2013 Year Review: what to do 2014

http://djwiley.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-clean-sheet.html

So January 2nd at the start of this year I made a list of all my work in 2012 and looked at what I did, where I needed to improve myself and where do I need focus my art and study in which direction.

At the start of this year I made a list of what I needed to do:
What I need to accomplish for 2013 (for my art):

• Human body: Perfect Female Sculpt and do More male sculpts

Human Sculpts 2013

 There are repeats in each of these sections but that's because they feed into each other. My body sculpting is getting there, nothing perfect but I think I have the right direction. Like all art it is just working with it every day and just study muscles and perfecting areas. Looking at these I think my feet are the next area to focus on and back to hand sculpts as well.

• SOMETHING with hardsurfaces i.e. Robotics, Metal

Hardsurface 2013

This is where I have failed this year, This is my only Hardsurface character which I have actually gone back to and started sculpting and modeling him again; I have looked at more concepts and drawing and don't know what I was thinking. So this is a "must fix" for 2014.

• More HDR work and rendering

Rendering 2013



It sounds kind of silly but I am proud of my compositing HDR rendering work. I love the re-render of Hester and Rosa. Dion (top center) is one of my more realistic renders but there is still so much more I need to figure out to get it to that nearly perfect place. The Real Monsters (top right) did turn out well and all posed and render with Zbrush. I do need to perfect my render setting outside of Zbrush. From this the toilet toy (bottom 2nd from the left) is the only thing not rendered in Zbrush.

• Work on lower ver models

Low Models 2013

2 of these are WIP, my hardsurface character is not my favorite of the year, I see so much wrong with him and I kind of wish I could yell at my old self about how bad this is. Granted I am yelling at myself about things I did in March. Need to do more low modeling; depending on the project I will jump from my import alphas or start with a dynamesh sphere, I really enjoy dynamesh but I need to do more retypos on those models then. I also need to generally improve my maps and posing too as always.

• More drawing.

Drawing 2013

I have been doing more drawing and sketching, I think I went through 3 sketch books. I have stared doing something that has been very helpful for my drawing and modeling work. At the start of all my sketchbooks now I have the first 4-5 pages of nothing but simple anatomy drawings and I keep redoing them for all my sketchbooks.

First 5 Pages

• Monsters, creatures,

Creatures 2013

A small start, but I do need to work on my quadruped animals and less on the biped one. And do some more alien focused anatomy and design but I think I will start with studying other peoples work and then do some of my own design.

• Mouths from a Dynamesh Model, so I don't always have a closed mouth on the model.

Mouths 2013

I said this because all of my model had all their mouths closed and it felt like a really weird thing to point out but I wanted to get more expression out of my characters. This is really a mute point but I have started more sculpts with my alpha meshes, so the mouths are already there. I paint them in Zbrush but its usually dark and I haven't had a large open mouth something to worry about.

*A new addition to the start of the year*

• Other peoples concepts and style

Others Concepts 2013

So I did a little bit of this when I did Daniel Araya's Batman; which I think I will redo; and fydbac's Adoptable. But I have recently and I believe successfully modeled the style and work of both Toby Allen's(http://zestydoesthings.tumblr.com)  Real Monsters and Stephen McCraine's character (http://doodlealley.com/). I am thinking about doing some comission work. I won't make it super expensive and I will sell my self sort for a little awhile; I want and need the practice of working on something that I did not choose myself.

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So my new list for 2014 To Do:

• continue to work on human figure
• More hardsurface characters: Robots, Hardsurface, Fantasy Armor,
• Improve my rendering outside of Zbrush: Mental Ray, Softimage,
• More time on the low models: retypo's and more alpha modeling.
• continue drawing and sketching concepts; have a more finished concept before modeling it.
• More Quad animals less Bipeds and more alien designs; others concept and mine
• Work more with other peoples concepts

So there is my list of things I need to improve during the 2014 for myself and to improve myself in not only being a character artist but as a more well rounded artist all together.

Brick By Brick

This is something I did for the AWESOME Stephen McCraine. The maker of http://doodlealley.com/, and his wonderful words of wisdom. His book is about to be made/well done 4 times over on Kickstart: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stephenmccranie/brick-by-brick.
I did this as a thank you to Stephen and his work which has been very inspirational and comforting for me. His work has helped stay driven and focused on improving myself as an artist and getting to where I want to be in life. I added somethings from the chapters and titles from the book to the work.

Reference Sheet

BPR Render

 

Real Monsters: Anxiety, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Depression

Artwork by Toby Allen

This is a small project I did a while ago. I needed to improve my creature and stylized sculpting and ran into these “Real Monsters” by Toby Allen (http://zestydoesthings.tumblr.com). And asked if I could model them, and he agreed to allow me to model them and I am glad that they ahve turned out so well.

So I modeled out some of the real monsters.

 All of these guys were done in Zbrush with Dynamesh and render in Zbrush for the compositied images as well.

Textures

 

Artwork by Toby Allen

 I had a fun time modeling him and sculpting his face. I had planned on using chameleon skin texture but it seemed to bland and thought the fish/snake scales add a more dynamic look.

Textures

Artwork by Toby Allen

I have been improving my compositing and render skills and enjoyed comping these guys on my computer and on to me. I did all of the models in Zbrush and I plan to have them printed as soon as I can find a good service.

Emotional Assault

New Works

I haven been doing some odd work and projects and these works are things I have had done for a while or in my spare time

Here is the Pirate Zbrush model posed and fixed. I wanted to have a powerfully bored poses.

I worked on some more of my zodiac characters; people names astrology and so on. This is my own character I workedThis is the Zbrush model, I wanted to incorperate a holy man element.

I had a hard time fixing the texture maps on the low model to get the fibers and threads to look right.

 Did a qucik envoirment model, for some more practice. I modeled the arcs and stairs in Softimage and sculpted the rock in Zbrush.
 I wanted to have a mountain/cathedral; this is also based on the Hemit Tarot card, an old man at the top of a mounain. I painted the mountains and sky in the background in photoshop after I render it

This Dion; he is a taurus, he rules earth and the neck. Chinese zodiac is a wood sheep. I wanted to have his body look like a desert and earth; the sheep skull and cracks on the body. I wanted to have a tree/rock elements in the back arms and the in the legs, tree bark chips on the fingers.

 

 So when I was young I wanted to make my own action figures. So my mom gave me an tube of toilet paper and told me to make my action figure from that. I used markers, glue, chopsticks, construstion paper and notebook paper to make him and it wasn't the most amazing thing but it was my own. It taught me that even if it isn't the most amazing thing yet; it was my own, something I can say I made with my own two hands and to be proud of it.

It also says my family were cheap #$%^ers and dirt poor,

ANYWAY, I am planning on rigging and animating this little guy for one of my side projects and get it in a live enviorment and have some fun animation

I tested the lighting for the model and am working on the envoirment 

  http://fydbac.deviantart.com/art/hatchling-17-87-gifted-359739234

I worked on another of *fydbac's hatchlings: Snake. I really like the fabric arms/hands. I think it would be really cool to animate a fight scene with this one.

I did some Marvel Fanart, I want to make a realistic character. I went with Wiccan sense I enjoy magic and the design was simple. I am working with multiple Zbrush Materials and texture maps to sculpt the outfit. I tried to find as many leather images I could find for different parts of the outfit.

Wiccan is a reality warper and his magic is blue; so I think of it as a kind of spark of life/flames of creation. So I wanted to combine fire and eletricity.

I did some test in Zbrush but it turned out to be more water like than fire. His cape remindes me of Vincent Valentine from FFVII.

These are some really helpful websites I have been looking at while I work.

http://artist-refs.tumblr.com/

http://www.cgtextures.com/

 

Mech Character / Steam Pirate / Pose

I have gotten a lot done and have some characters to show and some updates as well. So this is a big one.

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My hardsurface/Metal Gear Character is done. I wanted to do something with hardsurface and I really haven't done any before. I looked at the Metal Gear Series for an idea. Its not purely hardsurface, more that it has hardsurface componets and a tech style body.

Ref sheet

I found everything thing I could (toys, art, screenshots) and some more concepts and art from the previous games at http://www.creativeuncut.com/


Concept

I roughed out an idea of the character nothing amazing just need to have a blueprint
I started in Zbrush with this model and then I used Softimage for retopologizing. I find that Softimage has the most effective tools for modeling and polygon sculpting. I save so much time on retopologizing in Softimage compared to working in Maya.

WIP

I used Fibermesh to make the hair and I was able to then double it for textures on the face and the low polygon hair.

Final Zbrush model
 

Low Texture version

Low wireframe

I used the tech blades made by z-design and turned them into 3D models. I did have them as a texture and used alphas and so on but my little computer had a heart attack trying to do all that so I just made things easier and rendered them out in layers.

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This other character was done for multiple reasons.
1. I wanted to work on my lower edge flow and perfect some of my lower modeling
2. I wanted to try some clothing
3 and finally I wanted to do an older character with wounds.

So I started find some reference and did some sketches. I wanted to do a Steam punk kind of Pirate woman but it turned into more of a Victorian bad ass/angry woman.


Concept

Ref

I started modeling her in Maya, got the jacket and frills on the shirt done in Softimage and jumped to Zbrush. At this Point I was jumping from the low Zbrush and the low model. I had the UV's set before going into Zbrush to save me some possible pain.

WIP 1

WIP 2

I wanted her wounds to be on her face and look like an Octopus attack and have some cuts and so on. I had a hell of a time trying to find fresh squid/octopus attacks. I found some but than I looked at the marks Leeches leave, similar circle mouth marks I had in mind, and found some great references.

 

Zbrush Polypaint

The Pocket and belts are 50% from the Zbursh tool and 50 what I had modeled before hand. I have her posed, lit and rendered.

Low Model Textured

Low Wireframe

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I am really close to having my newest reel done Just a few more things to render and pose the pirate woman and I will be golden.

 

I finished the PolySculpt class at CG Society and was glad I did. I had only used Maya to animate and do particle effects in and only a little bit of modeling. So that was a great help. I am now taking a Hardsurface modeling class and getting some more modeling tips in Maya and Zbrush.

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 Looking at my Reel I have about 7 characters and everything is looking good but I had to change the pose of Rosa or Hester

They basically have the same pose, So I wanted to change one of them. I have Rosa re-posed and I have an idea for Hester. I will pose Hester and see how the two look.

This is Rosa's new pose I used a stock image from http://faestock.deviantart.com/  as a base pose. I like it but I am not going to say 'yeah' yet till I see how Hester's re-pose comes out; might keep both will see.

http://faestock.deviantart.com/art/Valentine19-367363261

 

Hester still got it; granted it died along the road ages ago. I might keep this pose; I seem to have this sexy pose thing going on today. Rosa looks like a gypsy and Hester is out man hunting(scaring)