Project 02 - EZbrush

I understand how subtools work in Zbrush now thanks to a Google hangout session and a couple of Youtube videos.

Earbird has undergone a slight redesign and has eyes now too. They're not particularly realistic but they look pretty cool.

I like the idea of water flowing out of the tear ducts on the outer edge of the eyes and running down the 'eye bags?' which look almost eroded.





I also like the idea of water running out of the ear holes, flowing in a kind of ark and off the earlobes.

I also made the base a little wider.

I also made this minotaur guy using what I'd found out about subtools. Both the horns and eyes were made with separate subtools in this sculpt.

The horns were made from Zspheres and then deformed and molded.

The eyes are more realistic in this piece too as a placed them further back in the head and created only a small eye hole for which to see them.

In this piece the water would either flow out of the nostrils or the mouth.

The mesh was based off of this life drawing as I'm trying to bring more animal shapes into the gargoyle designs now.

Project 02 - Indie Dev Meetup

I didn't want to be intrusive and take pictures of everyone but I met up with 20ish indies in Wetherspoons the other day. I found out about the meetup because when applying for the course and researching Marie-Clare I saw that she was part of the Norwich Indie Developers group on Meetup.com. I've been part of the group ever since and this was my first time actually meeting everyone.

Between us there was easily enough people to start an independent game dev team with programmers, 3D and 2D artists, designers, sound guys, marketing etc...

With so little experience relative to everyone there I think it'll be difficult to convince them that I really do know what I'm talking about in regards to design (unless I'm ignorant). I'd like to work back into some of my older games again. I started reworking 'Deep Rising' again yesterday. If I can ever get it to a finished/polished point I'll show it off.
I'll probably release it for free online
or
I'll release a 'demo' version online and a (fairly cheap) payed version on Itch.io.

It was certainly interesting to meet so many indies nevertheless and I'll have some questions lined up for the next meetup.

Project 02 - Zbrush Animal Deformation

After visiting the museum I had some more fun with Zbrush

With the bird theme still in mind I modeled this creatures head. No direction other than 'hey this looks cool' and 'gargoyles are like animals right?'.

I'm not really that proud of this piece to be honest. It's a little generic and plain. I didn't spend very long on it though. Ten minutes at most.

Then I made this walrus guy. It started off as an alligator but experimentation is good right?

I like this sculpture more every time I see it. He's a humorously goofy mix between cartoon-like and realistic.

I used the SnakeHook brush for the first time on this model too. 

I didn't take too long on the teeth but they definitely add another dimension to the piece. I like how they're not threateningly sharp too. Just a goofy walrus man. 

I think the water would look nice flowing out of the mouth. I imagine it would part around the lower lip and create two tiny waterfalls on either side.

I haven't considered how this gargoyle would be mounted. Gargoyles tend to be mounted on the corner of buildings and they'd need a bit for the (rain)water to flow in the back.

I changed the render settings for this image. I think it looks nicer.

I used this life drawing as reference for the gargoyle.

I thought the fluffy bits around the heads were really cool. I can assume they're there to make the bird look larger and more intimidating to predators. 

I used the Displace tool to create them, then I realized that they looked like ears which is even cooler, so I kept it that way.

You can see in this image that I even modeled a hearing canal.

I used bat references to create the detail inside the ears

I also modeled a gullet.

I used the TrimRect tool to flatten below the shoulders of the creature.

I image the water would be flowing from the eye holes or maybe the beak nostrils. It could even flow from the ears since they're the most prominent part of the sculpt.

I think I'm going to leave this piece as it is for now and maybe come back to it later on in the project.

Again, I haven't considered how the water will actually flow into it yet.

I feel like that comes later.

Project 02 - Life drawing pt3

We had a live model recently whom I drew with chalk.

I like how much the chalk drawings assume of the viewer/player. We've got to use our imaginations to fill in the bits we don't see.

I'm not sure the proportions are that great on this drawing to be honest. It's difficult when you don't quickly flesh out a skeleton. The textures could be better too, they're a bit too rough in places.

Then I drew her with chalk and pencil. I like this drawing a lot more. I semi-blind drew the skeleton/basic shapes. The proportions seem more accurate and the shading is a bit smoother. One problem would be that she's leaning too far back; her center of gravity is behind her back leg. Nevertheless, I'd say it was only <= 5 degrees out.

I noticed when drawing that I didn't feel like I was drawing a person. Normally I let my assumptions of how the form should flow affect my line work but I was able to put that aside for this piece. It could've been the way the method of drawing causes you to only draw little bits at a time coupled with the semi-blind starting point.
There are clearly some issues still as I mentioned with the angle and also with the left knee a little bit and perhaps the right arm slightly. I like the drawing though. It's certainly better that the first.

Some blind drawings of my friends in the pub. The look very ghostly, like those creepy humanoid gargoyles. Similar to the face In the cathedral I drew multiple times too.

I think these images could have benefited from more detail in the lines. I thought drawing drunk would make them better but I'm not sure they are.

I like how animal-like they look too. Maybe this is a good direction to take regarding combining animal power with human depth...

The semi-blind method works better than the completely blind drawing method I think generally. My college tutors always said that 85% of the time should be spent looking at the subject and 15% at the page.

This last drawing looks particularly creepy actually because it looks vulnerable combined with it's 3D-ness. It could totally climb out of the page. It looks indecisive too. It can't tell whether to walk on by or not; the viewer has caught her attention  just temporarily. Maybe this IS the depth I've been looking for.

Project 02 - Life drawing pt2

After visiting the cathedral I made the most of my free student entry to the castle museum as I traversed the displays.

The first piece I found was this wooden dragon model. The information read that this model was used in the medieval times to commemorate the story in which it was slain by St. George. The story is similar to the founding of gargoyles and is from the same period.

These statues were in the fine-art section of the museum. old school statues always look so vacant, like they all have their own things to worry about and I'm watching them without their knowledge. There aren't many statues that I know of that really engage with the viewer/player other than play areas maybe? Do they even count. It feels like a lot of sculptures are 'DON'T TOUCH' with a 3 foot barrier all the way around but maybe I'm being ignorant. I visited the Yorkshire sculpture park a while ago and I do remember a few sculptures which were more like rooms you could walk into and a few you could climb on. I think a sculpture you could hug would be nice. Amongst all the vacant 'leave me alone' sculptures in a museum would be one sculpture  looking kindly towards you with arms wide open called 'hug me'.

Nevertheless I'm off topic now.

After visiting the sculptures I said hi to the stuffed animals in the 'natural history' part of the museum.







Like I said in a previous post, many gargoyles are based off of animals so it was in my best interest to get as much animal research as I could. Using my semi-blind drawing technique I drew a lot of them.

The energy in these drawings is awesome. and they all look very 3 dimensional. The ferocity of the polarbear to my right and the tiger further up really stands out in these drawings. This is quite a contrast to the vacant statues I saw earlier. The statues feel like they have a story behind their expressions where as the animals feel more simplistic in their emotions and this is expressed through a powerful engagement with the viewer/player.

It would be cool if I could combine the raw animal power with the depth of the fine art statues. Maybe that will mean I make a gargoyle from a combination of man and animal or maybe it'll be more abstract than that. I know what I'm aiming for now though with each part; power and depth.

Also, perhaps I can find a way to make semi-blind 3D work...

Project 02 - Life Drawing

I spent the other day traversing town in search of gargoyles and in the cathedral I stumbled across a variety of faces carved into walls.

I love this guys face, which is why I drew it so many times. It definitely has that creepiness so many gargoyles are able to evoke.

I call these kinds of drawings semi-blind drawings because I only look at the page when I'm not moving the pen. Not looking at the page when drawing allows me to express the detail accurately and quickly.

I thought this statue in the cathedral was gorgeous. One of the guides told me that it'd been hidden underground for many years to prevent it from being stolen. It's located right in the middle of the cathedral and the wings are wide open as to function as a board to rest papers on.

This organ gave me it's fair share of pareidolia (things that look like faces). It's definitely worth considering using something less lifelike as my gargoyle.

The way this light shone through the window left this hallway looking so beautiful I just had to take a picture. The coloring reminds me of Timothy J Reynolds low poly 3D illustrations.

Low Poly Timothy J Reynolds 3D illustration

I'd like to play with super low poly models in this project. I've been a fan of Reynolds work for a while so since I can finally make 3D it'd be a shame not to give it a go. I think what's so good about the pieces though is that although the models are low poly, the lighting and everything is modern. It creates a nice juxtaposition between low-poly nostalgia and modern vector illustrations.

Project 02 - Zbrush

My first few attempts in Zbrush:

Kind of a cat-bird thing. I didn't really have a direction with this piece. Just playing with the software. You can see I need to work more on my dynameshing here as it's fairly blocky. The topology could be better too but to be honest, topology isn't a huge concern in Zbrush as you can pretty much use as many polygons as your computer can handle.

I played with the inbuilt noise 'textures'? with this piece. Again, just getting to grips with the software and it's various brushes and settings.

I'm pretty happy with this piece. Like all the pieces I've done so far, I just semi-randomly blocked out a bunch of shapes and lines before refining them. You can see I've added more textures to this one and played with some more 

 brushes.

I used the 'StitchBasic' brush for the ring and the 'TrimCircle' brush to create the hole where the brain is sticking out. I also used the 'ClayBuildup' brush for textures around the skull.

Another view of the model from behind. I haven't really considered where the water will come out yet nor how it will function as a gargoyle. Nevertheless, it's all just experimentation at this point but I'll start to bring those things in once I start finalizing an idea.