Day 4 (Concepting Mesh and Fun Errors)

Good Evening,


Feeling much better today, spent most of the day working on the dvds, learnt some really nifty new tricks, majority of the day was spent watching the same segements over and over again, seeing how he concepted the mesh and mimicking how he did it, I've changed a few things here and there, like the "Horn" on the helmet, I didn't quite like it, so decided just not to add it in, as well as a few cosmetic changes, but i'm happy to get round about in the ballpark where he was, and i'm looking forward to continuing the dvds tomorrow night.


Here's a screengrab of the character where I am now.

Regards

Francis

P.S. had a bunch of fun getting random errors, and im not sure if they're on my side or on pixologic's side, but it was hilarious indeed.

Night (Morning?) 3 Alpha Brushes and Stamps

Evening, well, started sculpting because i'm sick and can't sleep. Not really in a talkative mood to elabroate but  continued with the Dvds, learnt how to make alpha brushes, and stamps etc, here's what they look like in action and what one of the stamps I created looks like.

Regards

Francis

Day 2 [Polish brushes and manly chests]

Yo, followed chapter two of Mike Jensens' Hard Surface Sculpting 1,  learnt a lot, seriously, this dude is a hard surface guru.

Here's my attempt at following, but true to form, i'm not good at following what people do, so I tried to stay close to what he did and changed as I saw fit, as far as I can see, it's much the same, except my mesh is messier, which may or may not cause problems down the line.

Was fun, looking forward to Chapter 3.


The mesh took a good 10 minutes or so, most of the time was spent fast forwarding and rewinding, just to see what he does and really listen to what he's saying.

Here's a pic of where I am, messy mesh and all, but hey, screw you, i'm learning here ;P

Regards

Francis

Hard Surface Night 1 (Baby steps)

Yo,

Started with the dvd tonight, took me awhile, but I learnt the basics of masking and extruding in zbrush, it's absurdly tricky given the tools and getting used to the interface, learned how to use zpsheres as well as the transform tools (move, rotate, scale) among a few other nifty tools, here's a few pngs from creation of a sphere to masking and extruding different elements to create a hard surface.

Going on to the second chapter tomorrow titled "Clipping Brushes."

On another note, I highly suggest buying this dvd, it's really educational and fun to do, best part being is that you can borrow heavily from what you've been taught, and create something unique of your own, I intend to put a few spins on the design, provided I don't end up hindering how much I can learn. So who knows what will happen in the future, anyway, cheers for now.


Regards

Francis

Good evening,

Took a few week sabbatical from 3D work, and started on getting back to sketching and anatmoy studies, hoping to do an ecorche soon, but before then, I got my hands on  Eat 3d's Hard Surface Sculpting by Mike Jensen, and I am going to be going, step for step with him through the videos, hopefully to learn lots and improve my ability, so stay tuned! 

Regards

Francis

and heeere we go :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Merope

Hey, been listening to celldweller's new album, specifically the song The Seven Sisters, and started sculpting to that, trying to create a Greek statue look.

Funnily enough, I looked up some lore of the Pleiades, and one of the sisters, Merope, in one of the stories, became mortal and faded away, so somehow, (in my mind at least) a cracked statue fits for her.

Not trying to add any story or emotion to it, just trying to practice, and for a first effort of a human sculpt or any organic sculpt for that matter, I feel it came out alright.

Here's some zbrush screengrabs, probably going to render and light it soon.


Regards

Francis

Time and Fate and Misery

You know, at the beginning of this project a few months ago, I had a few grand ideas, nothing that amazing, just a grand idea with sentiment attached to it. Now, i'm at the end of the project, i've textured and re-textured, I've sat through renders, spotting what's in or out, obsessing over the slightest wrongs, ignoring the picture as a whole, now when I look at it from a distance, I can't say the end product is any good, I mean, don't get me wrong, I learnt a whole lot of new techniques during my construction of this scene, I even learnt Zbrush from scratch to get a few of the details in the butterfly I created.

It's just, in the end, it doesn't look good, perhaps it can be my lack of knowledge of how to use colours properly, perhaps it's just something that doesn't fit that I can't find, but the picture has a few ups and downs, but whatever it is at the moment, that's the end of it, I've opted not to spend the next month obsessing and getting depressed over a picture that won't work, in the end I can say that I learnt a lot, but I still have a lot to go, funny, really, I thought i'd achieved quite a lot in the time since I started 3d work last year, but it seems I still have a very long way to go before I achieve the ability to bring to life the ideas I can put down on paper.

I just wanted to also thank a few friends of mine for the input and help, especially Brandon and Kavilan Naidoo for taking care of the interior modelling, while I worked on materials and lighting. You guys made this entire project work, you guys are awesome.

Well, here's the end product, like it or hate it, it is what it is.

See you for the next project I guess.