeta (the one I care about). Yes, if anyones noticed I have another user here because I lost my cookies and couldnt access this site or my E-Mail account....- MangaManiac will be deleted.

That out of the way, I'd really appreciate a few prods in the right direction. Heres the front and Back. :headbang:


:headbang: Theres always some problem with me.... now my Prt Sc key isnt working... (does this occasionally if I'm copy/pasting alot - but emptying clipboard doesnt fix it only a restart) So will post this and THEN come back and post wires.

Front of face.

I also posted some wires in the topology thread as thats a big problem for me atm. I said there, and now here - That he's all one mesh. I am about to extract his hair, boots, gloves, and body armor. Which is why so far I've left the topology around his hair so ugly. But should I model his scalp to have the hair sit on or leave it open?

Worried If the vertices of the two meshes dont match up I'll risk having gaps appear between the meshes when I animate the hair (while he powers up) or deform the face in blend shapes (not that I'll be doing any changes that close to the hairline..)

the body looks too squashed vertically.

with hair like his you could probably have it as a separate mesh to the body. just make sure it goes into his head rather than just sitting on his head so that you wont get and gaps

Thx all for your feedback, Strangely if I'd drawn him myself I probaly would have made his torso longer relative to the rest of him - I mean where does he put all that food?. But my refs came from the model sheets by Toriyama himself. Not saying I shouldnt modify it to get it to work in a 3D context just that those are his proportions - as given to the artists who animated him in 2d.

Astro Boy and Gokus hair do not work in 3D, you cant model them to always stick out the way they do from every angle they do in 2D. (Watched a special Feature on the AstroBoy DVD on how they did it, but still a ways beyond me) So I hope leaving him as is doesn't bite me in the bum, but I also like this models proportions as its going to be doing alot of fight choreography - I think the longer limbs will work for what I have planned (WOOT animation the ONE step in this process I was actually trained in)

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My Vegeta mesh is not perfect, but I'm stopping the modelling process now. I'm hoping what i've learned in the countles hours working on him, that my next char will not need so much cleaning up at the end - now that I know a little more about topography... heres hoping.

Next steps Texturing, Rigging (at my current rate of growth I should have that done by next christmas) ANIMATING, lighting rendering ... I already have a rough psd color map, you obviously shouldnt rig before you fininsh modelling but is there any downside to mixing up the steps from here on in?

2 more questions then I'll shut up for a month or two I promise--- (well I'll try) I went back to an earlier save file of Vegeta with no Blend Shapes for his facial controls. Is there any way to import these to my current project (I'm thinking NOT as his face geometry has changed a little) Is making them templates and doing them from scratch the only way?

What I learnt to animate in college with, had a lower poly count than even my base proxy mesh for Vegeta has, I was going to rig my smooth mesh. I see on DVD features all the previs work is done on simpler models, is the way its meant to be done to rig and animate the base mesh instead? And then later inherit the animation into a final model with hair and fur (not that Vegeta has fur and his Hair is going to stay modelled) - but is that the way its done?l