Double Feature

Two posts in one night, back to back! I'm on some kind of a roll. Anyways I kinda wandered into a daily paint group on FB. Thirty minutes, no photos, pure painting, random topics everyday. It's pretty fun considering how hectic I felt under the gun. I'm just more impressed with how far I got in that time. Nice to see that I can still kind of paint.

Pumpkinz

Well our final turned out to be a simple pumpkin. Not wanting to accept something so mundane for a final (albeit we only had a week...) I tried to make the headless horseman instead. So I banged this bad boy out and set off to build him a suit of armor.

Then Sunday night rolls up and I couldn't get anything I sculpted to look the way I wanted. I think the problem was I went ahead and didn't think this through the the get go. I should of designed my horseman as a whole before I dove in. I would of had a plan all worked out on paper as well as a defined look and goal. Alas, hindsight is 20/20 and so I just colored it up in zBrush and turned it in somewhat disappointed with myself. My professor thought it was cool, I just wished I could of made it more in the time I had.

Met Jackson Sze, and here's a door

Before my usual blurb about whatever I posted have to say I met Jackson Sze at a workshop at our school over the weekend. He's a really good artist and a damn good painter and he's worked on some cool stuff. Ended the day with a signed copy of Battle Milk 2, it was a good day haha. I really want to paint after his workshop.

Now back on topic, and something out of my comfort zone but homework is homework. Had to make a door of any type (Sci-fi, Fantasy, etc.), and originally I had planned a pretty elaborate sci-fi door. However, two days before I had to turn in the assignment I realized I had no idea how I was going to texture the whole thing let alone unwrap it.

So after a bit of freaking out I redoubled my efforts on a fantasy door. What started as a dwarf head/door I came up with this instead. Some kind of door to an otherworldly dimension of demons or miscellaneous other bad things, or good things I suppose anything's possible.

Took a lot of shortcuts to get this done as fast as I did. About 30k tris, and an texture pass greatly helped by dDO. It's all on one 2048 as well with plenty of room left to cram some smaller extras in to. When you gotta get stuff done, you have to get it done though. There was supposed to be light beams coming out of the central crack in the door. My alpha cards only rendered straight-up green, despite my alphas. I'll just ask my professor when I get to class tonight. I will admit I totally stole the Darksiders' Horsemen logo though, I had the largest mental block figuring out something to put on the door.

Also looking at it again, it should be noted the door opens inward, and thanks to my friend Chris (Same name I know.) for letting me use his lighting rig. Makes things instantly prettier haha.

Programs used: zBrush, Maya, 3Ds Max, 3dCoat, dDO, Photoshop

HUDs Up

Work in progress render for the HUD/face of Marie for First Contact. The changes from the original (albeit rushed) first version are pretty dramatic. Having actual hair for one was a pretty big deal haha. Only thing left for me to do is play with the spec map to behave more like I want, and I'm calling this done. Gonna be a nice improvement over our placeholder.

Something Cartoony

Just wanted to get something out there that wasn't 3d. Plus, I couldn't sleep. So I drew Marie without her helmet. I wanted to do it all fancy-like but I couldn't spend too long on this. As I type right now my eyes want to close so bad haha. Off to bed as soon as I post this.

Forgot the Spec

Totally did not notice, her spec maps had somewhere along the pipeline got disconnected. How I did not notice till now amazes me. It also means our short was rendered without her spec maps as well... crap... Ah well, live and learn right?

Last One I Promise...

Just had to try a couple more...