Characters and Creatures

I have been doing more sketching and drawing and found an interesting suggestion. Close your eyes and let you hand wander on the page and then make that scribble into something. I treat my scribbles as silhouettes for the characters I see

I think I will take one of these little guys and do some speed Sculpting. These are only a few of the batch I have done. I am really looking at hardsurafce design and was inspired by Metal Gear Rising style but more on that later

 The Deity is okay so far, I don't know what but the Fibers don't seem to render properly and I think it looks wrong.

The Post Apocalypse scene is coming and going I have the scene laid out but I am not sure if I am will add the flying version of the creature. The scene seems to crowded as it is. Maybe a dead one in the sand to break up the sand behind the character.





Rosa's new pose is coming along I am not sure if it exactly what I had in mind. I wanted to do a new pose but I think this is just one those things that I did because I like posing a character and seeing the personality come out.






 

I have been looking at Metal Gear Rising and I love the style, the metallic anatomy of the characters. I really need to do some hardsurface work and I think I have a decent concept in mind. I looked through all of the concept art I could find of the Metal Gear Series. One of the sites I visit is http://www.creativeuncut.com/, it has all kinds of production art and concepts of games and character designs. And I have been analyzing the concepts and working them out.

Still in heavy WIP but I have high hopes, semi good start. I am jumping from Zbrush to XSI

I am working on the Pieta again and I am working on Mary, and lord the wrinkles and folds are painful but it has been fun. Fold-Zilla and Wrinkle-Soruas I have taken to calling her.

Here are some of the things I have been doing for my modeling class at CG Society.













I have seen a lot of amazing movies recently, I saw Rise of the Guardians and it was not what I thought it would be. There was a ton of action and interesting effects. I loved the way they made Jack Frost's ice act like lighting; fascinating idea to make the Tooth Fairy a humming bird. Les Miserables was interesting, I have never seen it before and it was well done. I feel like every Disney female character song came from Les Mis. Interesting Cinematography making everyone be off center and super focused.

Work Work and Reading

I am working on the scene of the post apocalypse character for the CG Hub Challenge. I am toying with using the creature I sculpted. I need to perfect the sand and play with the lighting. I am planning on using this character in my reel when I have the whole scene finished.

Yet another reel piece, I am toying with the environment for Rosa, and I am perfecting my animation as best as I can. And I have revisited the Zbrush model cleaned up the anatomy errors. I have a new pose in mind for her Zbrush model, if I can get it to look right I will used that instead of the one she has now.

I fixed her hands and cleaned the feet up on the this model (this is the old image and pose) I am thinking about putting her in a whole semi-scene like I had her riding the crab from the first concept I had.  

I am putting the Djinn to the side, not because he isn't good or unfinished, I think it would be better to perfect what I have. I am still modeling more characters but I am spending time fine tuning the ones I have. I am rigging the Djinn still and given my animation skills I may ask someone to animate him, if the rig is good enough. I want to show that I can do a little bit of everything, lighting, rigging, animation and some compositing.

Most people would say "don't put it on your really if it isn't great", then when I say "I can animate on a pre-viz/pre production level" they'll ask "why don't you have animation on your reel?" The catch 20-20. Though I am may be over thinking somethings I am still of the opinion it is better to prepare for the worst and pray for the best.  Anyway,

I have a pose of the Deity, I am really proud of how the hands turned out on this. The leg arms and the back ones I really like. I want to get all of those intense feelings into the whole body. A feeling of loss, anger and defeat. I need to do the fibers/fur still and the background but its coming along. I might have this on my reel but I don't know if having him would be a good idea. I am trying to show a variety of characters; I might have him as the creature but I'm not sure yet. 

Also along the same sad, emotional line. I read Batman and Robin #18, and it was inspiring. It is a silent comic, no one said anything and I didn't even notice that till I read it again. I loved this panel because it hurt so much; I never read the issues when Jason died but I saw Under the Red Hood and it was really really sad, and they ended it with Jason saying "This is the greatest day of my life" when he was a young Robin, tore my heart out. This comic just ripped my heart out and turned into the tiny pieces of lint you find in your pockets. I also love the panel when Batman is in the shower and his suit is covered in blood and he looks so broken. All I can think about when I read this comic now is "Pity the Grieving man, Fear the Grieving Father"

Post Apoc / Sketches / YJ GLTAS Animatics

 So here is where my Post Apocalypse character is for the CG hub Challenge is so far. I wanted to do something with a semi real twist. I thought what would I take with me in my house to start with and I wanted to get away from the classic gas mask military look. I looked at a lot of sport gear and amour.

My character turned into an escaped prisoner, I didn't him to have a gun because as cool as that would look you still need bullets. I am having fun making a grimmer character. I wanted to make him super detailed and yet simple at the same time. The swords are Thai E-nep Knives, I was inspire by Black Lagoon character Shenwa and Kratos from God of War.

 

A good start just down to working on the shapes and cleaning up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CG Society Classes started and it seems really nice, great feed back and interesting instructors. Its really nice that they aren't heavy and don't have to be on this time to this time and so on. It's designed for people who are still working and I think that is wonderful. I would love to take more classes if they are as good as this one is. I am really excited about what is to come for the next 7 weeks. 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 So I finished the Djinn character, now I need to rig him. I am debating whether I should rig him myself or ask someone to rig him and then I can animate him. I don't want the Djinn and Rosa on the same reel, it seem kind of redundant to me. Having someone do the rig show I made a model and someone can rig it (Team work yeah) and then I can animate it OR do all of it myself and show I understand and can do most of the parts (Also yeah).

I am working on a lot of personal projects: I want to build more of an environment for Rosa, something besides the chair and plain floor, I reposed the Deity and am working on cleaning and making the environment, I also have another character planned and working on my sketching skills and just drawing in general.

 

 These are two characters I have in mind. Both have some armor and hard surface components I need to practice on.

Some sketches I did while watching Young Justice and Green Lantern The Animated Series.


I love Brett Booth's work/style, he works on the Teen Titans New 52. I might sit and work on Red Robin again and redo him; if I can get a good rig for the Djinn going then I can have that as a body base template and just add bones as needs be.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found some animatics of Green Lantern and Young Justice (Both so cool).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XptTX3f4K9s&feature=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7S7ioz589s

I love seeing these, I wonder what a script looks like as in how they write the action scenes. I love going through and seeing the notes and everything.

Now I want to see a previz of the Green Lantern animatic, I saw the episode and it was interesting, I wonder if they were planning on doing an episode when Sinestro turned to fear. Also did anyone else notice the black ring book in the science directors room sucks that the series MAYBE not completed.

http://savetheheroes.com/

I am thinking about sending a death box, like have Zatanna bow tie with a bullet hole in it and some pieces of everyone on the team and have them broken and then have a little blue something in there that says please bring back the show, kind of like Pandora's box and a tiny thing of hope.