Please Critique Student Renders

3141592654

Good day everyone,

I am working on making a series of teachers and students for a classroom seminar setting. The best of these will be used in an upcoming book on science (emphasis on biology).

I guess I am after any general suggestions on how to improve them. [Note: I am not concerned with the blank background right now as the science classroom scene will be used to fill that in later ... poses will also be added appropriate to the scene, but most will be sitting.].

Perhaps you can also vote on which ones you really like or dislike. My goal is to add 1 student a day for the next few weeks.

They can be viewed at:  Student Gallery

Thank you,

3141592654

FirstBastion

All the student characters look sufficiently unique and the teacher has an aged intelligence.  You're off to a good start.

Novica

I would suggest some short hair styles, some a bit spikey. The hairstyles need a bit more variety. (Also variety of colors.)  Vidra Hair, for example. Good luck with your project, sounds interesting!

Serene Night

What age are they supposed to be? Is this a college course? 

3141592654

FirstBastion: Thank you.

Novica: That is a good catch. I agree that more variety in the hair would be pleasant, but the book they will appear in has an older more conservative audience ... so long hair I will stick with among this set ... perhaps in the future I can add some other students with more variety for other projects.

SereneNight: Good question. The book is for a general adult audience - some would have high school education,others with college. I agree that currently I seem to have a mixture ... I should consider that in the final selection.

Tobor

If it's a book that real students will use as a learning tool, then you may want to consider that from a psychological standpoint, the more realistic your renders, the *less* people may identify with them. Perhaps this is part of the well-known "uncanny valley," where humans start to reject the depiction of a computer generated character when it looks too realistic. It's uncanny, because the notion goes against intuition. Studies show it's not a universal reaction, and there are many aspects of it still unknown.

Depending on your audience, other forms of generated avatars may be more suitable in order to connect with readers. This would be particularly true of students with certain learning disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, where non-humans but anthropomorphized characters may be preferred.

You mentioned an older, more conservative audience. So, sounds like toon characters are out. You can still do human-like renders, but with less emphasis in trying to make them look real. Anyway, something to consider. Because any characters you use will take a long time to develop, and flavor the book in very specific ways that could affect its salability, perhaps it would be best to do some focus group tests to see the reactions.

Novica

LOL- I am sixty, was full time faculty at a university, and I can assure you I had students of all ages, all hairstyles. Older women often have shorter hair, the short hairstyles have less muss 'n fuss, so to speak. But do what you are comfortable with, you know your audience. 

Serene Night

I think one of the challenges I see is that you want a stylistically similar look to the characters so they are consistently portrayed.Some of your students are more realistic and others are more on the stylistic with big eyes  small noses etc. I think one style should be embraced,for the sake of consistency. It has to do with who creates the model but some characters made by Thorne for example are almost elfin in apppearence and more toony then a character made by another pa.