We put our new method idea to the test, and we're happy to say it works very well! It is really hard to get the bodies to look right, but after hours of work, the results are worth it ✨
We made a list of characters that will appear in the story, and from that list, we began by making the least important ones.
We started by modeling Lee's mother, Malenha, an important character who will likely never appear in the illustrations because she's dead at the time of The Wilderness.
After preparing her body and face, we used the new height maps we made and applied them to her. We are very pleased with how it looks.
We did her skin and took a test render, and we rejoiced because the new method did increase the quality a lot. Compared with Gray or the others, these new characters are in a different league 💪
After Malenha, we did three more background characters in this order: Giles, Aspen, and Alder.
With every model, we modified the textures, the shaders, the techniques, and added extra details, which improved the quality even more from character to character.
GILES
ASPEN
ALDER
Making these characters by following our new method takes only a few days per model, and we got carried away thinking about the possibilities it can bring.
With every finished character, we slightly improve, so the more models we do for practice, the better the main characters will look.
We evaluated the character list and considered increasing the number of background characters to 15. That should give us plenty of room to refine the method even further.
We will leave Malenha, Giles, Aspen, and Alder unfinished for now, and we will repeat them after we're done with the 15 extra background characters.
