New Stuff, New Year

Recently got Substance Designer and Substance Painter on sale off Steam. I've been having difficulty getting the Quixel Suite to work so I'm looking forward to finally be able to try out some node based texturing and working my way through the tutorial videos :)

I also got a Beginners Guide to Zbrush book for Christmas, planning to work through it and finally get to grips with it.

I'm also still not well, ended up getting a cold on top of having this post viral thing which hasn't been fun. I'm hoping once this colds gone I'll be back to normal. Hopefully the new year will be better :)

Griffins!

Trying to work out which eagle to base the griffin on. The above is a combination of African Sea Eagle and African Lion.

 Used the Bateleur Eagle for this one. The image itself isn't as good but I think the Bateleur's head fits the griffin better and is different enough without being unrecognisable or strange looking. The type of feathers used will likely be easier to replicate as they have a more solid edge to them.
I'll think about colours once I'm modelling, not going to be using the combination of colours in the bateleur image for certain though!

I've done some rough sketches of the environments just need to scan them in. I'm 90% certain on how the griffins environment will look so I'll start making that first.

Warlock Town Take Two!

Couple of major updates to the warlock town project.
1. Is now a joint project with Alex ( http://alexcollins-art.co.uk)
2. The town is now going to be based on the warlock town from Heroes of Might and Magic II instead of replicating it. We are also going to model the creatures


Each of us is going to make three units and their environments, mine will be the griffin, hydra and dragon (might swap around who knows)

Griffin Ideas:
As I don't want to go down to much of a typical griffin route I've been looking at different types of eagles to base the griffin on and narrowed it down to three species.

African Sea Eagle

Quite like the markings, face and colours of this one.

Bateleur Eagle

I like the shape of the feathers around the face on this eagle, has a slight mane like look. Very unlikely I'll use the colour scheme though.

European Sea Eagle

I'll probably use this eagle as a base.

I'll do some photobashing to see what works best. Going to be in Dorset for the next couple of days without a computer so I'm going to try and get some rough idea sketches done. For the griffins habitat I'm thinking a combination of the large rocks lions sleep on and nests.

Hiatus

Have had a post-viral infection for the past month which has made it difficult to get on with modelling or look for work. Been to the doctors and all I can really do is wait, I'm going to try taking vitamins and herbal supplements to try and speed things along as this is really frustrating. To top it off I've been having issues with my internet connection and its too slow to stream video so no tutorials for me :(

Re-Rendered 11 Days Office

Without the walls its a bit difficult to work out what's going on in my original renderings because of all the overlap, adjusted the heights of some objects too. Should be much clearer now!

Couple of missed WIP updates

Not been feeling well recently so I'm a bit behind on what I'd have liked to have done by now. Realised I missed a few updates so here are some works in progress...

 Started the modular pieces for the hedge maze in the warlock town, need to work out how I'm going to approach this as I could either have a smaller version inside the outer polys with both textured with a transparent map or I could simply model the hedges and include the detail in bump maps and possibly include planes with a leafy hedge texture and transparency over some areas to avoid making the hedges look artificial. I could meet these in the middle and do the latter but make the textures transparent and put boxes within the walls to create depth.

Started again with the stave church, this time I'm basing it on a particular one (Urnes Stave Church)


Currently watching a tutorial on Digital Tutors on environment modelling techniques in Mudbox. I'm hoping to use this for both ongoing projects to get more detail in.

Keyshot, 11 Days Renders etc

Been trying out Keyshot and thought I'd use it as an opportunity to render out what I've been working on as I haven't updated in a while. Anyway this work was for 11 Days To Save the World a student project demoed at EGX 2014 the office models were for use in the demo.
I've also been preparing for an interview as technician for my old course, needed to prepare a demonstration on Unity basics, also applied for a job in property VR, should hear how that went soon :)
I also miiiight be making some creatures for a game too, I don't know much at this stage but it sounds exciting!
But yeah, lots of stuff on the horizon. Feel like I'm slowly getting closer to a job in the industry.

Warlock Town: To Do List

 Finished pre EGX work on 11 Days, will be uploading screenshots/renders soon :)
Didn't enter the competition in the end as I wouldn't of had enough time to get it to a high standard while also working on 11 Days at the same time.

Anyway back to the warlock town...
List for what I need to still model and components for the warlock town

 

Castle (Modular spires, walls, drawbridge)
Mages Guild
Marketplace Tent incl. crates, items for sale - fruit & resources, wheelbarrow
Well
Centaur cave (Torches, will probably sculpt the rock, moss/grass. Unsure about waterfall for now, will get to that once it's all in engine)
Dungeon (Door, steps, pillars/porch)
Maze (Entrance, outer wall, inside modular hedge pieces)
Gargoyle crypt (Crypt and sculpted gargoyle)
Griffin nest
Dragon tower
Tavern and thieves guild. May add more buildings in a similar style around these buildings to give more sense of a town feel?
Swamp (trees and mist effect, might use animating planes for this?)
Statue (base stand, warlock statue)
Shipyard (modular planks and posts, barrels)
Distance: Sculpted modular rock formations
Etc: Trees, rocks, grass, extra decoration to add a bit of life

Update: Stave Church and Copier

 

Started some of the stave church, as most of the parts are repeating I'm trying to keep it modular.

Spent today making a copier for a student game project I'm working on

Lots to do!

Been away in Scotland for the past 2 weeks, so now its time to get back to my ever increasing to do list.

I'm very very tempted to enter this contest:
http://www.creative-assembly.com/graduate-art-contest

Would most likely make a Viking Stave Church as they have a unique interesting look to them.

Doubt I'll have enough time to enter but if I do I'll be coming back to this...

Vulture Skull: Done. Market Tent Update

Removed paint detailing to show wireframe better

Done, once I've got dDo working properly I'll put this in to get a more authentic metal effect.

Adjusted the size and height of the tent and added smoothing groups to the fabric parts.

Dinobird 2?

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/new-flying-dino-had-four-limbs-and-longest-known-feathers


Came across this and thought it looked really cool, reminds me a bit of Monster Hunter. I've been thinking about giving modelling wings and feathers another go but using planes to get a better layered effect. I won't be making this anytime soon as I need to finish my current projects and will also be doing another environment after that.

Warlock Town: Buildings So Far...

Current project at the moment is recreating the Warlock town screen from Heroes of Might and Magic II a game which holds a lot of nostalgia for me. Majority of objects will be built in Maya however some things like the nest, gargoyle and statue will be sculpted

Dragon Tower, aside from maybe a small amount of tweaking I think this is mostly done ready for texturing, might bevel some edges so they aren't as harsh

Modular castle turret part, at the moment its not very refined at all. I will most likely bevel the corners of the turret holes to make them appear less square

Mage guild, quite pleased with this might add some beams to the roof, like the dragon tower this is pretty much there.

Marketplace tent, not entirely sure about the dimensions looks too tall at the moment

Update: Quick Sculpt & Bird Skull

 Quick sculpt of a weird fish man I did a while ago. Was going for a goldfish look with the big cheeks and floaty fins, may come back to this at a later stage to add final details and texturing.

Been asked to produce a bird skull to act as decoration for Contained

Loosely based the shape on this vulture skull but included influences from other bird skulls.

Base Maya model

Sculpted detail in Mudbox

 From here I now just need to unwrap the UV's, paint and retopologise. I'm planning to use this model to get to grips with implementing level of detail so I should by the end have at least two variants

Flower Char

Next character sculpt is based on Anna Maystrenko character design https://www.behance.net/gallery/14328857/Character-design

I have started the base mesh in Maya and then altered the shoulders as it would make more sense to make the flower areas separately. I plan to take this mesh into ZBrush however before I do this I will need to spend more time practising with base Zbrush meshes