Eoin Cannon's Sketchbook

Sgt. Colon

2012-01-26T04:43:00.000-08:00

Added to speed sculpt, blocking out a body and costume elements

My take on Josh Kidby's illustration of Terry Pratchett's Discworld character Sgt. Colon from the watch.

Needs a fair few more costume elements blocked in; cape, badge, belts, leg armor etc.

Speed Sculpt

2012-01-24T03:10:00.001-08:00

About an hour starting from a sphere using dynamesh

Jackrum WIP2

2012-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tweaking of the shader and attempting to balance details

This has a little bit of sharpen added in photoshop as I was trying to get that high contrast B&W
look like the photography of Mark Story

I'm having a few issues balancing the shader glossiness/spec and the light size and intensity, I seem to be chasing them round in circles a bit.
Need to make eyebrows and eyelashes and maybe tiny facial hairs

Jackrum WIP1

2011-12-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Started a sculpt a few days ago of sergeant Jackrum from Terry Practhett's Discworld novel "Monstrous Regiment"
The expression is supposed to be a bit more evil and less bewildered than it is now
Costume elements are just at blocking stage this far

Max, zbrush, mari, vray

Different lighting and some more work on the shader

Dragon

2011-11-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

Jono Friesler wanted the head/neck of a dragon for a project he's working on.
I thought it would be a good chance to do the whole thing, everything is wip at the moment, lots of zbrush needed.
I put in a CAT rig to pose it for testing.

Speedsculpt with dynamesh

2011-09-24T08:29:00.003-07:00

Just got Zbrush 4R2 and was mucking around with dynamesh from a sphere, good fun and should be a useful tool

more work

2011-09-11T04:44:00.000-07:00

More work on everything
Most stuff is at some stage of WIP
Still adding bits to the costume as I go

Work on the face

2011-08-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get some texturing going and try some blending of displacements coming out of Zbrush with painted ones and getting a bit of a shader together. Lots of tweaking needed.
Getting some good (but harsh!) feedback from Julie about the harmony of the facial details so I have a fair way to go to balance them out properly. Just found a rogue colour correct that was boosting the amount of red in the diffuse, which probably isn't helping. Colour blindness is starting to be a pain in the arse.

WIP #2

2011-08-14T06:11:00.001-07:00

Had a bit of time to spend on this guy over the weekend
Some bad stuff going on in the ribcage area but coming along
Still struggling with a costume

Ogre type thing WIP

2011-08-02T05:59:00.000-07:00

Made this in a few hours from my human base mesh. I would like to take it further but I'll see what happens. The head design was heavily influenced by Gio Nakpil's awesome ogre bust. I might have to try and change mine a bit so it's not so similar. It is fun to try and construct a body after the fact though.

Bob Brown Sculpt

2011-07-29T18:41:00.001-07:00

Work has been busy so I haven't had much time for sculpting

This is a 5-6 hour attempt at Bob Brown of the Australian Greens political party
I just trawled through my reference folder and found some images of him

WIP #whatever

2011-06-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

some more work on this model

I lost a bunch of work because I stupidly subdivided to 20mil polys and then had saving errors. Stupid, stupid. The model is sitting at 5 million where it will stay for now, some tests with HD sculpting have been promising so hopefully I can use that to add detail. I'm still kind of searching for a surface and musculature that I like but it's moving along anyway. The pose will have to be adjusted to fit the weapon when I get around to blocking something out for it but it's close enough for now.

Pose WIP

2011-06-23T15:10:00.001-07:00

Putting this guy in a pose. It's really hard to get something balanced and with good shapes that works with the anatomy and concept I have in my head. It's pretty messy right now as the muscles have been pushed around a lot and need to be reformed a bit. Minigun is a downloaded model with extra stuff stuck on it for the moment. I imagine this thing will keep changing as I go along.

Mutant Lemur #2

2011-06-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

Retopo'd this guy and made changes to forms and proportions, started trying out stuff on the head area. Pose is crappy and just for fun. Added teeth and gums. I'm trying to make sure the insanity comes through.Topology

Mutant Lemur

2011-06-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

I was watching a Richard Attenborough documentary about Madagascar that had lemurs in it. Also I wanted a bit of a release from the more realistic restrained project that I'm working on. It's a mutated Lemur monster thing. It's fun doing a more comic book style. I might retop it and move it up a few subdivisions and go full on detail, this is pretty WIP at the moment, trying to figure out proportions and muscle groups.

RETOP

2011-05-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots of retop.....
Trying to get all the major folds in geometry before adding smaller stuff in zbrush.
It can be kinda gruelling though. Thankg god most of it is done

Reworking the face

2011-05-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

I recently saw some pretty awesome human renders and reevaluated where my head model/shader/lighting was at and it was pretty rubbish. I spent some nights this week redoing the shader, refining the sculpt, making new eyes and changing pretty much all the maps. It still needs a fair bit of work, I have to test ways to get some softness into the eyes and there is too much bump and spec on the neck, but at least it's better than it was.
I also decided to only do minimal post stuff on my wips (just a zblur for DOF and a slight defocus to remove cg sharpness) as it hides problems that should be fixed.

Progress

2011-05-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Retopped the hoodie and the backpack and started detailing the straps.
I've changed the jeans to more of a skinny jean and adjusted the proportions as his legs were too short. Added some headphones.

Hoodie Retop

2011-05-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

Mostly retopped hoodie done with Wrapit in MAX. Took ages but I wanted to investigate techniques for retopping cloth accurately from a sculpt.
It's 100K polys

Blocking out the rest

2011-04-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

I've been blocking out the elements for the rest of the body for this guy. All elements are at varying stages of WIP, the plan is to retop it all using wrapit. I started with a basic naked human mesh and built clothes and stuff around it in max and sculpted in ZB. It's a good challenege to model cloth and something I don't do enough of. The pose is a temp thing cos I got sick of looking at it in a neutral pose. I haven't yet put the top section on the beanie and the jeans are pretty rough. I also thinking of adding headphones as this guy was more or less inspired by people that I see while walking around Melbourne

Modeling a beanie

2011-04-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

My half arsed explanation of how I modeled the beanie.

-Model a stitch
-Unwrapping at this point can be useful for mappin g bump or disp to each stitch
-Mirror it
-Array the stitches (you can adjust the individual stitch easier when it is arrayed properly
-Array the stitches into a cylinder
-Use FFDs and zbrush to wrap it onto the head
-Use spacing tool and a spline to create the rim
-A circular patch of stitches can create the top cap of the beanie, much like real beanies are made

Head WIP #4

2011-04-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Some more work on this dude. Lighting has changed a bit and I've added the beanie. All the knit is modeled and and shaped onto the head.

Head WIP3

2011-04-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

Relit the scene, worked on the shader, added some hair elements. There is not enough light getting into the eye sockets so they look a bit dark and weird. Things like the eybrows and eyelashes also need a fair bit of work. I need to add a bit of texture variation into the ears like maybe some veins or something, they look pretty flat. I planned to give him a beanie but now I'm starting to thing that will be a pain in the arse. I thing I will give him some kind of hat though

2011-04-12T00:57:00.001-07:00

I've relit the scene to something more neutral, updated most of the maps, updated the detailing on the sculpt and played with the shaders a bit. I've had to soften the 3d render a bit as I think I have an antialising filter in Vray that is too sharp. Also both my monitors have vastly different sharpnesses which is a pain. I need to get more out of the spec maps and localise stuff a bit more but I think it's moved along since the last render. Funny how how breakup in the skin texture ages him by like 10 years
ZB Sculpt

As Yet Unnamed Project WIP1

2011-04-10T06:41:00.001-07:00

A new personal project I'm working on.
I originally wanted to do a skateboarder type guy so that is where this started.
I'm aiming to do the entire body but I just wanted to do a head so I started here.
Everything's kind of coming together at once which is generally how I prefer to work. So nothing is final at the moment. The general proportions and anatomy, sculpt detail, various texture maps and hair stuff, lighting etc all need to be refined.
I like making ordinary looking people though, something about average looking faces is much more interesting than super stylised or fantasy creations to me sometimes.
The eye and forehead areas are sticking out to me the most at the moment. He looks like he's had botox or something. Desperately needs eyelashes also.

Nightmare Chicken Strip

2011-03-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

This concept is from a thread on the SomethingAwful forums.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3397684

The artwork was supplied by forum user "The Scarlet Hot Dog" and I thought it was cool and would be fun to recreate in 3D.
He's like a breaded chicken strip or something, in nightmare form.

It was challenging to get a deep fried look in the shader, and it isn't very succesful but I didn't have long to spend on it.

Max, Zbrush, Vray, Nuke, Photoshop. More or less in that order.

I have a simple rig so I might try and do some stupid animations.

CONCEPT By artist known only as John, the roommate of forums poster "The Scarlet Hot Dog"

3D render by me

New Sculpt

2011-02-11T17:58:00.000-08:00

This is a new sculpt I've worked on for probably 6 or 7 hours
I thought that after sculpting a caucasian looking man it would be good to sculpt an african looking woman. Although at the moment she kinda has some manish features going on.
Could possibly be the extreme focal length distorting the features a bit

I did a bit of a paintover in photoshop for fun, hence the weird eyes.

Man, nude, with bucket

2011-02-02T18:10:00.000-08:00

I've finished working on this guy. There's bits that could be fixed but there always is. I added the loincloth because some forums have rules about nudity. I'll render a final naked version aswell.

Human WIP#4

2011-01-29T23:59:00.001-08:00

Revisited this model to get a bit of a pose happening and a bit of hair and stuff. Trying out hairfarm at the moment, haven't quite got the results I'm after yet. I might give him some pants to cover his shame

Another WIP

2010-12-03T23:03:00.000-08:00

Did some lighting and shader work on this today as well as some comp in Nuke
I chucked in eyes that I had from my other project and havent done textures for the teeth and gums yet

Messing with the shader

2010-12-02T13:04:00.001-08:00

I did some experimenting with the normal map and found that it was coming into max inverted causing the strangeness in the previous render. It's not that simple going from zbrush to max sometimes. This render has the SSS effect turned up too high mainly just to see what it would do. It has muddied out a lot of the detail as has the DOF effect that I put on for fun. Getting closer though

Speed sculpt render

2010-11-30T13:02:00.001-08:00

Exported some displacement and normal maps to do some rendering in MAX, there are seam problems with the normal map

Speed Sculpt

2010-11-28T00:24:00.000-08:00

Spent a few hours on this today using the same base mesh as my human project. Making it up as I go. I'd like to do some more deatiling.

Human WIP#3

2010-11-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

Some more work on this model. First pass at mr prim hair in vray, it's extremely slow and requires lots of samples to get a decent render, the result here is still pretty muddy at 1/16. I would love to use hairfarm but it costs too much.
I need to add pubic hair and overall body hair, some of this will probably be done using vray fur, if it works on displaced geometry There are areas in the textures and the sculpt that need addressing also.

Human WIP #2

2010-11-02T01:38:00.001-07:00

Just some more sculpting on this dude and a quick hair test.
Vray can now render Max's hair and fur modifier with the mr prim rendering method. This is pretty cool as it allows me to light my hair with vray lights and GI if I want.

Homo Sapiens

2010-10-31T04:28:00.001-07:00

I started this anatomy test a fair while ago because I hit a major creative dead end with my dragon. I havent been able to work on it much becasue of work on a general lack of energy but with the constant rain this weekend I had a chace to dust him off and try and make some progress. This render is from Vray using the SSS2 shader and 4 X 2K displacement maps (I'm testing out multiple UV region workflows in ZBrush). ZApplink works with multi UV so I should be able to get an obscene amount of detail in some maps. The poly limit in ZB will be a problem for utilising 4 X 4K disp maps though. More sculpting needed and more details

Dragon Retop #2

2010-09-05T21:00:00.000-07:00

Finished the first pass of retop on this model
I'm continuing to change the proprtions and stuff in small ways as I go through the retop process and I'm still looking for ways to improve the model. Still coming to grips with what should be modeled in with edgeloops and what can be displaced.
This is a bit of a test pose to see how the model deforms and cos I got sick of looking at it in it's stupid base pose.

Dragon Retop

2010-08-29T06:33:00.001-07:00

Using Matt Clark's Wapit plugin to retop this drgaon character. Still a fair bit to go yet.
There's been a bit of a learning curve, but once I got the hang of it, it's a good quick way to retop a character. Defintely better than the graphite workflow that comes with Max. So far the topology is all quads but I still have some detailing and creases to add, and some gbits yet to be joined up. This stage is getting boring and I'm looking forward to going back ZBrush to detail

Learning to sculpt

2010-08-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't tried to sculpt anything with clay since primary school so I thought it was time to try again. Julie bought me some clay last christmas so this was a good chance to use it. Having pretty much learned to sculpt in a digital environment, working with physical media did my head in a bit (stupid gravity) but it was fun.

Dragon WIP#2

2010-08-13T22:22:00.001-07:00

Some more work on this model. Changing up the physiology a bit to make it a bit more logical and working a bit more on his head.
Thanks to Jono Freisler, professor of dragon anatomy, for help on muscle groups

Dragon WIP#1

2010-08-08T01:18:00.001-07:00

Spent today doing some sculpting, just trying some stuff out on this mesh to see what sticks
I bought Matt Clark's retop plugin Wrapit today so I'd like to get this sculpt looking alright and then retop it and possibly find someone to rig it.

Another unfinished project

2010-08-07T15:25:00.001-07:00

Something I started a while ago and lost motivation to finish
A troll made of rock

Peter Garrett Sculpt

2010-05-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

A sculpt of Australian environment minister and ex vocalist of Midnight Oil, Peter Garrett. Likeness is far from perfect but I think it's better than my last attempt at a likeness. I sort of feel like this was cheating because he's got such a distinctive appearance. Approx. 4 hours spent on this.

Nicolas Sarkozy speed sculpt

2010-04-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be Nicolas Sarkozy, the likeness is a bit dodgy and the hair makes him look like Sean Penn. Took about 4 hours, sculpted from the base mesh of the little boy sculpt which has turned out to be a pretty useful all purpose base.

Boy Concept

2010-03-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

I've done a bit of work on a pose for the boy and a paintover to get a better idea of how the composition is working. All the clothes are quick block-outs at this stage. I intend to fully sculpt all the folds etc. The pose is not quite balanced so I need to fix that. The hands haven't been posed so they look pretty weird, I'm thinking about maybe adding a suit coat and maybe a cap to give a more old timey, private school feeling. That could work to play up the contrast with the oversized, modern backpack. I think I should make it even bigger.

Boy WIP#1

2010-03-23T15:36:00.000-07:00

Another character I have started on
The idea was to convey a child on their first day of school, I have the whole character blocked out but have only really spent any time on the head so far. I got the idea from seeing schoolkids with hilariously oversized backpacks and thought it would make an interesting portrait. He's giving off at Hitler vibe at the moment, maybe it's the hair. Also gathering reference images of children on the internet is... unsettling in some way. Observing children in real life is also generally frowned upon.

Horse WIP #1

2010-02-27T14:43:00.000-08:00

I've spent a few hours sculptig this horse for a project for Arran Potter.
I've never tired to model a horse before and working the anatomy out has been heaps of fun.
Still lots of bits to fix up and accentuate.
It will be posed and have a rider so I don't want to sculpt too much detail in this neutral pose.

BaseMesh

Orc Wip#6

2010-02-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

Some costume blocking and experiments with this character
I'm getting a bit sick of him so I might shelve this project for now and try to practice a bit
more instead of getting bogged down with this.

Orc WIP#5

2010-01-29T23:09:00.000-08:00

More detailing work. The legs are a bit messed up. I'm trying some stuff out with the staff to get away from the typical fighting, agressive style of orc. Maybe he's more of a chieftan or explorer or shaman type. The necklace is just blocking shapes to see what works. Doing a lot of the little teriary deatiling to the muscles and folds is new ground for me and I struggling a bit as I make it up as I go.

Orc WIP #4

2010-01-23T23:02:00.001-08:00

Some progress on this guy
I'm looking at a lot of tribal costumes to try and go in a different direciton from the normal orc cliche. It's still cliche as hell but whatever.
I'm thinking off adding some greaves on his legs so there's some more interest there and leaving the torso naked.
I'm not liking the spear very much and it was knocked up pretty quickly so I might change it.

Orc WIP#3

2010-01-18T04:29:00.000-08:00

Some sculpting and detailing on the face and neck area. Changed the mouth a bit cos it was looking stupid.

Orc WIP #2

2010-01-17T01:31:00.001-08:00

Some more work on this character. Posing and sculpting to correct errors with the transpose tool.

Orc WIP #1

2010-01-16T02:10:00.001-08:00

Because I haven't been very inspired lately I decided to have a go at the old 3d cliche. I started with a simple base and then retopped it in max and then back to zbrush. I'm currently sculpting it and I intend to light and texture. He also looks a bit generic so I need to give the character some interest before posing and costume etc

Galapagos Tortoise Final

2009-12-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

Finished off Mr. Tortoise, finally.
I ditched final gather in favour of an ambient light with occlusion and did a little base very much in the style of the one I did for the Rhino. There's an unfortunate shadow that makes the cactus fruit look a bit 2d but other than that I can't be stuffed fixing it up any more. I have a few days off and I don't want to be fixing this piece the whole time. Depth opf field was done with the Bokeh shader for mental ray, which multiplied the render time by a factor of 5 or something.
Fun times.

A sodding merry Xmas to all!

Another Speed Sculpt

2009-12-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

Seeing as I have some time off, I'm doing speed sculpts
This was an attempt at actor Steve Buscemi, it was good practice although the likeness
is pretty bad. The Screengrab has a slightly altered neck which I think looks a bit better

Speed Sculpt

2009-12-20T22:49:00.001-08:00

Another Speed sculpt
Some post work in photoshop

ZBrush 3.5 First Speed Sculpt

2009-12-20T04:02:00.000-08:00

I just got my Zbrush 3.5 license so I decided to do a speed sculpt.
This was done from a cube, I usually use a basemesh so this was a good challenge.
Once again I didn't use any references because I wanted to test myself a bit.
Took about 2 hours.

Galapagos Giant Tortoise WIP #6

2009-12-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

I've done a test pose for the tortoise with a bit of cactus fruit that they apparently eat. The depth of field is done in Mental ray and takes for ever to render. Some of the maps still need a bit of touching up but otherwise this model is nearing the end. If I can figure out a way to get it to render quicker I might be able to do some animations with him. Thanks to Greg Tatum for some useful advice.

Galpagos Giant Tortoise WIP #5

2009-11-30T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've started the process of texturing this model.
At this point I've got diffuse, bump, spec and gloss maps on everything and they all need refining to the point where it looks right. The lighting is the same setup as the earlier WIP. I'm liking the head but the neck and legs need a lot of work. You can see where I've started detailing the bump map on the shell but haven't gotten the whole way through yet.

Galpagos Giant Tortoise WIP #4

2009-11-23T04:27:00.000-08:00

I've done some more sculpting on this model and also mapped the pieces of the model and exported some low res displacement maps to test that things are working as they should be.
I've comped the wireframe over the top to show the underlying geometry.
I'm looking forward to texturing this guy now although there is a fair bit of cleaning up and sculpting to do in Zbrush first.
Rendered in Mental Ray

Galpagos Giant Tortoise WIP #3

2009-11-15T03:23:00.000-08:00

Some more work on this model
Nori had a question from the previous post about the base mesh so I've included a screengrab of the base level.
The mesh is organised for rigging and animation, which is what intend to do with the model once I have exported some displacement/normal/whatever maps. I would also like to do proper texture maps for this guy and try for a little more realism than I did with the rhino. All the details still need refinement but I find it easier to jump around here and there on the model to keep myself interested.

Galpagos Giant Tortoise WIP #2

2009-11-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

I've started detailing the tortoise. I'm sort of blocking in the major scales, wrinkles and folds (of which there are many) so I can come back and surface them a bit better later on. I've done a fair bit on the front legs as well but they are not shown in this render. He looks a bit angry, so I should probably fix that too

Galpagos Giant Tortoise WIP #1

2009-11-01T03:46:00.000-08:00

I had lots of fun making the rhino so I thought I'd stick with animals for now. This is 5 or so hours into a model of a Galpagos giant tortoise, I just think they're cool animals. This one I intend to completely retop in MAX to get a full unwrap and animation ready mesh, and then either do bump or displacement in ZBrush. The anatomy of these creature's is totally bizarre and it's good practice to work on something so foreign anatomically.

African Rhino Render

2009-10-28T05:28:00.001-07:00

I've done the displacement thing in MAX and mental ray and created a little base and vegetation for my Rhino Model. I got the base render and multiplied over an ambient occlusion pass in fusion to make the model pop a little bit more. Learned a bit more about displacement exporting from ZBrush, although I still don't get it much. I think she's pretty anyway

Hey! It's another speed sculpt

2009-10-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Today's speed sculpt, this one took around 3 hours. It's supposed to be a kind of orc creature but I wanted it to be more human looking.

Another Speed Sculpt

2009-10-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

A slow day at work, Jono decided I should try to model John lithgow. Not wanting to get on Jono's bad side, I agreed. This took five hours or so. Some photoshop tweaks on the eyes on the shadow of the hair.

Speed Sculpt

2009-10-19T21:46:00.001-07:00

A slow day at work so time for another speed sculpt
This took a few hours and I foolishly used no references.

Speed Sculpt

2009-10-18T04:03:00.001-07:00

A one hour speed sculpt, just for fun

Rhino WIP#2

2009-10-14T04:02:00.000-07:00

I've been at this for a couple of days now, it's great fun to work on. I'm starting to realise the power of ZBrush alphas in creating surface textures, the trick is to use them in the right way so they don't look like tiled and flow with the mesh. I have 8GB of RAM in my machine and this mesh has got it at it's limit, I had to change a few settings to get the performance useable. It's obvious that I haven't started sculpting the far side of the body yet. I'm looking forward to posing him/her.

Rhino WIP#1

2009-10-11T04:27:00.000-07:00

I've got some time off so I'm starting a new modeling project. This is something that I thought would be a good challenge from the overall form, to the secondary major skin folds to the tertiary skin details, wrinkles etc. After doing a lot of work on lighting, materials etc on Cohen I need to get back into pure modeling and try to improve. Probably 7 hours spent on this so far, I'm taking my time because I'm trying for a fairly realistic representation.

Cohen the Barbarian

2009-10-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a hectic month or so at work. We've been developing an intro and teaser for a kid's animated TV show for a while now for 2large productions and I hadn't had any time to work on Cohen. Once we sent Dan off to MIPCOM with his DVD though, things quietened down significantly, so much so that I'm now on holidays for the next week and a bit.

Having more spare time has meant that I could finish off Cohen. For me, finishing off a model is more a case of becoming unable to see it properly, losing my objectivity, becoming exhausted and throwing in the towel. It could be heaps better, but I'm better off moving onto the next challenge and trying to learn something rather than tweaking and re-rendering for weeks.

Cohen Update

2009-09-17T18:20:00.001-07:00

Some texturing, lighting and hair work on this model

Cohen Update

2009-08-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

Just an update on Cohen.
I'm approaching the retop stage for the costume elements and then it's on to texturing and figuring out the displacement map settings which has proved difficult in the past. Also sorting out the fur whihc is always a pain.

Cohen Face WIP

2009-07-31T03:56:00.001-07:00

Just some work on Cohen's Face
still lots of details to put in, although much of the lower face will be covered by beard

Cohen the Barbarian WIP#2

2009-07-28T03:30:00.000-07:00

Some updates on this character
All the costume elements are standins and will be redone in MAX.

Cohen the Barbarian WIP#1

2009-07-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

Another Discworld inspired character. This is based on the art of Josh Kidby from the Discworld fable "The Last Hero". Cohen is an ancient barbarian hero who refuses to die. So far I'm just blocking things in to make sure I have the proportions right. The devil character wasn't going where I wanted so I had to cut my losses on that one.

Faust WIP#2

2009-07-18T00:18:00.000-07:00

OK so Faust is not just another name for the devil as I had thought.
He was a fictional character in German literature who sold his soul to the devil.
Anyway this is the character as it stands now. The pose needs some tweaking
and the whole thing needs a lot of cleaning up and detailing.

Faust WIP#1

2009-07-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

I've jumped straight back into another character.
I wanted to concentrate on learning anatomy and something more realistic and less exaggerated.
This is bascially a depiction of the biblical devil as a middle aged man, I've chosen ram horns as opposed to the more traditional goat horns just for aesthetic reasons. I've spent about 6-7 hours on this sculpt and the basemesh is taken from my earlier anatomy study and edited slightly to give better edge distribution. I'm glad that sculpt has come in handy.
So far the weak points are definetly the hands and the back musculature. It's a good challenge to do a character where the muscles are overlaid with fat.

Polly Final

2009-07-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

I've finished working on this image
It's not perfect but I just can't spend any more time on it. I've learned a lot by making it and hopefully improved a bit as a result.

Polly close to completion

2009-06-27T05:57:00.001-07:00

It's been a fair journey with this model.
Looking back at this blog it seems it was about a month ago I had started on this project, intending to do two characters. Well one out of two isn't bad is it?
I think a month is alright considering I only had weekends and whatever weeknights I wasn't playing sport to work on it.
As an excercise in learning all the technical aspects of putting together a reasonably complex model it has been very useful. I have learned heaps since starting on this. It's not finished but I'm gradually whittling down the list of things that need to be done.

-Hair
-Face and hands need texture work
-Base needs work
-Boots need texture work
-Plume on the hat
-Lighting and Comp
....and probably more

New Pose

2009-06-17T06:55:00.001-07:00

Just a new pose for this character
I've also done some more sculpting on some of the cloth elements to change their feel a little
The pose still needs work, I find it to be one of the hardest things to get right.

Monstrous Regiment Progress

2009-06-14T00:39:00.000-07:00

Some futher work on this character. Most of the elements have been brought into ZBrush except for a heap of buttons and little its and pieces. There is still a fair bit of sculpting to do on some of the peices. I've started on the texture for the head, it's a bit messy but it's heading in the right direction I think. It was rendered in Max using mental ray

Monstrous Regiment WIP

2009-06-08T00:28:00.000-07:00

I've done some work on one of my two characters for the monstrous regiment piece.
All elements are pretty incomplete and some are just stand in geometry. I still need to
incorporate a whole bunch of straps, buckles, belts, a bottle and a pack.

Obese male Sculpt

2009-05-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'm sculpting this at the same time as the female and I plan to have it as part of the same diorama. Probably about 3 hours spent on this one so far. Both sculpts will have costumes so I'm obviously spending more time on the faces as almost everything else will be covered. I still need the practice on proportions and form so I'm not totally skipping over the bodies. The diorama will be based on the Terry Prtachett book "Monstrous Regiment"

Female Sculpt WIP

2009-05-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

I thought it was time to study the female form a bit as I usually sculpt males for some reason. I've spent about 2 hours on this one so far and I'm relatively happy with the way it's going considering I'm having to learn a lot as I go. The pose is temporary just for the purposes of checking the proportions. I have plans to display this model with another one I'm working on as part of a diorama type situation.
*edit* Some refinement of the model and a less stupid pose

Monty Biggs Sculpt

2009-05-24T02:36:00.000-07:00

A final sculpt for Monty Biggs.
I had fun making this and there were good opportunites for sculpting cloth and other surfaces.
Hopefully it can be of some use to Arran's project.

Anatomy Study WIP 2

2009-04-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

Some more progress on this sculpt
I've never tried to model male genitalia before so that was a new challenge
Lots of detailing still to do. Fingers and toes especially.
Some muscles are incorrect, the forearms are weird.

Anatomy Study WIP

2009-04-17T05:51:00.000-07:00

An anatomy study
I'm trying to practice eyeballing proportions and creating a face without reference
About 4-5 hours spent on this so far

Omar WIP3

2009-04-10T19:12:00.001-07:00

Some more sculpting. I did a quick pose and expression because i was getting sick of him staring blankly. Finding the likeness to be very difficult to acheive, maybe because in all my reference material he has a beard, although I wouldn't want to have to rely on facial hair to sell the likeness. The neck is not quite right. At this point I'm just happy that he looks like a human being.

Omar WIP2

2009-04-08T02:54:00.000-07:00

I've made some progress on Omar. He now looks a bit more like the man himself.
The actor's name is Michael K Williams
I sculpted in a beard but I will probably use a hair plugin for proper hair for the final render.
He has no eyebrows yet so he still looks funny. His cranium still is not quite the right shape.

Omar WIP

2009-04-05T05:26:00.000-07:00

I've been watching The Wire for the last few weeks and I'm thoroughly addicted.
It truly is the greatest television show ever put to screen.
I've decided to have a go at sculpting one of the best charatcers in the show, Omar,
I'm not very good at doing likenesses from photos, but this one is going ok so far.
I'm trying to get the basic likeness correct before I put in any details, it's not there yet,
especially around the mouth, but if it comes out well it would be good on the showreel.
Also he looks stoned around the eyes, that will need to be fixed

Texturing Iggy Pop

2009-03-24T04:21:00.000-07:00

I've spent a while texturing Iggy Pop
I'm using mental ray for the first time so I'm struggling to learn the skin shader and all it's intricacies. I'm going for a dramatic, illustrative look rather than total realism here, I guess.
It still needs work, on the specular and bumps maps especially. Hair is underway

Monty Biggs modeling WIP

2009-03-21T19:35:00.001-07:00

I've been doing some concept sculpting and modeling for Arran Potter's short film project.
I've been very lucky to get the opportunity to work on this project with him and some other very talented artists. The man has a vision, and the film definitely has a chance of being very successful (if I don't stuff it up too much).
This is MAX screenshot of an expression test to see how the model holds up when deformed.
The expression is a bit dodgy, but with work I think Monty should be able to emote pretty well. It's weird to be working mostly in MAX again after mostly using ZBrush but it has given me the chance to think about topology a bit more and that can't hurt.

ZBrush Speed Sculpt

2009-03-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

I did this sculpt in about 2.5 hours including making the base mesh in MAX
I just improvised something from a general idea I had, and ended up with this.
There's some wonky bits but it was good fun and practice.

Stegosaurus WIP #1

2009-03-11T02:48:00.001-07:00

Today I started modeling a Stegosaurus for fun/practice/showreel
I think this may have been Julie's idea as she's a big stegosaurus fan, so this one is for her
Modelled the basemesh in Max and then started in ZBrush, it's a few hours at this point.
There's many little errors that I can see now that I post this.

Iggy Pop Sculpt

2009-02-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Yay, my first real post.
I'm currently on holidays from work so I have time to work on my Iggy Pop sculpt.
It's getting close to completion, not that's it's great or anything, but I can't be spending too long on any single project.