Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

• - Detailed concept development process, which is a good thing, but I have the feeling more focus was put on the backstory than on the design itself which is something to be mindful of in time constrained scenarios like a competition. - I feel you’ve put a lot of time into the anatomy and merging of traits, and may have overscoped (been too ambitious), not taking into consideration your current knowledge. To accommodate the cheetah legs, the entire lower body should have been modified to some extent, as right now they feel out of place. I’m saying this, while acknowledging that what you set out to do is very challenging even for someone with extensive anatomy knowledge. While you’ve set out a respectable goal here, it is important to practise anatomy outside of big projects like these, to ensure you have at least good fundamentals when taking on such tasks. One book I highly recommend is Anatomy for Sculptors (https://anatomy4sculptors.com/understanding-the-human-figure/). Also, don’t forget to practise anatomy through drawing since a lot of the observations you make in 2D can easily be transferred to 3D. For this I highly recommend drawing quick poses (1-2 min) which force you to find the main lines of action and learn how dynamic the human body is. - On the topic of armour, the need for flexibility and simplicity doesn’t excuse refinement of the shapes. The shapes you extracted still have the bumps of the musculature underneath, which makes the material unrelatable to anything a character might wear. Even if you are trying to make something futuristic it is good to ground it in reality, and I have to say the American football suit idea was great but it didn’t come across in the final design. - Topology is ok but some parts are much denser than others. You ideally want the same number of rows across different meshes to ensure better deformation and consistency. - You should show your UV maps in the documentation - Textures are very flat and lack any resemblance of a material that could exist. Here, the use of reference is very important as without a vision about the material qualities of each clothing/armour piece on your character, you won’t be able to create a convincing rendition of your idea. Despite being “clean” and “futuristic” every material has presents wear and tear to some extent, and that can add to the believability. -Final presentation can be improved, as the lighting scenario you presented doesn’t make your character stand out. Facing away from the sun makes any details hard to see. I recommend looking into studio lighting setups for a start. After you feel confident that you can light a simple subject by manually placing lights, you can move onto more complex light scenarios that include skyboxes and directional lights. -Also, the character wasn’t presented in two different poses as per the brief. Overall, you had a good character idea, with potential, which I’d say was limited by your technical knowledge and insufficient fundamentals. The game ready character pipeline can be daunting at first, but it helps tremendously if you have prior art fundamentals (anatomy, colour, composition, perspective). I recommend you practise both drawing and sculpting characters until you feel comfortable putting your ideas “on paper”. I hope the feedback wasn’t too harsh and that it will help you on your journey to become a lead character artist. :) Feel free to reach me at: verisof08 on Discord or via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mihaiandrusandu/