Cgtuts+ Workshop #23 Gollum
tuts workshop

Cgtuts+ Workshop #23 Gollum

on Aug 15th 2012 with 2 comments

We’re back with another entry in our weekly community project, where we post a render or animation created by a member of the Cgtuts+ community, and ask you to provide feedback and constructive criticism on their work. It’s a great way to learn more about the intricacies of computer graphics, express your viewpoint, and have your own content critiqued by your fellow artists!

Quick Ground Rules

  • Be nice! We’ve deliberately chosen work that isn’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  • Feel free to offer any type of advice on – Modeling, Texturing, Materials, Lighting, Rendering, Composition, etc.
  • You can also link to another render that you feel offers a great example of this type of content done exceptionally well.

So let’s get to it, here’s this week’s entry created by Bernhard Poppe!

Gollum

Cgtuts+ Car Render critiqueClick To Enlarge

A Little Background

I am a 16 year old student from Austria, and every summer I do a big project to learn (I don’t have that time during school.) This image was created using Maya, Zbrush and Photoshop! I learned a lot during the creation of this peace. For example: I had never modeled a “human” in Maya, dealt with bones and rigging, or used hair before. Sorry for my bad English! :)

Also be sure to check out more of Bernhard’s work on his Website
Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached this project or done things differently? Any thoughts on how it could be improved or taken to the next level. Chime in below!

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site. Interested in submitting your own video or 3D render? You can do so here! and have your work featured in a future Cgtuts+ Workshop!

 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Ben is one half (literally) of the editor duo here at Cgtuts+. Ben has over eight years of experience in the computer graphics field and although he's primarily a hard surface modeler, he's also experienced in the fields of uvmapping, texturing, lighting and rendering. He has authored many tutorials and training materials focused on 3d Studio Max and hard surface modeling. You can check out Ben's website at bentateonline.com to see more of his work.  

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  • dj

    Good effort it seems and we can tell that you’ve become fairly accomplished in graphic arts and might be considering a career in it. If I may I’d like to comment on the character conceptualization process and leave lighting etc to others more skilled. I guess I have to wonder where this character comes from. As similar as it might be to “spindly fingers… etc”, It doesn’t seem to me to have come from any of Tolkien’s books. [And, I'm not saying that just because we all have become intensely fixed on Alan Lee's rendition of the character in the Peter Jackson films.] It is true that Gollum is described in the books in such a way that it leaves a bit to the imagination; however, the character did clearly derive from a Hobbit which IS much more well described in not only morphology but personality and life experience. In other words the two should “morph” into each other in such a way that the observer can logically infer causality, from their own life experiences. Or in other words, the progression should infer the trials and/or life events which may have produced the character. As you have drawn “Gollum,” to me just doesn’t seem to ring “true.”

    I’m just guessing, but what it seems like to me is that you may have conceptualized and produced the character – and a nice one it is – THEN decided afterwards decided what to call it. Like I say, just a guess so I may be wrong. However, if you will receive it, just my own advice: when you’re setting out specifically to conceptualize a character – especially one so well known – either intensly scour the literature and follow it, or choose a different name. It seems to me that you’ve got some interesting character ideas which can, and should, stand on their own. If what you have rendered is unique (i.e. doesn’t follow well known descriptions of a character) take credit for your work and give it a name that you think it represents. That way you can leave it to the observer to say things like: “that sort of looks like Gollum.”

  • Ronald

    I’ll disagree with the previous poster and say that I don’t have any problem with Gollum not looking like a branch of the hobbit family. I think the character itself is nicely cartoonish. I remember the old Hobbit cartoon long ago. He kind of had this appearance.

    His coloration catches my eye, though. That sort of livid purplish hue might be what Gollum would look like after he’d gotten out of the cave and gotten too much sun. In the Hobbit, he’s been underground in the dark for… how long? Grab some pictures of animals that live in the dark. They’re ghastly and pale. Sometimes their flesh acquires a repulsive, almost-translucent quality. You might say, “Well they don’t *have* to be pale. Goblins might live underground all the time, and I think they ought to be green. So Gollum can be purple.” If that’s your thinking, then I say: stick to your guns. Just always make sure you know why you’re giving each creature its coloration.

    Specularity on flesh is also very hard to get right (just like the proper amount of subsurface scattering, which is for me even harder). Dry skin has a very low shininess. What shininess it does have is different in different places. We’re more shiny on the forehead and nose, for instance. Less shiny on the torso. If you’re looking for the appearance of wet skin, then you can obviously be more shiny. I found myself looking at his belly, and the shininess there made it look like the skin was tight, like he was very well fed. But that seemed to disagree with the model itself, which is very thin.

    Overall, though, it has a very nice look. I had to stare at it to be sure it was really a 3D model and not a hand-drawn painting, and I kind of like that.