Attached Link: http://www.crtoons.com/adult_stuff/naughty-t/dom_flyaround-low.mov

Wanted to create a cartoon woman (in the vein of Corben, Otis Sweat and Vaugn Bode) and being the crazed lunatic I am, I did it entirely in the vertex modeler. Every poly was created and moved by moi, thanks to Litst for his head tutoral (which served as a jumping off point for me). I really am surprised by how the Vertex modeler "made sense" to me this time around. Back in January, I couldn't even model a eye lash. This model really turned out better than I thought.

there's a higher quality quicktime, just sub the "low" in the URL for "med" (low is about 400Kb and med is over 800Kb). If you can save the file to disk, it's indended to be a looping animation, just haven't gotten around to making a HTML page for it yet.

All textures are proceedural, no image maps used. Used the Gemini plugin from DCG for keeping my sanity and to make the model asym. Rendered with the HRT, with soft RT shadows on. Starbright (also from DCG) was used for the bg. I know that some, ah, attributes of her are exagerated, but that's why it's a cartoon. Next up, animating this model with bones and working on secondary motions...btw, her name is Dominique, hence the Dom in the file name.

Anyway, I'm working towards a "style" that's evocative of the wooden model stop-motion animation style, like those Christmas specials and the Nightmare before christmas movie. I have two storylines that I could do a series of animations on: one is sci-fi and the other is alternative history victorian-period w/martians, magic and computers. I'll be creating new characters for which one I do go with, with less, ummm, "presence" you could say.

If anybody has any hints/tips on shader settings to accomplish the "look" I'm after, please share.

Lemme know what y'all think.

TIA

I think it looks pretty good. The modeling and texturing really get that cartoonish look. Although I could see some people getting offended by the nature of it, I think is very well executed. I personally like it. Good modeling.

In those animated films, they used various techniques based on Harryhausen's wire-skeleton models. The Xmas films used very bright, hot tungsten lights. The models were usually painted in some or all surfaces, so they looked like shiny, painted wood. The "fakeness" or cartoon look derived from the bright studio lighting (and weak, multiple shadows) and the paint on the models. So you would use alot of bright lights in Carrara, with ray-traced reflections, and shininess in the textures to duplicate the paint on the models. My guess is that GI would not look fake enough, so you'd use ordinary illumination.

Thanks for the comments, Pinklet. I feel like I'm in the "Vertex Zone" as fine meshes (lots of polys) don't freak me out. I see it, much like Neo sees "code" in the Matrix. I"m modeling a cat next. Mateo Sancarlos -- Thanx squared for the tech info on making of the xmas films. I think that with the HDRI abilities that's coming in version 3, there may be a way to use GI and have those intense lights you described, and still have some interesting shadows.