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Description
Conception: Again, staying busy while waiting to work on No.3. ~It's all--~ Shut up.

Method:
XPS: Load model, open Material editor for texture reference purposes.
Blender: Import model, smooth non-hair meshes, remove doubles, assign textures to node set ups for the meshes, apply Subdivision Surface modifier liberally. Check for inconsistencies. Tinker with values and adapt nodes to experiment with effects.
XPS: Apply pose, tinker. Save.
Blender: Import pose, final pose corrections. Adjust camera, backdrop, lighting parameters. Check Rendered Viewport Shading. Render.

Commentary: Right, I've always liked the design of Black Cat; I suspect it's the black leather/latex/whatever that conforms tightly to her body. Plus... the white hair... I suppose I have a type for fictional characters... I've looked at the other Marvel models before, but they seem really limited. I remember a Captain Marvel model having no face bones for posing which really restricts what can be achieved. Also true of the Power Girl model too. So comic book characters are limited and I tend to stick with game models as a result. Besides, having a comic book character model which fits my own conception of the character is also an issue. But is this Black Cat or Christie? A bit touch and go. As a base character to mesh mod into another, Christie does seem a good fit for Black Cat. Throw in the costume and voila! Black Cat. In that, this is a wonderful piece of work by xXKammyXx. If I come back to this model... well... there are two ways I can use it, so it's fairly flexible in this respect. Always had in mind a bank robbery scenario...

So yeah. I applied the Subdivision Surface modifier to more meshes for a more smoother look. What I couldn't manage, as is typically the case, is try and get the correct effect for the textures. xXKammyXx's model seems to go for a more PVC look to the outfit; it's very shiny in XPS. However, I couldn't reproduce that shininess in Blender even after adjusting values and adding in shaders. It's a limitation of my understanding of these things. Also, I don't know how to account for these light maps and mask textures which must surely affect the outcome. As such, this looks more... rubbery? I really want to think it looks closer to leather to be honest, and it's what I imagine her to be wearing. But with respect to fidelity to the model it's pretty much a failure. At least she looks pretty though, right?

I also decided not to use my boring light plane set up for lighting and used an Area light positioned a bit to her right. Seems to be okay. Never did explore lighting effects properly, but there's a lot of stuff I haven't explored properly yet as I grab and snatch at some time.

Usual posing shenanigans on my part. DragonLord720's pose worked really well for this (it was designed for Christie after all), and most of the work was with the whip (not that anyone cares what happened there) and her hair. I did want to have the whip form a circle around her but that didn't work out well...

Credits:
Black Cat model courtesy of xXKammyXx
Pose by DragonLord720
Node set ups:
Basic node set up courtesy of DragonLord720
Cloth node set up by DragonLord720
Eye node set up by Hypster83
Skin node set up by Hiddenus
Tools:
Blender 2.79
XNALara Posing Studio 11.8
Assets/Copyright:
Koei Tecmo
Marvel
xXKammyXx (?)

Render time: 18m 19s
Resolution: 1920x1080
Sampling: 1024
Other info: N/A

7th October 2017

Description
Conception: Again, staying busy while waiting to work on No.3. ~It's all--~ Shut up.

Method:
XPS: Load model, open Material editor for texture reference purposes.
Blender: Import model, smooth non-hair meshes, remove doubles, assign textures to node set ups for the meshes, apply Subdivision Surface modifier liberally. Check for inconsistencies. Tinker with values and adapt nodes to experiment with effects.
XPS: Apply pose, tinker. Save.
Blender: Import pose, final pose corrections. Adjust camera, backdrop, lighting parameters. Check Rendered Viewport Shading. Render.

Commentary: Right, I've always liked the design of Black Cat; I suspect it's the black leather/latex/whatever that conforms tightly to her body. Plus... the white hair... I suppose I have a type for fictional characters... I've looked at the other Marvel models before, but they seem really limited. I remember a Captain Marvel model having no face bones for posing which really restricts what can be achieved. Also true of the Power Girl model too. So comic book characters are limited and I tend to stick with game models as a result. Besides, having a comic book character model which fits my own conception of the character is also an issue. But is this Black Cat or Christie? A bit touch and go. As a base character to mesh mod into another, Christie does seem a good fit for Black Cat. Throw in the costume and voila! Black Cat. In that, this is a wonderful piece of work by xXKammyXx. If I come back to this model... well... there are two ways I can use it, so it's fairly flexible in this respect. Always had in mind a bank robbery scenario...

So yeah. I applied the Subdivision Surface modifier to more meshes for a more smoother look. What I couldn't manage, as is typically the case, is try and get the correct effect for the textures. xXKammyXx's model seems to go for a more PVC look to the outfit; it's very shiny in XPS. However, I couldn't reproduce that shininess in Blender even after adjusting values and adding in shaders. It's a limitation of my understanding of these things. Also, I don't know how to account for these light maps and mask textures which must surely affect the outcome. As such, this looks more... rubbery? I really want to think it looks closer to leather to be honest, and it's what I imagine her to be wearing. But with respect to fidelity to the model it's pretty much a failure. At least she looks pretty though, right?

I also decided not to use my boring light plane set up for lighting and used an Area light positioned a bit to her right. Seems to be okay. Never did explore lighting effects properly, but there's a lot of stuff I haven't explored properly yet as I grab and snatch at some time.

Usual posing shenanigans on my part. DragonLord720's pose worked really well for this (it was designed for Christie after all), and most of the work was with the whip (not that anyone cares what happened there) and her hair. I did want to have the whip form a circle around her but that didn't work out well...

Credits:
Black Cat model courtesy of xXKammyXx
Pose by DragonLord720
Node set ups:
Basic node set up courtesy of DragonLord720
Cloth node set up by DragonLord720
Eye node set up by Hypster83
Skin node set up by Hiddenus
Tools:
Blender 2.79
XNALara Posing Studio 11.8
Assets/Copyright:
Koei Tecmo
Marvel
xXKammyXx (?)

Render time: 18m 19s
Resolution: 1920x1080
Sampling: 1024
Other info: N/A

7th October 2017