Any tips on how to make character artwork look like this?

Richard John S

I was wondering if anyone has any tips to offer on how to make character artwork look like the characters in this Resident Evil banner. Should I use 3delight over iray? What kind of Photoshop techniques etc.

jim_doria

Not trying to be a smart aleck but what do you mean by "look like"? Because to me these characters look a lot like renders that are fairly easy to get out of DAZ Studio. Also, the characters in this image all look rather different to my eyes. The woman on the far left is more realistic than the man standing next to her, who is more stylized. She is low constrast, he is high-contrast. The woman on the right has an outfit that is very detailed, while the man next to her has one that is more simple & streamlined.

A number of things jump out at me:

• Lighting is really key here. A lot of attention to light setup went into these images. And each one was lit and rendered seperately and then they were composited later. For example, the woman on the left is strongly lit from the right side but also from behind and to the left (highlighting her ear). The right side of her face is in shadow, but still lit well enough to be completely visible. She is not being lit from above, and not from directly in front. The man next to her, however, has a very strong light source high and to the front. His eyes are shadowed and you can see the highlight on his arm. There's really no way to get both kinds of lighting on two characters who are so close to one another in a single scene.
• Also note how they use rim lighting to make the characters pop out from the background. Anywhere the character might blend into the background (the woman on the right's black sleeve against a dark texture) they use strong rim lighting to create separation.
• The use of realistic cloth textures and layered hair textures is noticably absent. Look at how shiny the man's shirt is on the far right, and the smoothness of the scarf of the woman on the far left. So you might want to use textures with a lower level of detail, or reduce bump mapping / displacement. Similarly, highly detailed hair would look out of place. G2-era and before hair might look better than G3-era and later hair.
• I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing a lot of color-grading in post on these characters. Although typically a color grade is used to match the look of different elements, and here each element kind of retains its own look / coloring. But I wouldn't be surprised if they graded each render rather than simply using it as it came out.

Sorry if this stuff is too obvious or not technical enough. I'm not that much of 3D expert yet.

Serene Night

The characters in question are painted on and done by different artists with different skills and styles so I’m assuming you mean. Just similar.  I’d experiment with getting dramatic lighting and downloading topaz labs and try some different painterly effects. In overlay mode you can darken and lighten select features so they look like les digitized and more painterly,

nonesuch00

It's true. People will like work they perceive as being handmade more than work they perceive as being machine made, even when the machine made object has tighter tolerances for quality and is a much better product. For art, it's sort of irrelvant but for vehicles, homes, medicine, and lots of products it is very important. 

For me the banner looks not so well made as the styles & lighting is not coherant.

outrider42

The characters are not coherent because they all come from different video games. This poster is a celebration of the franchise and just throws them together on a banner for sale, they are not supposed to match. Each game comes with slightly different art styles. The technology available at the time can also effect art style. RE 1-4 were not HD, and thus tend to have less detail in character models.

I think somebody used Facegen to upload a few faces that look similar to the characters in the series.

You can also do that, too, if you can get good pics to work from.

Zilvergrafix

3Delight for the short hair blonde and the extreme right character (not a RE fan, sorry)

nicstt

deleted; couldn't think of anything positive to say really.

Dim Reaper

Serene Night said:

The characters in question are painted on and done by different artists with different skills and styles so I’m assuming you mean. Just similar.  I’d experiment with getting dramatic lighting and downloading topaz labs and try some different painterly effects. In overlay mode you can darken and lighten select features so they look like les digitized and more painterly,

Thank you for this post.  I've not heard of Topaz Labs before but I've just had a quick look at their website and I quite like the look of their products.  I think I'l ldownload a few demos and give them a try.