Need advice on character models

I need some advice on these characters. Mostly just the modeling, I haven't had time to fully texture them yet, so don't tell me that I need to do better UV mapping :tongue:


This one is a warrior, very powerful. The thing on his shoulder is his weapon, he will usually carry a sword and shield as well. Surrounded completely by a cold plasma energy shield, which can also bend light, giving him an optional active camo defense.
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/7558/picture2er2.png

This one is lower on the evolutionary chain and is amphibious. Very weak and clumsy, but a good swimmer and produces electricity like an eel with it's tail. It has to rear up and balance on his hind "legs" and tail like a kangaroo in order to fire a weapon.
http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/1601/picture1wn9.png

This one is frail, but highly intelligent. It's an expert martial artist and fast enough to deflect bullets with it's sword (I didn't attach the sword yet.) Usually sent as a scout or assassin. Has teleportation technology.
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/5264/picture3zv1.png

Hands. Fix the hands!

I hate to put you down or anything, but I just want to critize the hell out of those models...

But I will refrain from doing so. Unless you really want it.

Unless you are dead-set on creating your own models from scratch (which is hard to do - trust me), you should check out using another program - such as MakeHuman - to do the body modeling. You can customize the bodies and whatnot, to make your characters.

If you are dead-set on creating your own models from scratch, I would say to use more realistic references. Find a schematic that shows a persons body from the side and from the front, then create your model using those to position your 3D pieces. (Let me know if you need me to go into more detail on doing that.)

But, I'd say the easiest way is to use MakeHuman or Poser to create your model.

No Slayer, go into more detail please :D

Ugh, I just noticed the hands. They actually are modeled much better than that, the subsurf did some strange stuff, I guess I need to crease it around the fingers. Just keep in mind that they have to remain low polygon models, they have to be able to run in DirectX 10 at 60fps.

I thought I did pretty good at making the humanoids, but I'm downloading MakeHuman now to make better meshes for the hands and such.

Ok, I'm into 3d and still learning, so take this as suggestions. As Oneironaut said, find front and side (maybe even top) reference pictures of some basic humanoid character. I don't know how many you can find on the net, so maybe you can make them yourself if you want to. Then you just use primitives or extrude faces, then edit them to match the reference pictures. Sorry if you've already done this, just spewing out what I know about this stuff.

After that, instead of using subsurf, use Multires. It will let you control the subdivision amount, you can jump from one level of subd. to another. And if your original mesh, before subdivision, had the shape you want, maybe you should switch from Catmull-Clark to simple subdiv. You can always use the smooth options to smooth stuff.

I haven't really tried characters yet, but that's the idea I got. Catmull-Clark subdiv. really changes the original shape drastically.