Week 2 - Low Poly Modeling

And so begins my dive into low poly character modeling. I've dabbled in it a bit last summer, however I never completed the project so I'm excited to make some progress when it comes to learning about low poly!

First off, I'm going for a style somewhere in the middle of the low poly spectrum. I would like to incorporate a mixture of the two styles shown below, the Bastion model being on the higher end while the Dark Souls x Animal Crossing model is on the lower end. My goal is to end up with around 3,000 tris maximum.

Here are the references (these guys did a great job, their work turned out amazingly well!)

Bastion reference by Nix from Polycount

Dark Souls x Animal Crossing reference by Crimson from Polycount

Here is what I have so far. She is currently 1384 tris. I plan to model everything as normal and then go back and begin triangulating in order to lower poly count, especially on the hair. Modeling in tris is kind of challenging because it defies a lot of rules set up in our regular modeling classes. 

Front and side orthos

Wireframe shots

My goal is to have her modeled, textured, rigged, and in an idle battle animation (holding the spear upright and guarding with her shield) before Spring Break. I will then move onto learning Zbrush with the sloth character, which I want to have completed in a micro-environment by the end of the semester. If I finish it early I will start on to my mage character, however I plan to mainly work on it next semester.

Until next week!
-Kristen