Sculpting Hair In Blender - or - Do The Do

in Sketchbook3 years ago

Do, not Dew

Because mountain dew...? What a name for high fructose cornsyrup mixed with artificial colors and flavors.

I’m working on the lovely character I mentioned last time if you’re keeping track, but I’m struggling with keeping the polycount at something manageable by my computer and getting the level of detail I want. And also life. Life always finds a way… to fuck up your shit.

So she is not ready for her big reveal, but she’s looking good, nay, dare I say it, she’s looking great. Soon I’ll be putting some clothes on her (sad), and rigging her up and doing some posing and facial expressions. First I need to finish joining the parts (leg bones connected to the hip bone, nose is connected to the face and all that) and then retopologize.

Hairy bits

So in an effort to figure out how to make hair, I’ve been experimenting with several methods. Today I’m sharing some of my renders of a head I made with different hairstyles that I did by sculpting one object (a duplicated section of skull) scaled up with a solidify modifier) The face is just something I whipped up while experimenting with methods for building heads. I think he’s pretty badass though. Sort of stylized and intense. I’ll probably keep him around and expand on him later for a full character.

Hairy Guy
Next time I’ll do some hairstyles with curves (sort of stylized chunks of hair) which takes longer but gives a nicer result I think and also allows for some movement when you animate. Alrighty. Peace.

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Polygon hair is probably easier on the system (and to control!) if you have the type of look where you can use it :D

yeah it definitely works better for some styles than others (hair styles and animation styles). I really like working with curves but it is a bit time consuming. I don't expect to be doing much actual animation on this computer, i expect rendering any animation at all would take all night, so hopefully the curves are ok. individual strands I haven't even tried yet.

Only all night? That's one short and basic animation (unless you have a really powerful computer and expect things to be done in seconds XD). I've had a still render take all nigth and most of a day before (I probably could have sped it up with compositing and whatnot but I still haven't figured that one out yet as I haven't really needed to and I'm lazy).

yeah like a one second animation =) also I don't even try to use cycles. i just use eevee. I tried rendering the default cube with cycles and it said it was going to take like 15 minutes so I'll just be practicing for now. I'd love to get a real setup some day. with a touch screen interface to sculpt on and some serious graphics cards... but better that i spend a while learning first before making an investment like that.

Jeez you do run on a potato don't you XD While Blender on my laptop will crash if it decides it can't cope with something it is capable of rendering basic Cycles scenes (or at least it usually is, sometimes it will randomly crash because I switched to the Shader tab so I figure probably a good idea to only do modelling work on it XD)

If you're serious into digital art (even if it's seriously only a hobby) it's worth the investment as then you'll be able to actually do and push a lot of the stuff you learn/read about (especially with the 3d, it can get pretty intensive).

You've reminded me I actually need to probably start/continue (coz Iused to do it but then stopped because lazy/kept forgetting) to put the technical crap onto renders as it seems a lot of the newer Blender artists to haven't had 3d experience previously seem to have really unrealistic expectations of how fast things should be XD

I may have been exagerating a tad, it was the first draft of that donut without materials or anything that was going to take 15 minutes, but it was still pretty low poly compared to everything I've been making since. but yeah I'm pretty amazed at what I actually can do on this laptop considering. I got it new for like $250 a couple months ago so it's literally the cheapest computer on the market right now. I do run a really compact version of linux on it though and it has 128 gigs so enough space for what I'm doing atm, just no processing power. rendering my sculpts with eevee usually takes less than a minute atm.

What sort of technical stuff do you mean you were putting on renders?

LoL XD

Just stuff like basic computer specs, polycount, rendering engine and render time. If I remember I include other things like number of AA samples and types of lights and stuff. Too much beyond that and it starts being an essay XD

Thats some dope characters......for me the hair looks good already

Thanks, I was pretty surprised by how well it came out in general actually. the mohawk is definitely my fav.

I think having more separate pieces is especially helpful with long hair. trying to do loose long hair with one piece feels a bit blocky. also depends on the animation style i guess.

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Thanks =)

Happy to see you still doing your thing, homeskillet. :3
I'm just coming back after a seriously necessary five week hiatus. So many of us have been gone for months, but you're one of my OGs so yeah. Do the things. DO THEM

hah =) I'll definitely keep doing the things. taking time off is key to sanity though for sure.

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Dude, I had no idea you could these types of shit. What can't you do Shook ? Haha

I'm learning =) I hope to be able to do Characters for games one day. Maybe I can do some freelance work in the hive ecosystem that way. maybe make some art of my own too and get into making nft's, Like build mini worlds or some sort of 3d multi media experience with sound. not surre yet exactly.

NFT is an excellent idea bro. Who knows, with a little bit of C++ you could even do your own video game?