Thursday 1 August 2013

Quick update on the Glutton King

The first pass detail sculpture is now done, onto the finer detail.

 



I began by adding pore and burlap texture to the trousers. however I don't want to add too much detail  in case I end up with something rather realistic and not stylized.




At the same time, I have been working on retopology of this guy.

Thursday 25 July 2013

Returning to blogger!!

I'm back after a month of neglecting blogger.

It has been a busy last month with freelancing projects starting here and there, at the moment I have 3 going on, so time is scarce to do other things.

At the moment, on a personal note I have 2 characters I intend to finish within a month, The Glutton King and Horace Bennett. ( if you remember he is the one from the mixamo contest that I didnt have the chance to finish. )

However I have a few shots on the Glutton King here to share, he is at about 60% done, needing an extra pass of detail, retopology, and texturing.






 

 Almost there!

Thursday 6 June 2013

Mixamo Contest: The Adventurer Progress 2.5

A quick update on Horace Bennett's character, I have assembled the props onto one scene file. and uvs are all done.


Meanwhile I have also began the base mesh for my character.



More Progress to come.

Sunday 2 June 2013

Mixamo Contest: The Adventurer Progress 2

So here is some more progress on my latest character.  After deciding with a design for the face and body, I moved into tweaking it slightly and trying out colour.

So here I present you, Horace Bennett, renowned botanist, zero adventurer.


And re-post his only friend on his trip, the Rug sack.

While working on these designs, I began modelling the props for the bag. 



I will now move onto getting this bag all assembled and laying out the UVs, ready for some Zbrush, as well as the character.



Just to let you know the deadline for this character challenge is 7th of July.


Thursday 30 May 2013

Mixamo Contest: The Adventurer Progress 1

So i will just add the progress done on Horace Bennett character, design is pretty much there. now only need to paint and then start modelling.

Firstly, I decided to develop the face a bit more.

With the previous drawings, I was happy with the last one. So I made him Horace Bennett, a happy, clumsy, charming, intellectual, drunk, fidgety scholar from London.



I then moved to design the body based on the chosen silhouette.


For company Horace Bennett takes company with him, an important lifesaver rugsack, full of tools that will help him on his dangerous travel.... ohh and gather the treasure from the manuscript.

Monday 27 May 2013

Mixamo Contest: The Adventurer

While my king character is progressing through sculpting stages, I decided on take a whole new challenge, a big one this time. I finally started to participate on a competition at the Poly count community forum.  Intimidating!!

The brief for the contest consist in design and model a character, then take it onto Mixamo auto-rig software and use a preset animation.

The Brief:  
 
In the early 19th century a mysterious book, the Voynich Manuscript, made its world debut. Written in an unknown language the secrets within are still debated to this day. Every generation has had its adventurers take hints from the Manuscript’s broken ciphers and cryptic images. From the high mountains of the Himalayas, to the lost jungles of the Amazon, from cities of gold, to buried underworlds, those brave enough to call themselves adventurers must be ready for the challenges the book alludes to. Help us discover the great adventures of the past century and the world’s most mysterious book.

YOUR MISSION:

Starting from the beginning of the 19th century up to modern day, create an adventurer to seek out the treasure of the Voynich Manuscript. Will it be a 19th century scholar from England, or perhaps a German code breaker from World War One? A Chinese medicine man or a hired thug for the Railroad barons of the expanding United States? Will it be a modern day billionaire, searching for thrills, or the descendant of Voynich himself? Use the greatest adventure stories you can think of as your inspiration and create your ideal hero!

Source: Polycount Forum

Being comedic on my character designs, I decided to add a twist my version of the adventurer and I came up with this.


Character: Horace Bennett

Age 59

Setting: 19th Century, London England.


"Horace Bennett , an Englishman enlighten by the discipline of the plants, is a renowned name in the botanical world, primarily due to his discoveries of new species of plants.
Being very intellectual, when he heard of the the “Voynich Manuscript“, he automatically knew it hid information about his beloved plants, maybe a healing plant, maybe a poisonous one or maybe a very rare species.
After many sleepless nights attempting to decipher the manuscript as he expected, it provided him with information about a very rare species of plant only to be found at the very center of the amazon Jungle, South America.
Being a botanist and not an adventurer, he thought to hire a expedition, however as the thought was formed it was immediately discarded, after realising the lack of coin on his pockets, all spent on whiskey which served as a company horrendous nights being puzzled by the manuscript.
Now his only choice was to grab his botanical kit, disembark in Brazil and venture alone to the heart of the dangerous Amazon Jungle in search of this rare species of plants, which could make him some serious gold."

here is where it all starts.


 

Friday 24 May 2013

Trying out Art Rage4!

Lately, I have bought a copy of Art Rage4, So I gave it a try.

I am surprised in a positive, The program has a clean layout, with the essentials tools, the brushes are used in a more traditional way, and often tricky. It has a lot of little tools that help your workflow, Such as tracing or reference tabs, where you can stick on your painting something to refer to. The menus are neat and user-friendly, but not as vast and detailed as photoshop. I am impressed with the program which I will be using from now on.

Here is a my new caricature painted on it.


Tuesday 21 May 2013

A Quick Update

I am just posting some progress on my Glutton King Sculpture, where I am finishing the 1st pass detailing. As you may see from my original sketch, I have modified the Belly area. with this modification I intend to emphasize his character.


Lastly, As some have noticed my profile picture changed again, this time I tweaked my caricature.

 

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Quick Update: Sculpt Progress

Exploring more and more Zbrush, I went on sculpting the King's Pants for this I used Dynamesh, and non- symmetrical modelling. so far Im finding fun to sculpt in such an intuitive manner.
 




Thursday 9 May 2013

Emmanuel, The Glutton King Portrait


Just a quick update with the final portrait

Wednesday 8 May 2013

Work in Progress

I just wanted to quickly update, my blog with some more work I have been working on.

Firstly, I decided to get the Beautician Character sculpted, so here I share few renders on the bust ( the body still needs rendering). I have used Zbrush for rendering purposes, as I have been looking into it.


Meanwhile I have been working a King's Portrait, in which apart from the drapery I want to use as a background. It is pretty much there.







and finally I would like to share to you how the model for the king is going.




Saturday 13 April 2013

King Manuel (Emmanuel), The Gluton

I though I could update you with some progress on the king character. I have been developing the character and came at a design stage where I am happy with what I have.


I like that thus far the character is communicating, a vicious, cruel disgusting and fat character.

I have decided to do some colour exploration and this is what I came up with.



 And here is a new approach to materials, a sheet where shoes what materials the clothes should be.
 

Next on the list is to create a Portrait, similar to those depicting Kings. A good piece of concept art to help me add some details. 

Sunday 7 April 2013

A Month and a Half Without Posting a 180 Turn in My Life For the Better

As you may see I havent been posting for over a month on the blog, the main reason is that I have been very busy with a few things in my personal life.My life did a turn of 180 degrees,

Firstly, I have finally found a place in Portugal, a great flat that I share with Ivana, it has been quite a hectic month of moving, settling and feeling comfortable. i have now a division in the house which is my studio, as well as Ivana.


 Secondly, I have a new family member, ( no baby on the way, no!) rather a artist-friendly beautiful kitten. which ironically or not is called "Snow". Because her mixed siamese breed.


Thus far, she has controlled a lot of time in our lives, but the house is now kitten-proof. More than an animal she is a great companion. Damn, Ivana you turned me into a cat lover!
 


Professional life has gone fine also, I have been a few freelancing projects where I have applied my character design, modelling and texturing skills. For my freelance clients I have been using Freelancer.com, which so far is going fine apart from their fees.


Finally, I have also improved my sculpting skills and applying what I am learning on a more realistic version of my beautician character. Here is the progress on the head, it is only the arm to resculpt.



 



I have began a new character inspired by the place I now live Mafra, Portugal. The character is a Glutton Imperial King, who is very cynical, cruel and disgusting.  I will be posting some more progress so far here some initial sketches.


Finally Atom Pancakes project has been fine, and I can't wait to present a few characters I have been working on for our new animation, as we intend to have a launch day for the project we intend to release everything in one go in a few places, so you need to wait.

Until next time.