Interlude ~ Wood & Metal Class Results

Realms Unreel production has been wrapped for a few weeks. I'll post some final images soon, but while we're waiting for the books to print, here's my first piece of furniture, a Maple/Walnut and Metal piece I recently created for a class at the Crucible in Oakland. It was an awesome experience to learn to weld and do basic woodworking, and I'm hoping to go back for more when life's a little more calm...

... and yes, it's REALLY HEAVY.

Realms Unreel #2 WIP

I'm in "Polish/Plussing" mode on all twelve full-page illustrations, trying to bring them up to par and make any last corrections/improvements that I can.  Time is very limited, so I'm having to settle a lot instead of noodle... But that's kind of refreshing, actually.  I'm happy with the experience I've gained, and getting ready to move on to the next challenge.

Realms Unreel #1

Need to balance this out a bit more, but putting it down for now...

Realms #11 Starts a Busy Weekend...

Got this one up last night. May add a simple background, will see... I've also made an Ava model as of this afternoon, dropping her into another illustration now!

Realms Unreel #23 WIP

One down, three to go for final key illustrations. May still want to make a few touch-ups here, but they're getting easier!

Realms Unreel: Samurai ZBrush Model (Zeke's Avatar)

Was just doing some quick organizing of directories and realized I'd never posted the first model I made for this project. Have learned an awful lot since this, but at the time it was a huge step. One of my favorite things about art is that you're always learning. You'll find something you used to think was good, and realize today that you were just so lousy at it back then. That's a great feeling of progress, and it's the reason why I keep this blog.

Realms Unreel #19 WIP

Another scary one!  Shot clock is ticking down, but I'm doing what I can every morning before work to take this as far as we can in the limited time that we have.  The toughest thing is feeling that I'm just hitting a stride as time is running out, but I suppose one could say that about many of life's stages, and the fact that I've learned so much on this has been tremendously rewarding.  Looking forward to going back through the older illustrations and punching the look up match to the newer ones.

Here's the latest Work-In-Progress!

Realms Unreel #28 WIP

Two weeks left for new ZBrush illustrations, then on to sketches and fixes only! Here's a sample of the latest:

Realms Unreel #26

Here's the latest Work in Progress! We're in the main stretch and scrambling to get this done before the summer.

Realms Unreel #8

This image will still get some touch-ups, but here's the latest... Production marches on!

Emmie Model

Emmie's model has been done for a few weeks, and she's actively being used in compositions, as seen in the last post. She's essentially a Silicon Valley tech startup wonderkid who's so into her Alternet spaces that under her requisite hoodie she's always wearing immerger gear (bottom), a sort of cross between a mocap suit and skin-tight athletic wear that allows her to fully engage her sense of touch in the virtual worlds that she builds.

Just finished another illustration with Em & Dom at the Tree, and trying to bang out whatever I can do. We're in the throes of production now and working on a very tight time budget, but it's been a wonderful experience and I'm looking forward to sharing more soon!

Realms #17 First Look

Recently completed the Emmie model, meaning that our two biggest modeling tasks are DONE and actively being used in compositions!  Here she is with Dom.  This is the first shot in which both the FG and BG elements came from ZBrush; normally this will not be the case, but this moment in the book is one in which we really wanted Dom to be presented carefully. 

I'm also happy to say that this combination of shaders and workflow seems to have struck a good balance for the project. Previously completed images will be updated to match the look, though we're going to continue to refine mid-ground look consistency by moving forward with new images first.

Realms Unreel #14

Latest from the project...

Realms Unreel Ramping Up!

Amid all the chaos of renovating a house and planning a wedding, I've managed to squeeze in a little illustration. Been playing with compositing 3D and hand-drawn elements using Sketchbook Pro, ZBrush and Photoshop. This image is still likely to get a few little tweaks before it's done, but I think it's a good example of what I'm trying to do for the book:

Realms Unreel Update

The latest update on the book is up at:
Realms Unreel Illustrated Kickstarter Project

Here's the latest in-progress work of the Zeke avatar shot and the Dom ZBrush model. I'm trying to keep hacking away at this project outside of work now - More to come soon!

Life Changes!

What a summer!  Sophie and I not only got engaged, but this weekend reached an agreement with the seller on our first home purchase! We certainly have thanks to give our friends who made it possible, including our outstanding Mortgage Broker / Life Advisor, for whom we made this card on her recent visit to the Bay:

Realms Unreel - First Pass Thumbs

As those who know me are aware, it's been one hell of an eventful summer! Though Realms has subsequently fallen into a slower pace than would have been, Audrey and I are still working on the Kickstarter actively. Here are our first complete set of thumbnails for the images; these are rough guides   (like storyboards) of scenes we've hoped to picture which we will reference in creating the final images.

More to come soon on development of the final look!

Speed Sculpt

Did this caricature of a friend over a lunch break and then in an hour or so before work as a speed exercise.

ZBrush creature skull

Over the past 2 months I've been spending a lot of time tuning my ZBrush skills in the hope that I can use that software to help create some really cool images for the Realms Unreel Illustrated project. Here's a quick fictional creature skull sculpt that I did in ZBrush 4R3 over a few early mornings before work, crossing elements of a human, gorilla and dog skull. It's got a couple of errors but was a fun learning experience so I'm going to put it down and move on.

Realms Unreel Update: Dom & Ava in Progress

These in-progress designs are starting to get a little closer to how Dom & Ava will be shaped, as well as the basic colors they would have.  I'll be finishing up this design pass on them shortly and moving into other designs (Serapin & Emmie) as well as experimenting with ZBrush illustration effects for the book using a character sculpt that I've been making for a separate project (hopefully will post here sometime soon!).

Ava's final design is going to start to feature a more dramatic fabric draped over her shoulder, and the face/hair will most closely approximate the center top drawing.  Dom is going to be getting slimmed down a bit into a more Ancient Greek ideal sort of body, though this was a solid round of exploring the boundaries of character shapes and sizes.