The Clean Sheet

2012 has passed. I look at ALL of my best works and doings and see what I did and where I need to improve and set my sights for next year.



Make a list of what I need to accomplish for 2013 (for my art):

• Human body: Perfect Female Sculpt and do More male sculpts
• SOMETHING with hardsurfaces i.e. Robotics, Metal
• More HDR work and rendering
• Work on lower ver models
• More drawing.
• Monsters, creatures, 
• Mouths from a Dynamesh Model, so I don't always have a closed mouth on the model.

I did some work over the Christmas break/season and finished Zatanna. I also added 4r5 to my system, the auto save feature is really nice, but I hate how the model disappears for a second when I reengage the software.

 It was fun doing the frill/fabric on the corset.  Her hair was the hardest part, it just didn't look right. But then I looked at the Tpose of Rosa and realized, that it's because the face has nothing to it. No Expression

 So I started posing and was shift through Tumblr, and found a image of Zatanna with a cool pose. The over all pose turned out fine but I realized the most important part and something I need to work on. Is the mouth. I need to find a way to sculpt the inside of the mouth for my models in Zbrush. Usually I do the inside of the mouth when I make a low poly version and texture it that way.

I did some drawing as well. Something I haven't done in a while; it was nice to do something outside of tech land.

 

Progress

The detective bar scene is done and is looking great. I am starting another one, with the same cast of characters. A scene with a murder Hester; I am trying to find the best angle to shot and I haven't decided if the detective should be sitting or standing. I kept thinking about the Black Dahlia movie when I was working on this scene

 

I am working on my photoshop coloring skills. I am reading a 30 day challenge I found at http://pb-resources.tumblr.com/tagged/tutorial: "Day 10. Style Day1- pick an artist with a unique style and emulate it!" I re-watched the Legend of Korra's on DVR and am so glad that the stands for American cartoons are being raised. The story and detail are on the same level as many animes. And I called the next season of Korra, a more focused look on the spiritual side of the world. Unlike the original Airbender show there were no spiritual things beside the mention made by Amon at the start; the first series had the swamp and owl in the desert and so on. Korra reminds me of the water bender Avatar Kuruk, who lost his love to Koh the face stealer. I think Koh will be showing up again.

Maria is coming along, details worked in and next step is Polypaint and I am about halfway through the low model version. When Maria is done then I will have my models for my reel and replace my old school one. 

Finding the momentum

I have been finding those helpful thoughts and pointers that get the brain working and this site has a lot of helpful and just great things to help when I hit a wall and can't find that spark.
http://pb-resources.tumblr.com/tagged/resource. I have also been reading those random word generators; I am planning on playing with a few of them and try and speed sculpt one of the odd creatures that it generates.

I have been working on my Photoshop skills and did this quick coloring job today and fine tuning my execution.The skin tone palette was really helpful. I found it in the http://artiststoolbox.tumblr.com/tags.



http://artiststoolbox.tumblr.com/tags

This is a quick speed sculpt I did yesterday to just do something different and not get so frustrated with a project that I end up destroying it completely. I only gave myself a half hour maybe 45 to do it.

Some of my friends said I need to add things to the tables in the scene and make it seem not so empty. I still need to texture the extra things and add some more things, bottles, maybe another hat, things people left and so on. I think this is coming along well.

This is my female character I am working on. I need to work on the fine details in the clothes but the next step is adding the hands and feet. I am using the ones that come with zbrush as place holders and reference. I have a pair of hands I had built earlier and just need to attach them and work on the shoes.

 

I made different versions of the Hood. When I get this out and make a lower model I will make sure to use the hood up and arm zippers open so everything with function the way it need to. She is coming along wonderfully and I hope to have her done by the end of the month. 

I found an old story concept I made in school and am going to touch the images and make an animatic and try and model the characters in my free time.  I need to get my Photoshop and After Effects whipped back into shape. I also want to model out the Chinese dragon I drew sometime ago.  So I got some silver Christmas ornaments and am hoping they will help me get a decent HDR image I can work with and light the scene. I am planning on using the kitchen table so we will see how it goes.

Work and keep moving

So my computer had a little hic up and had to be cleaned, updated, the works; seems to be doing fine now.For my work so far the ArenaNet Witch is done.

Concept by Hyojin Ahn

While my computer was being worked on I was able to get some sketching done and doodle some ideas I have been toying with.

 Reacquainting myself with anatomy and details of the human body.

Imperfection is the greatest perfection of beauty to be. I have been doing some reading (the old paper books, nothing beats the smell of a new book) and finding more quotes to help inspire me. The quote is mine and a combination of things I read from Osho Ranjeesh 

 This is a fanart piece I started ages ago and re visited it. This Ragnarok from Final Fantasy XIII. I thought the design was really cool, intricate and an interesting pose to go with it would be neat. I choose to revisit this one to practice my coloring again, its not done yet; I still have a lot of feather tipping to do.

This is an idea I would really like to model and probably will. I have been spending some of my break time at the pool and seeing the amount of ink on people really got me thinking. The sketch is a man who has a tattoo of a woman on his side and she comes out/alive half way up and out. I loved the idea of tattoos coming to life and off of the skin, so when I finish this batch of projects I would love to work on this one.

Once my computer was fixed I was able to pick up and start this detective scene. So this where it is so far. I have the detective Ram in low poly, textured and rigged. The vixen isn't really done just the portion in the camera to give the effect. 

And for my last and latest trick, I am working on a character I have been toying with for awhile. I sill have a ways to go but so far so good. I think the hair is where I will start, I now that it is a micro detail but I think it will help me with the rest of her when I start to work on the clothes I have in mind and all.

The Week: Red Robin DC Comics, ArenaNet, Detective Character

 For the past three days my computer has been acting funky; an hour to boot up and then I had the Blue Screen of Death on Wensday, so that slowed me down. I did not completely reach my goal for a new reel. I have Hester and Red Robin done but I feel like I need a third model, something different. I think I need to really look and study some hard surface models. A car monster or mecha something to work on my tech side. As for my work so far:



Red Robin

 

 He is almost there, not yet. There is more I can do with the poly painting and more definition in the clothes now that I look at the comparison of the two images.

He feels really, really plain and dull when I look at him in the Tpose stance. When I posed him [the image below] I think he is so much cooler and more dynamic, and maybe thats good, when animated he would look so much more detailed than he really is. Like Phil Bourassa 's style; it is really simple and but when animated it is really dynamic. I worked on a storyboard project in school and we did a super hero story and I was in characters and drawing the boards and scenes for the animatic. We wanted the same style ad Young Justice so I learned that his style is very simpe and his detail is in the coloring of the characters.



Overall I am proud of this one; if for no other reason because I was aiming to work on the style of a comic book character and I feel I have accomplished that. I really love the pose I choose and am proud of the way his wing/cape turned out.

ArenaNet Character

ArenaNet posted a job for character artist, and set the paramenters of choosing one of two concpets to work with and model. High poly sculpt to the low poly model, 6,500 triangles, textures and so on. I did not see this till the 16/17th so this is how far I am with the model. This is were most of my energy has been focused so this is a large part of the reason I put my reel to the side.



When I am having issues with high sculpt I work on retypologizing the areas I have finished. I am using Zbrush, Softimage and eventually Roadkill and XNormal when I finish the low poly build. This model has been very challenging and fun for me to make; the fur and the amount of detail in her clothes has been the most difficult.

There is a lot of detail I need to still do. The wolf designs on the wrists, the shoes, bangels and then polypainting and the low poly base. Looking at the comparison I need to make her legs skinner, mostly in the inner thigh area, but she is coming along

Detective Characters: Vixen

As for my detecive characters I am kind of stuck there. I need the Lauren Bacall female interest character and I did a REALLY REALLY ROUGH dynamesh sculpt to try and get an idea. For this one I went with a fox but I don't think it is turing out as well as I had hoped. So I am trying to think of a different animal that I could use for the character. So far I tried sketching out a weasel and

this fox, maybe a type of cat/feline would be better for the character.

I have been revisting some of my old sketches and trying to think which animal would fit this character



Hester and her Hen House

My sister recently went on a trip to India and took tons of pictures. At the Mysore Zoo she snapped a photo of a an animal.

 

Come to find out it is called the Cassowary and is a flightless bird from Australia.

The ugly thing made great inspiration for an old brothel owner to add to Dectective Ram's universe.

I started with a sphere and then hit the Dynamesh button and started working.

 

I then added the gaudy old lady makeup based on the bird's colorings, gave her some vintage madame apparel, and Hester is ready for work!

 

Speed Sculpts and Detective Touches