Joker Speed Sculpt

I have a test model for a potential job so most of my time has been spent working on that. Thats why I haven't posted in awhile.

I needed to take a break because Zbrush just closed, and left me with a .zzz file. Didn't lose a lot of it was just one of those carp moments. I stopped working on it, if I had kept working on it would have gotten crappy and I probably would have broken my computer (never a good thing to do).

And to make myself feel better, I did a speed sculpt of the Joker (though I think I creeped myself out instead).

I did the "new face" one from the new 52. I was able to read the Batman and Robin one; and Joker is SOOOO creepy in that one. Playing with his face upside down and around; I noticed that you never see under the face"mask". I can't decide if that's creepy or really kind of them to do.

 So I did this in an hour. I was running out of time near the end (as usual), so the hair is not the greatest thing I have done. I was surprised at how long this took me. I have a video, I didn't check all my setting properly and ending up with the WHOLE Zbrush screen instead of just the document.

 

I was re-reading the ZBrush Professional Tips and Techniques (a VERY helpful book) and I was looking into some of the rendering and materials section and wanted to get Rose to look more realistic. 

And I was able to render her out like so. I still need to mess the BPR settings to get use to them to look better but I am in a better place. I was reading it again it help me with spotlight and that's how I was able to texture Rosa so well. I also needed some help with the test model.

 

 

I started working on Zatanna from the New 52 and the Shiva Cylce from FFXIII. Zatanna for some human practice again and the Shiva Cycle to get some hardsurface modeling under my belt.

Some more human practice.

This is a great combo of Human and Machine

 

 

 

Rosa, Full Circle

I have redone a character I did last year. I really, really, do hate myself for this model looking at the old one now. I may have had some brain damage at the time (probably when I was fighting those ninjas while saving a bus full of deaf and blind orphans in the care of nuns)

OLD Rosa



OLD Rosa

I was young, and really dumb. Really dumb, but being older I have made this new one

NEWEST Rosa

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 So I remade her.
As my new usual, I started with a Dynamesh Sphere and built form there.

This is an early shot, I was still working on the over all body and look.

The monkey and the crab are the ONLY 2 things that came from the old model. I think they were the only two good things out of that model.

At this point I had already polypainted the body and started posing her. I was toying with using Fibermesh but I chose not to because it did not look right. So all the hair is sculpted, even the eyelashes which turned out great.

 So I added some of the odd ends so she wouldn't look too naked. I was worried that the belt was too much and at number 3 she looked too busy.







But I think the 3rd one looks the best and she feels more complete.
Polypaint the odd ends, (shawl, whip belt...), on the Tposed model and the posed model. I used the Spotlight tool, Alpha channels and the Color Spray option to paint her.

Then a BPR render and check the model.

I am proud of this, I have gone full circle; from the really crap first model to this one. I plan on doing a low poly version of the model and hopefully get it done soon, so I can edit my reel to add her. I had planned to cover her in water drops but it didn't turn out like I had hoped. 

Clockwork Man, Rosa, HDR work

I have done a TON of things and they have all turned out really well so far.

First: I finished my submission for the Train your Brain Contest and my Clockwork Man turned out really well. I have been work on this concept for so long and I feel that I have final gotten it down.

"Where does this piece go?" The Clockwork Man does not know where the turn key goes, the head or the heart. 2 of the most important pieces to the being a person are both missing one piece. So, where does the last piece go?



 

So I built him in Zbrush and Softimage, rigged and posed in Soft. Lighting, texture and color were done in Zbrush. I like him and I am really glad it turned out well. Even better than I had thought it would. I was planning on this one being a Hardsurafe study but it turned into more of an anatomy study. 

Second: I have revisited Rosa. I look back at my old model and really, really hate myself for it but this time I got her down.

 

I still have a few odds and ends to add, but so far so good. I am work with Spotlight to texture and paint and I do not know how I lived without it. I want to make her "wet" so I am messing with modeling water on her skin. I want that out of the shower kind of wet and I really haven't tried anything like that in Zbrush before so I think it will be fun.



 

Third: I am trying more HDR work and what not. I want to do something with Faeris and I haven't found images online that I could use for good lighting that I like.

This isn't great, so I need to go hunting for some free HDR images and panoramas which isn't as easy as it sounds.

 

 

 

 

Works In Progress

For the Train your brain contest I am this far. I need to paint, light, finish sculpting the fabric and my favorite/painful part is to pose him. I have a base I am also working on, the pedestal for him to stand/sit on.

I am also getting a little better in photoshop and am in the middle of this picture. This was the idea I had and was thinking about doing a oil paint of. I may still do an oil painting but I figured it would be more constructive to work with photoshop some more. I have been looking at Gilles Beloeil's work, he worked on the Assassin's Creed games and his work is astounding.

Train Your Brain Contest: Clockwork Man WIP

I working on a model for the Train your Brain contest on DeviantArt. I am going to submit for the Entertainment 3D category. 

I am working on an old concept I did; a clockwork person/angel. In high school for my AP art class we had to come up with a concept and use that 1 concept in 6 different pieces of art. If I remember correctly I was planning on redoing old paintings of angels and doing them with this robotic theme. I did not do this concept instead I did a Tarot Card Circus theme with oil paints.

Anyway; I am at that stage in the sculpt where I haven't really dedicated myself to the work yet. Its at that starting point and I need to sit down and concept the body. I am studying a lot of machinery, clocks, old windup dolls and am working on a Clockwork skeleton that will be seen through out the body, like the neck area and the eyes.   This will be a project where I am going to jump from program to program. I am modeling the outer shell in Zbrush and the cogs and inner workings in Softimage.

The due date is Dec 3rd for the contest, so I really want to make this piece look as good as I can. I sculpted the head to see if I could match my concept and I think its okay. If the sculpt didn't turn out well then I wasn't going to bother. I am glad my skills have improved to the point where I can feel confident I can make this piece look really well.

So I will be working on this with all the spare time I have.

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With this Clockwork man I have a robotic/hard surface character. So I was thinking about doing an anime style character to model or a really cartoony character. I think I need to do both;do something outside my comfort zone and muddle through it. I mean Batman was a great stylized character but I would not call him cartoony.
 

New Character Reel

I have finished one of my new reels. My character reel. I plan on doing a reel to show my other work like my pre-production work, animatics, storyboarding and some compositing I did (a breakdown of the Chinese Dragon)

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https://vimeo.com/53200202

I show 3 characters: 2 of my own design and one of someone else’s; being a modeler I need to show that I can work with other's concept art. I have a creature (Hester), a stylized human (Batman) and a normal human design (Maria). I wanted to show each of the characters in a pose because no character will stay in a tpose; also to demonstrate that I can model low versions that can be easily rigged.

fydbac's Adoptable

I am continuing my work with someone else's design. I am working with other people art to show I can work with someone else concept and practice with single angled artwork. I am up to 2 models,  I would like to do 1 more.

I need to pick something that I wouldn't normally do and something that I wouldn't like to do. I know how that sounds but it isn't how I mean it. I need have someone else pick something, work on something that I have no real say in. I would like to have a robotic character, machine and so on. I really need to work on the hard surface machine and tech. Maybe something that I can use fibermesh and robotic.

Last time I work with Daniel Araya's Batman JLA design:
http://danielaraya.deviantart.com/art/JLA-CG-Concepts-Batman-180836600
http://djwiley.blogspot.com/2012/10/batman.html

 Now I am working with *fydbac's Adoptable Creatures. 

http://fydbac.deviantart.com/gallery/5687042?offset=48

He designs the "eggs" and then "hatches" them. I really like the idea of doing to designs on the eggs and building up to the character. His style is really amazing, everything feels soft and warm. I hoped to give that same feeling in the model.

I choose to work with his first Adoptable Creature: Faeris.

http://fydbac.deviantart.com/art/Adoptable-01-01-301701101

 I chose this one for a couple of reasons. I haven't done anything with fur in a long time and wanted to sculpt some fur. It was one of the first adoptable fydbac designed. I also had some experience with monkeys when I was working on Rosa's Squirrel Monkey.


I started with the dynamesh sphere and sculpted in Zbrush and the next day I added the paint. I had some difficulty with the face. Like DanielAraya's Batman the single view made things a little hard but the challenge is what I needed to make sure I improve. Painting this character was really fun too, I loved doing the fading and pink strokes on the fur.


Faeris Naked  Tpose

This was faster than Batman because it did not have so many parts (the armor, cape, belt). The clothes were easy to pose and move to the naked model, plus I wasn't planning on this character doing anything to dynamic.  Sculpting the fur was hard because I forgot that the fur would have to bend with the model on the shoulder and neck. Hence some of the harsh stretching in on the fur on the shoulder.

 Posing to match the reference was difficult, I could not get the head to turn and tilt as well and the tail was difficult to bend. I should mention I did not make a low model version and have to pose in Zbrush manually (masking and moving).

Compare

I posed him as best I could to the artwork and came up with this final design. I will try and do some environment work and maybe place him in a temple/forest setting. I have tiny details to work on and when I get to the lower model I can make some tweaks.

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I plan on working on this some more and hope to have a better look alike later. I need to revisit my other projects and need to improve them.

I was planning on doing fibermesh for the hair instead of sculpting the hair. I have a lot I need to work on. I have a drawing I want to work on but I feel like turning it into an oil painting.

My reel is in limbo for the moment. My rigger had some tech issues and I need to wait for my character to come back. Worst case I may replace the spot on the the reel with my Chinese dragon to so that I can model and composite a character into an environment. 

Batman Model

So I have a semi finished model of Batman.
I figured out a great way to use the UV master plug-in in Zbrush. Mask out the chunks of the model and turn them into there own groups.

For Example: I divide Batman's Chest, Back and Padding into different groups and different Subtools in Zbrush and then used the UV master on each one.



Body and Cape Diffuse Texture Map

So my UV's were made and then I exported the Subtools out and rearranged the UVs in Softimage XSI to get a better layout so I could easily edit them when I baked them in XNormal.

Left: Lower Model Right: DanielAraya's Concept

I reduced the amount of polygons from the Zbrush model and used the Softimage Biped Rig to do some quick poses. I need to go back over the model and fix some of the Weight Painting on the hips, they seem to follow the bone more than I want and it made the hips wider. When I posed it, it looks great but if I do more poses then I am defiantly going to have to fix the weighting.

I Googled "Batman Throwing a Batarang" and I saw the screencap from the Gotham Knight: Deadshot and it caught my eye right away. I was looking at the ones from Arkham City and from the animated version of Batman all the way to The Batman; but I wanted to do something more dynamic.  

Images from Google search

From: http://buildingbatman.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

So I went with this one. I believe this particular animation was done by madhouse and they also worked on Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (great movie and really good books).

I model a quick batarang based on the Arkham City designs. Batman's design is from http://danielaraya.deviantart.com/art/JLA-CG-Concepts-Batman-180836600.

 

I can see a future CGI JLA movie, especially if Beware the Batman and the Green Lantern show stay a hit. The style for Beware the Batman is done like the Green Lantern show so they would be the over all style. I kind of wish they would do a female show like the Birds of Prey for something different.

Last I heard the writers for Beware the Bat were focusing on the Batman's detective skills and using lesser know villains. I wonder if they will do Hush, I have only seen Hush in the DC universe online and in Arkham City; though I am sure the whole man cutting his face up and making himself into someone else thing may be a little to much for some. At least The Batman had a really really creepy Joker in Batman vs Dracula: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzcIKEAB9w 

Left: Batman from Beware the Batman Right: Hal Jordan from Green Lantern the Animated Series

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I mention Arkham City a lot because it was one of the last video games I have played and it was really good, wished it was longer though. But I just got Zero's Escape Virtues Last Reward for the Vita; amazing puzzle game, I loved the first one 9hours 9doors 9persons. If you really want to get your brain working and learn some interesting things get it.

Quick Update: Finished Dragon / Batman Painted

I got the Chinese Dragon finished, I am really glad the cards we had were blue, they are a nice offset with his red skin. This turned out really well. Adding the smoke was kind of hard but it really helps. I tried doing some depth and focus but it kind of turned into messy blur and really hurt to look at.

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The I finished painting the Batman model. I am in the middle of the doing a quick rig in Softimage to get some poses in.

The concept was done by http://danielaraya.deviantart.com/

 

Amazing Babioles / Batman model

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqZL8eSt384

This is a French show and it is made with blender. The babioles are little squeaky toys and they get into all sorts of trouble. The video and animation on these character are really well done. I have only seen the teasers online and a few seconds of the episodes and it looks amazing. Seeing this has given me some ideas for other things I want to do with my dragon and some more creatures I want to make; also messing with the depth of field on the image and focus on creatures are things I need to look into when I want to place character in a real life image.

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I am working on a Batman model. The concept belongs to DanielAraya; I am doing this because I want to show that I can work with someone elses concept. I have been doing a lot of my own designs and drawings that I really haven't been working with another persons style.


I saw this concept ages ago and thought it was amazing and really wished their was a cg Justice League movie. It could still happen, now that DC has Green Lantern and Beware the Batman (both cg TV shows) airing and planned to show on Cartoon Network.


http://danielaraya.deviantart.com/art/JLA-CG-Concepts-Batman-180836600



When I first saw this I thought it was a model and was really impressed. I later discovered it was as photoshop image and that made me love it even more. I searched to see if anyone else had modeled this concept before and really couldn't find anything, which I was really surprised at.


Left: My Model Right : DanielAraya's Concept

As far as working on the model, it has been really fun so far. I haven't done anything with this style and it really is easy get in the flow with this character design. The model still needs paint and a little more detail in the armor and cape. The hardest part of this has to be the legs and the feet. I don't have straight view so its kind of hard to see the proportions. When the paint is done I will need to put him in the same pose as the concept to see what needs to be touched up and corrected.



DC Nation… Has Been Replaced??

http://www.nickandmore.com/2012/10/13/dc-nation-has-been-replaced/

http://insidepulse.com/2012/10/13/no-more-young-justice-invasion-dc-nation-for-2012-on-cartoon-network-not-back-until-early-2013-updated-again/

Man Cartoon Network needs to get there act together.
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So new episodes in January 2013. Kind of annoying to show 2 episodes and leave people hanging. Looking at the fact they moved Young Justice Invasion back to January 2013 probably means they want it to air for the Legacy game in February 2013, but this could have been planned a lot better. 

Cartoon Network has really hurt itself with this. I am so happy that DC Nation wasn't canceled but the fact that they just dropped it all I mean ALL, no re runs or anything doesn't really seem like the best thing to do. 20th anniversary or not, i mean they should show DC Nation after they NUKED Toonami.

 

Update

Left: Concept Right: Model

This is where the sculpt is so far. I am working on the body and fat more, the other person still needs more work along with the hands.

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I also did an hour speed sculpt today. 9:00am to 10:30am. Not bad, I wanted to see how much I had improved from my last speed sculpt I posted.

https://vimeo.com/51150270

 

I have been looking at this Japanese arcade game. Lord of Vermilion and the artwork on the cards is amazing and really detailed and I have just been hunting the Internet trying to see as many of them as I can, till I found the artbooks at playasia. And seeing some of these just inspired me to sculpt a character.

LoV card Shiva. From http://beautyrender.blogspot.com/2011/12/lord-of-vermilion-game-art.html

 

 

Human body Sculpt 2

So I have been drawing a lot and I got inspired to do a human sculpt again.

 These are a mix of people watching, TV, the Internet and pictures I took at the Art Institute.

 

So I looked up an old drawing I had done and started work off of that.

This is better than the last one I started, there is a lot I have to do but I don't think its that bad for a starting point.

Along with drawing, I looked at one of those random word generators.  I used this one http://www.seventhsanctum.com/ for a creature idea and got
"This mysterious being is the incarnation of living peoples misery. It looks like an eagle bent into the form of a cobra. It's coffee colored skin is covered in oozing openings."

I am still working on the model and I plan on coloring the sketch and home to have this done along with the human sculpt.

Young Justice Legacy- Why the website character models need poses

So as I said earlier, I really think the models should be posed on the Young Justice Legacy website. So, to put my money where my mouth is I did a quick model of Klarion.

So here is the model of Klarion from the website.

http://www.youngjusticelegacy.com/overview/villains

Now for a pose I Googled Klarion and noticed that there were a lot of images and versions of Klarion with Teekl on his shoulder. So I went with that pose in mind; but I think it would be cool if the poses not only show the personality of each of the characters but there powers/skills as well. Not knowing what Klarion does in the game I am going of the Fireball/Energy ball moves he uses in the episodes Denial and Misplaced.

 http://www.comicvine.com/klarion/29-11976/http://www.batman-superman.com/batman/cmp/klarion.html
http://bentfire.tumblr.com/post/18649746213/young-justice-screencap-log

http://bentfire.tumblr.com/post/18649746213/young-justice-screencap-log


http://bentfire.tumblr.com/post/18649746213/young-justice-screencap-log

 So I modeled Klarion with this pose real quick; started at 10pm and its 2:30am now.

 

 

  Imagine a flame or energy ball in is raised hand. So, I think it would be a great improvement if they changed out there tposed images for some posed version because it would make the characters look so much more dynamic and not so plain.

Left From: http://www.youngjusticelegacy.com/overview/villains
Right I modeled

 A great example is the Batman Arkham City Game, all of the character models (Trophies) are posed and give the characters more life.