It's Alive!!!

The Makerbot Replicator 2 I've been playing with is working far better now! Here's a creepy 100mm long / 100mc 3D print of a zbrush speed sculpt I did a few weeks back... Reminds me of my experience in FDM printing up to this point... but finally, it's also extremely promising! I'm going to have to get a better material that's less translucent so the details read better, but it's kinda cool to see the print structure underneath, so I'm leaving the rafting on.

Char Design Class finished!

Recently completed an online design class; here's the final assignment (revisiting the first):

and here's the evolution of my own character (so far - I still have a story in progress!):

Scoops!

Early design concept that I've recently been working on for a character design class.  He's a teenage baller of sorts in a story I drafted up a while back (and someday will revisit!).

Lunch Crunchin' - Hockey Player & Monster

60-90 minutes per speed sculpt.  Trying to keep loose in zbrush during drawing class...

Rise & Sketch...

Been doing a lot of early morning sketching lately, and just started an online character design class to experiment in that direction and inform better 3D design. Here's a sketch for the first assignment (design an older, British entrepreneur in a smoking jacket & monacle), and a bunch of morning doodles. Should be doing a lot of drawing over the next 3 months, so I'll consider this post a sort of "starting line" benchmark...

Got some good critique notes, primarily to be more attentive to 3d structure/form. Fortunately, I believe I have the background to think that way!

And doodles:

Lunch Crunch: Retro Cartoon 3D Sketch (~90m)

Go-Go-Gadget Speed Sculpt! After a rocky start (dude's face was so cheated in 2D) pulled a rough together over lunch. Rendered and added quick slight head tilt after the buzzer.

Lunch Crunch is back!

Speed sculpting in 60-90 minutes... today's theme was "Undead", starting from a generic human base mesh.

Busy Summer!

This has been a tremendous summer, headlined by my wedding! Here are a couple of cards I made relating to the day. In both cases I've started to employ an ipad for sketching - The first was done entirely on Sketchbook for ipad (challenge was to do it on trains and planes during our honeymoon, taking inspiration from the trip), and the second started off there as a rough, but went to the full Mac Sketchbook Pro for the final image.  Looking forward to the day where my tablet stylus is a bit finer than a breakfast sausage, but it's been fun!

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...