skinning help

[jesseE]

I've been using a drawing pad for a while to just do mainly black and white sketches and wanted to start getting into being a texture artist the only problem is I'm having a ton of trouble making stuff look right :/ Most tutorials I've seen haven't really helped me out much at all and was wondering if you guys could recommend me any. I would like to get started off by making simple warcraft like cartoonish textures and not the realistic kind of textures. Any tips or help would be great.

 

[Hawkwing]

Starting cartoony is good, but try not to get too used to cartoony styles. You'll have troubles branching outwards later.

 

[Mr.Goblin]

sadly i will only upload my tutorial after christmass holydays

 

[rober artua]

practice makes perfect

I've been using a drawing pad for a while to just do mainly black and white sketches and wanted to start getting into being a texture artist the only problem is I'm having a ton of trouble making stuff look right :/ Most tutorials I've seen haven't really helped me out much at all and was wondering if you guys could recommend me any. I would like to get started off by making simple warcraft like cartoonish textures and not the realistic kind of textures. Any tips or help would be great.

Well actually u need more drawing skillz for making wc style textures than realistic ones. Why?

Well, when u have realistic model u can simply bake all details into ur unwrapping as lightning map. Then u take various photos and cut/paste some parts + some hand drawing to make it all blended nicely.In contras, WC models are too low poly so there is no point in baking shadow and light because ur mesh doesn't have any details. So u need to draw and paint all the stuff manually. It looks cartoonish but it has all real proportions, very exaggerated though.

All in all, conclusion is same for both. U need to be good at drawing Yes! Because in order to make good realistic high poly model u need to know anatomy of the thing u are making, be it human or table. U need to understand how things are represented in 3D space.

If I were u, I would study WC textures by looking at them and trying to draw/paint close to it. Yes it sounds like copying but that is how u will understand textures. I am not talking about paint over though. Just load texture of footman in photosop and try to paint near it as close as possible. Then look some anatomy references to understand why eyes are there where they should be and why there is one nose only on the human face. If all this sounds too hard then u can do as many others here. Just edit already done models by other artist and have fun

Hope this helps in some way

P.S. there are two type of tutorials. Ones are about technical part and others about artistic part. There are some links to artistic tutorials

http://www.fineart.sk/index.php?cat=1 Andrew Loomis (four books)
http://the-structure-of-man.blogspot.com/ Learn to draw the human figure
http://www.vilppustore.com/anatdvd.htm
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/ Here u can discuss ur studies . Very good site full of talented ppl
Oh and u also need some anatomical books. Here is one very useful for beginners to advanced: http://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Human-A...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230027319&sr=8-1

And remember: practice makes perfect, nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Mechanical Man]

Yes, artistical part is harder unless you are very talented. Btw, I don't think that the anatomy is so important in skinning, you already have everything covered in the unwrap, it matters only in concept art or modeling.

 

[KalamMekhar]

One thing I might suggest is that seeing as you have a drawing pad is to print off an unwrap of any model and put it on your desk and try to copy that free hand if you want to make something conpletely new....

 

[rober artua]

Drawing is everything

Yes, artistical part is harder unless you are very talented. Btw, I don't think that the anatomy is so important in skinning, you already have everything covered in the unwrap, it matters only in concept art or modeling.

In unwrap is a guide and not the final texture. In low poly models like WC u need to paint almost all details manually. For example u have ur low poly unwrap of the face. There is rough shape of nose but u need to paint nostrils ur self. Of course u could model nostrils too but this will add more polys besides ur modelled nostrils wont look real. So u still need to know anatomy of the nose to make a good nose texture, even if it is cartoonish.

By saying u need to know anatomy I am not talking about just human anatomy or just anatomy in whole. I mean u need to know the things before u represent them in the 3d space. I have found lots of noobish questions here about how to make iron texture. Well it is simple, take a look at a picture of something iron and study it. Take it into photoshop make black and white and try to capture main features. If it helps u could also bring some other materials and compare them . For instance, iron plate has strong reflection and skin not.

By the way when u paint muscles for ur body model, how u will do it without knowing anatomy? U still need some basic knowledge of masses

Once again, drawing is everything

Most of the talented ppl have been drawing since yearly ages for their life and that is one of the main reasons why they do wonders with pencil now. Practice makes perfect. For some ppl it may take longer time but still it is true. The only thing u need is WILL.

 

[CombatTheWombat]

I have a very simple suggestion. Just make a skin, post it here, and let us critique it. That way we can tell you exactly what you are doing wrong or right and you can fix the bad areas and reinforce the good ones. Thats how I got started. Didn't really read many tutorials or anything, just started working and listened to advice.