Hard Surface Modelling and Stuff

Well its time to throw up some more of my art that I have been doing: D

I've had a busy for the past few weeks working on a website promotional video and an Iphone game at work. Thus I've barely had any social life and feel quite knocked out, but in saying that Its really fun. I've been doing loads of concept sketches for work (like 50 a day) but can't show them until a bit later down the track.

Here is some of my recent personal projects:

Zbrush hard surface study. Base mesh done in maya 
then sculpted in Zbrush 4. 

Zbrush tutorial I worked through

I robot I'm working on in Maya for fun.

Found this artist on youtube, he has some very

inspirational work.

Maya Tut

I've finished up Uni for the year and have now started learning zbrush. I'm casually learning Zbrush in-between work and relaxation. I'm finding the process of creating stuff in Zbrush really user friendly and not as technical as Maya. I've also been drawing a bit but not as much as I would like and have nothing to show at the moment. 

I've also recently created this super simple tutorial on improving your workflow in Maya by customising your shelf menu's. I hope you enjoy. 

 

Oct update

Quick update... not much to say.

few sketches to keep my creative brain active :p

Concept game character bust. made with Maya

, 

dirt paint over done in PS.

sculpt update

Its been a while since my last blog post but I think its time I give another update :) 

End of second year uni is fast coming to an end and my brain is spinning with things I need to get done, but I'm confident that if I don't slack off I should be ok. I've really been enjoying my compositing and game design class because of the 3d component as well as the excitement of adventuring into the unknown to learn new techniques. This semester has made me more confused then ever before about what I want to do for my career... down the track. For me its been an on going battle as to whether I should focus my studies on 3D game design or 3D film design. I enjoyed compositing a lot this semester because of its challenges and rewarding final product on the other hand I like the 3D aspect of modeling for games. I think in the end I'm going to be happy doing work on games or film and that it doesn't really matter what I do because I will always enjoy creating stuff in any medium.  

This semester has been really busy for me and I haven't had a lot of free time to create personal stuff or draw but I do have one or two things to post up as always :] 

Been mucking about with a program called Sculptris,
 I hope to learn Zbrush better down the track...

Speed model I did on 3dtotal.com, I managed to get 2nd place :] 

Aug Update

Its been a while since my last post, I've kind of neglected my blog due to the huge amount of university homework and assignments I have to do. I thought I might do a quick update seeing as I'm procrastinating from doing the stuff I should be doing. 

I've done very little in the way of creative stuff this past few weeks because everything seems to be written assignments but I do have a few sketches and a work in progress of a large assignment I am doing.... until next time that all from me.

Mini Work Dump

Haven't been updating that recently due to being quite busy and still am. I thought I might quickly post some of my work up that I did over the holidays. Also uni has started again for me and I've got to start using my brain :p I'm hoping that this semester will be really exciting because I'm doing lots of 3D :)

Anyways back to study.

Model done to practice my hard surface modeling.

SMC done done for 3dtotal.com

Sketch Dump

More Study

Feeling the urge to update so I thought I would. I've been really busy this week with both my studies and life in general. I'm now constantly feeling the urge to try and get more art study in, even though there isn't enough hours in the day. But as long as I keep enough variety in my work by doing both traditional and digital art I shouldn't burn out.

Anyways last week I did some work experience at a film studio and I just have wow! These guys were amazing they just had so much skill and understanding of the mediums they worked in. It really came as  a kick up the butt just how little understanding I have of how the industry works. However in saying that, the experience has really made me want to work hard and strive to do my very best. The guys at the studio showed me lots of neat tricks such as non-linear workflow, creating environment maps with little effect on rendering and so many more small things that I am now applying to my work on a regular bases. I feel like a brand new artist ready to tackle the world with force. (will rain hell on this semesters uni work XD.)

I've been learning Zbrush as well as continuing to work through the numerous Gnomon tuts that I have. I've also decided to focus a bit on lighting and have set up a project to do so. I haven't been doing that much drawing of recent but my sketch book is still filling up with lots of scribbles.

Here is some recent work: 

Really needing to improve my next Gen modelling skills so I made this treasure chest. I created a High poly model and then baked the normal's to low poly mesh. I really happy that I managed to only have a poly count of 640 tris. I also like the way the textures turned out because I hand painted everything from start to finish and didn't use and photo textures at all :)

This is another project I am working on with the main aim to learn as much about lighting as possible. I've only blocked out the basics just so that I can get a sense of scale etc. I plan to redo the whole thing in a lot more detail.

Anyways that all for now

Holiday Work

Well its been a few weeks since I last updated my blog and I've now got something to post. I currently am spending my days studying and searching for a job. In the few weeks I've been doing this I am beginning to doubt that I really have what it takes to become a great 3D artist. I look at works by artists such as Grant Warwick and  Alex Tooth who are amazing yet so young and I can't see how I could possibly ever get to their skill level and find a job :/ I also beginning to wonder how anyone living in  WA could ever find a job in the 3D of business. Now that I think about it, how many student who graduated from my uni course have secured and have a job in 3D and how many are living their Dream jobs? I just feel as though I am wasting my time and that all my hard work could lead to a dead end...

Anyways I'm now working through 1000's of hrs of Gnomon tuts as well as really focusing on traditional art.

Some of my recent work (click images to see high res):

Sci-fi weapon I made it to try and improve my hard surface modelling skills

 

 The Colt 1911 started out as a Gnomon tut but the tut didn't go into much depth so I decided to improve on it and add textures etc.

 Drawing done at my recent drawing class.

I have several other projects in the works, one of which is quite large and hopefully will be a folio piece.

Uni break :) :)

Well uni break is finally here, after 14weeks of fun, pain and suffering I can finally take a break and chill or find a job :/ Job hunting has been difficult so far and I haven't really managed to find anything. I've also been searching around for some work experience but haven't had any luck mainly because ppl are to busy or away overseas. One guy in America who is working on a movie called "Spiders 3D" did contact me after I posted my show reel on vimeo.com asking If I wanted to do an internship at the VFX studio but I declined mainly because I can't travel to America and I don't know how legitimate the post was.

Anyways I managed to work through a few more UDK tutorials and so far I'm really enjoying making game environments. I also really surprised by how quickly you can achieve good results in UDK... I will be giving unity a skip just for the fact that UDK is awesome. 

tut I am working through to learn the udk interface. I didnt make any of the objects

Managed to get a few more drawings done over the past few days to help train my artistic eye. My art teacher introduced me to Conte crayon's which is pretty much a clay based crayon they used in the olden days before they had lead pencils. I've also started using Copic markers to create gray scale concept art and I want to develop my skills further with it. 

I missed last week's speed modelling challenge due to uni, but I hope to get something done this week...

Also need to think up a really awesome idea to make a game in UDK

Also found these interesting website and they really motivated me to get a move on and just focus on my studies!!!

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Why to much help stunts the growth

One Week Left X3

Just a quick a quick update because I feel I need to get some more random chatter out of my system.

I managed to complete 2 more speed models for the smc over on 3dtotal.com. I'm really happy how these turned out, even though they took longer than usual. I learn a bit more about typology, what maya can and can't do and what some of the bugs are in maya 2012. The theme for the challenge was Trinkets, anyways I knew I would have been able to cut down production time by at least 10-15mins if I had done some research before hand and know what the bugs are with the new version of maya :/

This week I discovered what was planned for DD students next semester, it looks promising and sounds like a really good opportunity to learn lots and lots of 3D. The unit which everyone is talking about is game design, the unit coordinator stated that the unit is target at a broad range of students so I already have a strong idea what the unit is about. I believe that students will have free range to choose the project idea and how they go about developing it, the lecturer will then give some really general information about game creation as well as feedback on individual projects... I've always really enjoyed the project based units so I have my fingers crossed that the units will be as good as it sounds. 

Another unit that sounds exciting is the compositing unit, where we will be able to incorporate 3D content with live action footage (special FX). This unit will hopefully help me explore a few different mediums and interests. Will have to wait to see what the semester holds for us :)

Seeing as holidays are right around the corner I have a bunch of things I would like to get done. 

One of them will be hopefully getting some work experience or an internship. This should  introduce me to what it's like to work in the 3D industry and maybe build up some contacts for down the track.

Something thing I want to do is get a bunch of tutorials done. I found a really amazing tutorial which covers game development in depth. It begins by teaching the fundamentals of concept art, then goes on to creating game assets and a character in maya. Once the 3D production side is done you get to rig the character and use motion builder to take real life footage and use it to create animation for the character. Finally all the 3D content is taken into unity and a small game is created. I'm not a fan of unity and would rather learn udk but the tutorial should teach me the fundamentals which I should be able to apply to any other software later down the track. I will also learn zbrush and udk for next gen game creation. 

By the sounds of things I've really got my work cut out for me these holidays and I still need to make enough time to play Fallout New Vegas. 

Also want make or conceptualise a game environment similar to that seen in the Forest Temple in Zelda ocarina of time and a random udk environment I found:

Show Reel

Well finally after an semester of doing 3D modelling at uni I have something which I'm happy to show off to people. I completed my demo reel after a few days worth of work and 3days worth of rendering. 

Uni Thoughts

On another note I've had a few people over the last semester at uni ask why I'm relatively good at what I do, so I thought I might share my thoughts on the topic and what has helped me get where I am. Firstly the quality of my work is very average compared to what comes out of the top schools and universities but I think I can improve with strong self guided learning. Also most average universities tend to focus on a very broad range of skill whether it may be web design, graphic design, motion graphics, 3D etc. This can be of advantage because students who don't have a clue what path they want to head down can be guided along by the uni, however it also effects a students opportunity to specialise thus limiting their skills and opportunities on getting job positions at higher levels earlier. 

However enough Chit chatter about the problems with universities and more talk about how to get better at 3D. There is a very simple answer to this question but how you go about approaching it can be very complex. The answer is to practice and practice lots. When I was young I had the opportunity to play the guitar, I figured that by practicing for half an hour every day I would get good at it, and I did. Since then I have moved on from playing the guitar and like to express myself through visual mediums but what I took away from my experiences of playing a musical instrument is that "practice makes perfect". No one should ever underestimate the power of practice as it can open up many doors and lead you new places.

The real problem with practice is that there isn't a real easy way to go about it. However if ur passionate I believe nothing should stop you from achieving your goals. While I've been doing 3D a few things have helped me along the way:

• Picking up traditional mediums such as drawing and sculpture have helped me the most because it helps me to think broadly and develop an artistic eye. This means that I can put details into any art work I make with more thought and realism. The things that most people don't usually notice which make an artwork more meaningful, l I can include in my work.
• Another thing I found helpful is to do tutorials every opportunity I have, especially tutorials which are structured with some form of syllabise and not just one off tutorials. These help develop your skills in specific mediums and help train your mind to learn how to troubleshoot when things go wrong. 
• Another point would be to get involved and pick others brains for information. Joining a club or forum really allows you to get feedback on your work so that you can develop more and find out where you're going wrong.    
• My final point would is that you should be really passionate about your work and pour you love into it because it will help you create work that is unique and of top quality.

I really hope that the things I wrote down today may help people who are slightly less experienced and guide them in doing something they love.  

Plugged In

Went to drawing class on Wednesday after having a 3 week break, I managed to do a bunch of different sketches but they didn't turn out that well mainly because I need to get back into the jist of drawing.

Worked on another speed model for a challenge at 3dtotal.com, the theme was magic and illusion. Managed to wip mine up in under an hour.

Holidays are coming up soon and I'm really looking forward to doing some complex modelling, especially in game environment design.