Modeling Steps
Modeling
When I start the modeling phase, first I carry out a general analysis of the illustration, to identify which element of the picture presents the easiest starting point. In this case I choose to start with the boy; his pose is more static, and there’s less of a time investment in adapting and modifying this.
I always start characters the same way: in ZBrush, I start from a sphere and then I continue creating a general form. When I have a simple blocking of the proportions and the anatomy, I keep adding details to the face, and then to the body. I constantly check the upper left window in the ZBrush UI, which shows the negative version of the model, the alpha. That’s a quick way of keeping an eye on the silhouette of the sculpt, allowing me to compare it with the original illustration. When the sculpt is done, and detailed, I start placing subtools, to give me an idea of the project’s final aspect.
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Once I’ve finished this stage in ZBrush, I transfer all the models into Maya, where I start working on the topology and UVs, making sure the model is correctly laid out across multiple UV tiles (UDIMs). During this step I also model the rest of the props that give form to the scene, like the boy’s hat or the tailor’s glasses.
Then, with these changes made in Maya, I bring everything back to ZBrush and project this onto the previous ZBrush version of the model; this has the effect of adding in all the necessary details.
Clothing and Substance in Marvelous Designer Plugin
Now it’s time to start clothing our characters. Before I start creating clothes in Marvelous Designer, I carry out an exhaustive search for the patterns in various image search engines. Finding exact patterns is quite complicated, because they’re really scarce, and because they tend to vary a lot depending on the age or physiognomy of the character. For instance, children typically have shorter arms and legs than adults, so the patterns on their clothes tend to be correspondingly smaller. It’s tricky to find the exact pattern you need.
Once I’ve chosen the most neutral and most appropriate pattern for the characters, I upload it into Marvelous Designer as an avatar, and then draw on top of these patterns over the avatar in the 2D windows. It’s frequently necessary to have to adapt these patterns to the avatar shape of the body, and it almost always happens when the character has cartoon proportions.