I don't really expect too much input as I am not doing a film but a graphic novel\possible webtoon project. This thread will be for looks at different characters, ideas and a few short test films.
1st A face gen experiment with texture on blur.
What I did is use an image I painted in Verve with symmetry on. I never even finished the mouth and had to guess where Face gen wanted points lol. Then I exported to Daz, to CC3 to Zbrush back to CC3 and over to IC7 for a toon shader test. The smaller image is the verve painting I sourced from. Her shape is pretty much the way Face Gen shaped it except the small adjustments made in Zbrush. She is rendered in IC7. What was cool is Face gen picked an overall tone for her body. I smoothed her texture a bit to fit the background which I also painted in Verve. Different from what I expected.

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Now to look at headshot pro and auto with the same mouthless image. I am thinking that Zbrush is key to the best result going this route mainly because of the hair. I will play with that later. The pro has more even results than the auto but they both came out looking different. Which is fine and even desirable. I can use both of them as the base starting point for 2 different characters. The overall skin tone both auto and pro picked is nice and could be used on a drow elf etc.  I am very impressed. It involves far less work for the initial face result than either Face gen or Crazy Talk. Time to refine and do an image

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One more test to see if i am going in the right direction. From what I see, it is time to do a real paint on the face texture in Verve and Photoshop instead of giving the texture more color which I did in Topaz Studio. Maybe smooth out some lines, bring out color, accentuate some areas and bring more cohesion to the design. Then to Zbrush to fix her ears and give her new clothing and off to substance painter. Hmm maybe hair in Zbrush also. Then off to IC7.

Ok I am sold. Headshot not only works well for Realistic textures but also for painted textures. It will just take more work for painted to align things properly like around her eyes and nose but I think it is worth the extra time.

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I sat down and ran a lot of tests this morning on realistic textures for headshot. This was done with Pro mode. The only thing that didn't  quite click were the dark lines on her lips. I have decided to make her a shaman character. I am not too happy with the extreme highlights in her hair on the Iray render but I should be able to adjust that down the road when I get serious.

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Another quick texture experiment with a character generated from a pencil drawing. For some reason i couldn't black and white her eyes. I must have needed more coffee :p 

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I see this thread as more of a series of experiments and w.i.p.s than anything else but it's hard for me not to regard each character as unique with their own back stories and each one of these does although only the Egyptian Goddess has hers written out. They have all been pulled to Bridgeworld to a small town outside the world capital named Primus. So there will be three stories on the individual characters and a 4th story named Sisters where they meet and band together to stop a shadow thief and his band of multiversal slave traders. coff  maybe  Oh yeah. There is a bit of Roger Dean influence mixed in. Think 70's and put your sunglasses on 

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A test cover for a short story?  Mert's story is intentionally vignetted. page 1 next

A better use for the CC3 render I made of Mert.

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I think your renderings are showing a lot of promise.
     I think it's fine to post an illustrated novel here and you might be surprised at how many will check it out.
The thing is, as there is no animation, your panels will have to a lot of heavy lifting in conveying the action,
even if it's just moving from one place to another. You almost have to treat each panel as a separate illustration
and, even if it doesn't need the detail of a full-blown illustration, you'll want plenty of eye-candy to keep it interesting.
I'm jazzed to see where you take it.

pete



http://www.youtube.com/user/peterblood50?feature=mhee

Thanks Pete,
I will be approaching it pretty much as you may have expected with each page being either a full illustration or composed of full illustrations and eye candy. It will be more a meld between traditional, straight up writing with the illustration emphasizing some aspect of the story. The stories on the individuals will be and are (with Meretsegar's story) true vignettes. I may throw in a random male good guy character to offset the Charlies's Angels look lol. Only the concluding story where all the characters converge will be a non vignette and more on the order of a long short story in which they shatter a (?) small organization preying on the newly arrived to Bridgeworld. That may be more info than you want to hear lol. 
Tomorrow I will post an example I did in 1999 that will give people a better idea of my approach with this small project. 

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I thought I had done this in 99 not 01. It was written as a way for me to get to know the character and tie her into the main story line of Bridgeworld. I needed a strong female lead to play off the protagonist Dalton. Cassandra as a character was created while I was working on a flying camel project of all things. Recently, I decided to do a breakdown by section with separate illustrations of this old piece. This thought process in turn inspired Meretsegar's vignette which I am illustrating now instead. Then I will write the Indian Shamans story etc. 

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