02-22-2012, 01:21 PM
Great job! I particularly like the shapes of the arms and legs. 
Now, before I get to the critiques on the model, here are some technical issues. The first is with regards to textures and naming. When a model is exported to OBJ, the MTL file that is created references the names of the files at that moment. Changing any of the file names afterwards means those files will not import properly with the model, and it's apparent that you renamed all of them afterward instead of beforehand. Since editing the MTL file would be a tedious hassle, it will be much easier to re-export the model.
However, before you do, there is the issue of file names. While the descriptive filenames were very helpful for manually reassigning all of the textures, they don't make very good filenames. MTL files and spaces/punctuation don't go well together, and will interfere with the importing process. The ideal filenames for your files is something short, descriptive, and without spaces. "Calves", "Head", "Eye", and "Cape" are all perfect names. For a file like "Shoe Top, Ear", you could simply name it "Shoe" or "ShoeEnv" (for "Environment", the type of texture it is). When you go to rename the files, though, I recommend keeping the information you put in those names somewhere, such as in the readme file. It'd be nice to have something to refer to in case something does go wrong with the texturing.
For the model, you might want to check the normal direction on parts of the model, though, as they seem to be inverted for his right arm and the nubs on his belt. Also, the polygons in his right ear is a bit messed up, giving the inside of it a little jagged part. (In fact, you can see it in the first image.) That's all for the technical issues.
Now, onto the actual critique. For the most part, the polygons are good. There are some iffy spots, though. Let's start with the cape. As the others have said, the cape is rather low-poly compared to the rest of the model. It only has 8 polygons to make the entire arc! It really stands out when compared to the rest of his body, which is nice and smooth. And yet, at the same time, the (somewhat thick) edge of the cape has 8 redundant polygons, making it take up 128 polygons instead of what would otherwise be 37. Now, while the shape of the cape is good, it's not really flexible. Because single triangles stretch all the way from the top to the bottom, the cape won't be able to bend or twist at all. A good cape has a grid-like arrangement of polygons, so that it can be bent and twisted in any way. I recommend starting over on the cape, as it would be too much of a hassle to try and convert the existing one.
Another iffy area is the shoulder pads. The shape of it is nice, but the automatic smoothing effect you used on it ruined the polygons. If you look closely at the upturned rim, you'll see it's all wrinkly and weirdly shaded. I hope you're able to undo the smoothing, or kept a backup of the shape before it was smoothed, as the shape itself is fine, and I'd hate for you to have to redo it.
The last part with iffy polygons is the head. The front part is great, aside from the little error in the ear I mentioned earlier. However, the spines are rather misshapen. It's very apparent if you view the head with shading/specular highlights. If you looked at a cross-section of the spines, you'd see that they aren't very circular, and have odd bumps and dents. It mostly stems from how the different spines connect to the head, and how they connect with each other. It's definitely a difficult thing to model given what it is. It will take some careful planning, but I believe you can rearrange the points and edges to make those spines rounder. Also, his mouth area is a bit low-poly, especially those hexagonal screws.
Finally, there is the textures. The use of ripped textures is fine, especially if you're try to make the model fit in with the style of the game. However, since you're listing the model as 100% from scratch, I'd include a disclaimer listing the textures that you didn't make yourself and that you got them from various Sonic games. On that note, there are some textures that you could make on your own. You have a nice, custom, high-resolution set of stripe textures on his head and legs, and then a pixelly 64x64 texture for his entire yellow ring, and even smaller for his eye. Same for the cape and bottom of his shoes. Your model would look even more impressive if you made custom high-res textures for these things instead of using pieces of other textures. Also, when doing custom textures, it's a good idea to stick to powers of 2 when it comes to the size of the image. I'm sure you've noticed that almost every game texture comes in sizes of 32, 64, 128, 256, or more. It's not strictly necessary, but it's a good idea. You could easily make Head.png 1024x1024 and scale up Calves.png to 512x512. Since Body.png is a solid color, though, you could shrink that all the way down to 32x32 if you wanted. It won't look any different on the model.
And that's all I've got so far. Sorry it's a bit much, but I like to be thorough. So yeah, great model so far, and I look forward to seeing you improve it. Also, is it rigged, or did you manually pose it for that screenshot?
Now, before I get to the critiques on the model, here are some technical issues. The first is with regards to textures and naming. When a model is exported to OBJ, the MTL file that is created references the names of the files at that moment. Changing any of the file names afterwards means those files will not import properly with the model, and it's apparent that you renamed all of them afterward instead of beforehand. Since editing the MTL file would be a tedious hassle, it will be much easier to re-export the model.
However, before you do, there is the issue of file names. While the descriptive filenames were very helpful for manually reassigning all of the textures, they don't make very good filenames. MTL files and spaces/punctuation don't go well together, and will interfere with the importing process. The ideal filenames for your files is something short, descriptive, and without spaces. "Calves", "Head", "Eye", and "Cape" are all perfect names. For a file like "Shoe Top, Ear", you could simply name it "Shoe" or "ShoeEnv" (for "Environment", the type of texture it is). When you go to rename the files, though, I recommend keeping the information you put in those names somewhere, such as in the readme file. It'd be nice to have something to refer to in case something does go wrong with the texturing.
For the model, you might want to check the normal direction on parts of the model, though, as they seem to be inverted for his right arm and the nubs on his belt. Also, the polygons in his right ear is a bit messed up, giving the inside of it a little jagged part. (In fact, you can see it in the first image.) That's all for the technical issues.
Now, onto the actual critique. For the most part, the polygons are good. There are some iffy spots, though. Let's start with the cape. As the others have said, the cape is rather low-poly compared to the rest of the model. It only has 8 polygons to make the entire arc! It really stands out when compared to the rest of his body, which is nice and smooth. And yet, at the same time, the (somewhat thick) edge of the cape has 8 redundant polygons, making it take up 128 polygons instead of what would otherwise be 37. Now, while the shape of the cape is good, it's not really flexible. Because single triangles stretch all the way from the top to the bottom, the cape won't be able to bend or twist at all. A good cape has a grid-like arrangement of polygons, so that it can be bent and twisted in any way. I recommend starting over on the cape, as it would be too much of a hassle to try and convert the existing one.
Another iffy area is the shoulder pads. The shape of it is nice, but the automatic smoothing effect you used on it ruined the polygons. If you look closely at the upturned rim, you'll see it's all wrinkly and weirdly shaded. I hope you're able to undo the smoothing, or kept a backup of the shape before it was smoothed, as the shape itself is fine, and I'd hate for you to have to redo it.
The last part with iffy polygons is the head. The front part is great, aside from the little error in the ear I mentioned earlier. However, the spines are rather misshapen. It's very apparent if you view the head with shading/specular highlights. If you looked at a cross-section of the spines, you'd see that they aren't very circular, and have odd bumps and dents. It mostly stems from how the different spines connect to the head, and how they connect with each other. It's definitely a difficult thing to model given what it is. It will take some careful planning, but I believe you can rearrange the points and edges to make those spines rounder. Also, his mouth area is a bit low-poly, especially those hexagonal screws.
Finally, there is the textures. The use of ripped textures is fine, especially if you're try to make the model fit in with the style of the game. However, since you're listing the model as 100% from scratch, I'd include a disclaimer listing the textures that you didn't make yourself and that you got them from various Sonic games. On that note, there are some textures that you could make on your own. You have a nice, custom, high-resolution set of stripe textures on his head and legs, and then a pixelly 64x64 texture for his entire yellow ring, and even smaller for his eye. Same for the cape and bottom of his shoes. Your model would look even more impressive if you made custom high-res textures for these things instead of using pieces of other textures. Also, when doing custom textures, it's a good idea to stick to powers of 2 when it comes to the size of the image. I'm sure you've noticed that almost every game texture comes in sizes of 32, 64, 128, 256, or more. It's not strictly necessary, but it's a good idea. You could easily make Head.png 1024x1024 and scale up Calves.png to 512x512. Since Body.png is a solid color, though, you could shrink that all the way down to 32x32 if you wanted. It won't look any different on the model.
And that's all I've got so far. Sorry it's a bit much, but I like to be thorough. So yeah, great model so far, and I look forward to seeing you improve it. Also, is it rigged, or did you manually pose it for that screenshot?