The Last Vampire Princess was just a practice sculpture of mine, but thought I should spend some time and make little scene with props and render it out in MR.
Please post your Constitutive Criticism. :)

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This is very poor quality work in every area. Anatomy, pose, sculpting technique, shader and lighting. I can’t find anything good to say about it.
I don’t know why you guys insist on trying these very ambitious full posed characters when you clearly have hardly any knowledge of the basics of figurative art or anatomy.
You HAVE to start with the fundamentals, practice them to death, and only then move forward.
So many people I see trying to fly before they can crawl. This is what happens.
And before we get the usual nonsense of people saying I’m too harsh, let me tell you why. The first model I ever sculpted with zbrush and the first model I ever sculpted with mudbox both won CGtalk awards. They weren’t perfect by any means, but I didn’t use the fact that it was my first try at sculpting as an excuse for doing bad work like this, so I’m not forgiving of anyone else who tries that.
I practice what I preach, so you can’t fault me on it.
Bottom line is, you have to try much harder than this.

I know I don’t make any friends or get any thanks for saying this stuff, but the truth has to be told.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

I totally agree, this model is pretty weak at the base and all that weakness propagated up to the final forms and details.  Only thing I disagree with Oddity is that I don’t think there is anything wrong with trying to fly before you can walk.  In fact I would encourage a person to try and get through a whole complicated project than to just focus on one piece or study. It depends on the nature of the person I guess, intimidation can be your biggest killer, as you need to always have the attitude that your work is going to be amazing otherwise you will sneak a challenging area past the radar because of the imagined challenges of the whole.  But if you can get past this mental problem there are alot of benefits to trying to do something complex.  One thing is that you will see how actions at an earlier part of the process will effect the middle and finishing of a piece.  You can critique all things at once so you can address many issues that come about during the process as well as how the steps integrate into each other.  For instance this model could be improved in the overall naturalness of the pose, also the major forms of the anatomy are too painted on and literal. There is also something that could be said about the design of the piece, It doesn’t say anything accept for “naked lady laying” All those things can be commented on at once and I think the next try could be better.  Now you know what needs attention you can focus on those things individually.  Personally the biggest thing that bothers me is the lack of subtle anatomic forms.  Right now it just looks like you painted on the muscles and other forms.  What you really need is a handful of reference photos that you can work with.  Focus on the silhouettes, the anatomical forms, and the relative positions, angles and sizes of the body parts in your reference images.

http://www.justin-lloyd.com

My Response:

“A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” - GB Shaw

awesome, it double posted because I hit the reload button.

http://www.justin-lloyd.com

Good advices they gave it to you.
With that base mesh, you did something amazing!
Don’t forget that this is ‘your’ art, only yours; when in a job they ask you for a ‘real’ perfect woman, then you focus on details and stuff like that; all depends on how do you see in your mind the model, do you want a perfectly nice curve woman? or an imaginary old painted girl?, etc.
For me this is more like an old paint than anything else, for me this is art (=
If this is your first steps on mudbox, believe me i wanna have your skills so i can keep improving.

pd: sorry 4 my en.

While oDDity may be right in regards to a particular method of practicing, I’d have to say his criticism is useless as it lends no commentary to construct with.  If the goal of your work was to try to make the woman seem skeletal because she is the “vampire princess” then that was accomplished.  In terms of realism, however, you may want to find more reference on how breasts rest when they’re upside down - these look more fixated and somewhat over sized.

Also, the area around the armpit was somewhat concerning - certain sections of muscle and tendon looked non-anatomical and “painted on” as some prior people here have said.  Lastly I would suggest making the furniture she rests on more exact in its shape.  It has a blobbly surfacing to it as if the “maker of the bed” couldn’t produce a straight line or surface with his stone, which is inaccurate in my opinion.

Again, if your piece was meant to be more Expressionist or Abusrdist in its art style, then I’d say you were on the right track, perhaps with some adjustment to lighting.  But for realism that is what I’d suggest to look at first.

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Max 8
Dual Xeon 3.2Ghz (Dinosaur)
4Gb RAM

Jared_Radtke 24 June 2009 02:04 PM

While oDDity may be right in regards to a particular method of practicing, I’d have to say his criticism is useless as it lends no commentary to construct with. 

Pointless in this case. There’s too much wrong to go into specifics, fixing the breasts on this would be like walking into the ruins of a house that’s just been demolished and straightening a picture on the only wall left standing.
What you need to do is build a new house and then hang up some new pictures.

http://www.pixelwerks.be

hey oddity, i like your honesty. I think if people were more honest about what they think of someones work it would be more beneficial to them. i also agree with jared about at least giving some constructive criticism because that would help starr see what areas need work. i love the fact that starrshaw responded to your comment the way he did :). i have known people who hate criticism and get very upset when you tell them whats wrong with their work.

nice to see that you build up your sculpt form that base mesh . it seems you have some trouble with the fingers . maybe polycount is not enough there .  here is my paintover that may help you . put it on the original one and compare . it is not good but may give you some ideas . try quads instead of triangles and ngons for the next assets . they are creating bad creases on the body .
by the way if you make some fabrics with deep folds i encourage you to make your mesh with poly modeling . then you can get certain results .

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Does it need some more work? Yes. Should you keep trying ambitious project? Yes. Are Odditys and Justins criticisms valid and honest? Yes.

I liked your vision, maybe post in WIP and you will get more constructive criticism as you work through it next time.