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. 

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.
 

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.



Update

My computer was sent in and now back again and it is great. I am working on my projects and am LOVING  Zbrush 4r4. I have alot of things happening and hope for more to come.

 I am working on my female character and she is coming along nicely. I got Zbrush professional tips and techniques  [http://www.amazon.com/ZBrush-Professional-Tips-Techniques-Gaboury/dp/1118066804] and it is a wonderful book, I knew most of the tricks but its nice to have them so handy. I am hoping to get her finished and ask one of my friends to rig her.

 This is a character I have thought of and so on. I am going to start storyboarding more of my work and try and get my speed drawing, story telling to a better level and work on photoshop more. I need to do more work with it, start drawing in it and all,

I usually do pencil, paper and scan but my colors and shadows are not that great so I am hunting for advice and what not. So far my best find has been this site and it is wonderful http://artiststoolbox.tumblr.com/tags