Gecko Mage Textured

I ended up not sculpting the mesh as it would be relatively low poly so worked into and refined it in Maya. I also realised Painter wasn't as suited to hand painted textures as Mudbox so I ended up returning back again, 3D Coat may be worth looking into as an alternative?

Next I need to model the staff and cloak, texture and then start posing.

Golden Ship in Harbour

I painted this scene last month inspired by my late Granny's poetry.

Stuff I've been working on recently...

I've been working on two 2D pieces, one is a mostly finished concept sketch which needs neatening up before posting on here, the other is a painterly landscape which I'll most likely be posting as finished first.

I've been wanting to make something in 3D that's more stylised for a while now and decided on this Gecko mage by Alex Braun

This is the base mesh (not yet mirrored) made in Maya

In progress sculpt

This is mostly getting there. After finishing the sculpt I'm going to make the cloak and staff. I'm then going to texture using Substance Painter this time as I really need to start moving away from Mudbox.

Weapons and Frog-Snake

Been using Chaotic Shiny for a few more randomly generated things, its been helping a lot for ideas.

A few days ago I used the weapon generator to come up with weapon ideas. I might pick one of these to develop further.

Yesterday I drew this frog-snake. The description generated was:
"This diminutive, frog-like, snake-like creature makes its home in lush valleys. It lies in wait for its prey, which includes monstrous humanoids and mundane beasts. It attacks with a tail striker and projectile weapons. They lair in prides of 4-9"

Feathered Equine Beast

Been often finding I have no idea what to draw/sculpt when I sit down to do some 2D/3D but found this generator (http://www.chaoticshiny.com/monstergen.php) really useful for inspiration.
The text I generated was "This enormous, feathered, equine beast dwells in mountainous areas. It stalks its prey which includes magical beasts and medium sized creatures . It attacks with piercing claws and lighting."

Pokemon Fusion: Beewak

Been trying out a new painting program called Paintstorm. Its got some pretty nice features. Often find myself not too sure on what to draw so thought I'd draw a random fusion from http://pokemon.alexonsager.net/

< The original, a mixture of Beedrill and Marowak

Haven't posted on here in a while, need to get back into the habit of posting regular updates.

I've been trying to get back into doing more 2D art again, I guess this is Eastenders fan art? I've been wanting to try out something more stylised and Stacey's post-partum psychosis storyline with its recurring theme of  religion and broken glass made me think it could work well in a stained glass style. Pretty happy with how this turned out

SculptJanuary

Giving SculptJanuary a go, I need to make 31 different sculpts one for each day in January. I'm a little behind as I've just started on the 5th so I may not get in a sculpt for each day but I'm going to give it a try as I have a bit more time now I'm looking for work again.
This sculpt was for day 1 on the theme 'mushroom'. I made a simple base mesh in Maya, then sent it over to Mudbox for detail and texturing. Thought I'd try out something new and do completely hand painted textures for this. Fairly please with how this turned out.

Job!

Haven't updated this in a while as I've got a job! I'm working for a media company called The Moment making images (mainly 3D renders) for e-learning packages.

I won't be posting as much because of this, maaaaybe I'll be able to post some of the renders of the models I've done and I'll still be working on the Warlock town mod progress will just be a lot slower than before

Quick Sculpt Archibald Ironfist

Following my blogs current Heroes of Might and Magic II theme, I did a quick sculpt of Archibald for the Daily SpitSculpt groups theme 'Ironfist'

I might continue this as I'd quite like to get him fully textured and add the jackets details in.

References:

With the Warlock Town I'm trying to give the base a more natural look as at the moment its overly rounded.

WT: Forts??

Just been watching the Twitch stream for H7's modding tools and noticed forts will be included. This means I'll also need to include a fort

Slightly blurry screenshot I quickly grabbed from the stream for reference.

I'll most likely just use pieces from the finished warlock town to put the fort together

 This will most likely be the final layout for the town though parts of the castle may be moved about still. Need to get the first and second stages next

WTS: Mini Update

I've adjusted the wall size and added the start of a slope, moved the small building/tower to outside the walls, added a new flat topped spire and a bridge (not too visible in this screenshot sorry!)

At the moment I'm mostly trying to get all the components for a full sized town which I can then scale down using the same pieces

WT: Update

Done some more to the warlock town, added the small tower/building within the castle walls, remade the towers as my previous ones had a really strange poly which couldn't be bevelled or deleted and it was easier to just make a new tower (Maya 2016 bug I guess??). Fixed some issues with the walls and created an archway. Might make them thicker to seem more robust. Also made a base, though it looks more cliff like here I'm thinking of going for a hill to set it more apart from the existing Haven town.

Some buildings might not be a part of the final model, I'd like to keep the dragon tower and mage guild as I think both incorporate well. I think there needs to be less space behind the wall so the castle should take up more room and have more components

 For the painted townscreen I'm thinking I will leave that till latter as it isn't overly necessary as I could always use Heroes II's Warlock screen as a placeholder if needed while I work on my own one. Also it requires finishing the castle model and making a few extras to render and paint over. Once I've got the castle completed the rest should come together quicker.

WT: Research

The Heroes 7 beta has started so I've done some research on the town buildings. Seems that there are three versions of each town. I've got some screenshots of the Haven and Academy towns as I think these are the closest in look/theme to my town though I might also take some screenshots of the Dungeon town.

Academy: 1

 2

 

3

Haven: 1.

 2.

3.

I now know I need to model a base for the town to sit on, this will likely be some kind of hill/mound. I have a better idea now of what I need to make and the kind of style it should be in.

I also need to think about the town screen. I've realised that this will probably require more work than I originally anticipated it would.

Town tree for Academy:

I'm going to need to work out which buildings I can only get one or the other of.

Scramasax Render

Thought I'd finish this model off while I wait for the beta. Bevelled some of the edges of the blade so they weren't as blocky and added a specular map then rendered in keyshot.

Normal and Specular maps:

Planning to put this into Skyrim at some point so there may be another update on this.

Nautilus Sculpt

Quickish sculpt I did today (around 2hrs) in Mudbox for the Daily SpitSculpt challenge group on Facebook.

I'm still working on the Warlock Town, currently putting together a painting with layers to serve as the townscreen. Going to make and render a few basic models to paint over to make sure scale and perspective is all okay. So far I've already modelled most buildings so the outstanding ones to produce are a crypt, portal, town hall/capitol.
Buildings that might/might not need modelling are tavern/hall of heroes, blacksmith, thieves guild and a maze. I also need to work out some extra buildings for warfare units, daily resources and grail structure etc.

I'm unsure of what sizes and scale to make the town at the moment as I want to make sure it fits in nicely with the rest of games town models, the open beta will be out toward the end of the week so I can check the games existing models then. Things should move along a lot quicker after that date.

Back to the Warlock town

Getting back into making the warlock town. I could still make this an explorable environment though having read up on the modding tools in Heroes of Might and Magic 7 which will be released soon I thought it would make more sense to use it to create a modded faction for the game.

 

This is what I've got so far some models need rescaling, the centre tower will be a castle the tower for now is just a placeholder, going to add some trees and texture it all once I've got the greybox sorted

Re-rendered Dinobird

Re-rendered the dinobird using Keyshot as the MentalRay renders on my portfolio were extremely washed out. Been thinking I should really give it a better name. Maskodactyl maybe?

Wanted to do the same with the camel but I'm missing the file with the UVs unwrapped so will need to do that beforehand.

Portfolio update, box update

Updated my portfolio today tried to tie it in more with my CV so there's a uniform look and replaced the text links to image links. Links to my CV and blog are now at the top of the page which makes more sense. Updated and returned the 'about' section, added a contact form as well as a freelancer.com button. Now I need to get some new cool 3D stuff done to add to the portfolio.

The host of the box contest updated their information with an image of the actual box and feedback so I've updated my entry to look more like it. Seem to be one of the first to update so I might have a better chance now.

Lots of Boxes

Been trying to get into freelancing recently. Made an account on freelancer.com a while ago and have been bidding on projects there. No success so far but hopefully I'll win a bid soon.

Today a bid required an example of a 3D products packaging to have a chance at winning the bid so I made a quick example.

I found this old Kellogs cereal box online and used that for my UV's and texturing

Later I found a contest making packaging for an product and rendering it so I also entered that.

 This was the provided image, I made two versions one with the bar code on the bottom of the box and another with it on the front.