Hard(l)y Done... Lawless Hardy 2.0 - Face Update 2

And here we go again.

Almost another year.

I'm doing a great job at sticking to a blog post once a year...

As much as I would like to post every so often, I am compelled to keep tinkering behind the curtain until my work is all done. However, I think it is unfair to keep my progress to myself and I am certain that sharing it could benefit others in someway and be helpful to those in the process of working on something similar.

Here are a few screenshots of Tom Hardy in his latest digital state...

I never clearly stated one of the main purposes of this project. It is an ongoing project to track my progress in achieving a hyper realistic computer-generated human being - A goal I hope to accomplish. So this is practically a milestone project, if you will.

Tom Hardy is probably the best candidate for this since he is an actor who is so well photographed and filmed. It is also a plus that I am an immense fan of him, his acting, and his films and that he is a charming fellow which makes staring at his face for hours on end to sculpt and replicate the details all the more enjoyable! (Sorry if that sounds creepy. Welcome to character likeness art!)

Throughout this project, I expect to gain an understanding of how to accurately replicate real world objects and people digitally. I hope to then be able to create fantastical photorealistic characters and environments of my own and ultimately surpass the uncanny valley to reach that sought out level of true realism... which has impressively already been achieved by artists, movies, and commercials. Thankfully, there are constant technical leaps and achievements happening in the world of visual effects and computer graphics hardware and software to make that goal more attainable than ever. With that said, this project has a long way to go before it reaches its end, but until then, it's one great big work in progress until I get there.

Thanks for reading! Please comment if you have any questions. As this was more of a general update, I might possibly do a more in-depth breakdown in the near future.


-Natalie

Lawless Hardy 2.0 - Update 1

A BIG Hello to you!

It has been a while... 

Actually, it has been more than a year since my last post.

To get this up and running again, I thought I would start by sharing a few semi-old and fairly new work-in-progress screenshots of my current personal project. I am updating and redoing 90% of a Tom Hardy model I created for my character modeling demo reel while at Full Sail University. I am currently revising and sculpting the head in Zbrush. Will move on to 3D software, Maya later on where I will pick up on the rest of the body model that I made already.

"LOOK MA, NO HANDS!"

I often refer back to these stills from the movie, Lawless for art direction. After all, this is a likeness, not just of Tom Hardy, but of the particular Forrest Bondurant character he portrayed in the film.

 More progress on the sculpt and cleaning up the paint job. Nothing is final at this point. Just playing around with the colors, adding in pore detail, making face tweaks, and rendering out different lighting situations-- Having fun!

Highest resolution models compare: New (left),Old (right)

For those who have not pursued a likeness project, you need to gather a bunch of reference of the person you are trying to replicate. This helps make things easier down the line. 

Using a profile photo, I try to match up silhouettes and shapes in Zbrush's Spotlight.

Most recently through spotlight, I lined up and painted a nice hi-res photo right onto the sculpture. Sort of like shrink wrapping it to the surface. And it lined up almost PERFECTLY!
However, it is still going to require a lot of tweaking, but it's another good base texture to start with.

In the image below, it is apparent to see the impact a texture has on a model.

Same model- different texture.

That is it for now! Thanks for reading!