Thanks, everyone! I'm happy with the characters. I took a few weeks off from modeling and the break was probably a good thing because it gave me a fresh start, especially with people and faces. I've learned to slow down. (I've also discovered collections online of daguerreotypes from the early 19th century that make excellent references.)
Gao Jian, the figures are modeled in Silo and ZBrush, with hair and rigging in Blender. Everything is shaded in Mixer.
QuoteMy only crit: the boat should be a bit wet near the water line.
I agree, and I tried. A reflective shader masked in Y has been applied to the lower part of the hull. A camera-projected mask applies the same shader to the oar paddles. I probably spent 2-3 hours trying different IOR, reflection, and specular roughness settings and this is the best I could achieve. The bright patches along the waterline are reflections from the water (and possibly some caustics). It might be physically correct but it sure doesn't look "wet." IOR is set to 1.33 (for water); increasing it simply made the area appear silver and metallic.
What I'd *really* like to do is reduce the roughness over this area, but afaik you can't selectively apply the roughness from a default shader -- the color always goes along for the ride. (Too bad the diffuse shader doesn't have a "Use existing colour" checkbox like the Lambert shader. That would be useful.)
The effect could be achieved in a few minutes with Mixer, which is probably what I'll do if I pick this up again.
QuoteA tiny enhancement could be some foam where the oars have left the water, or some drips dripping off the oars.
For sure. I added some procedural circular ripples beneath the oars, but they are mostly masked by the waves. Water dropping from the oars would need to be geometry. Wouldn't be too hard to add.
