This Family Rocks!

I've used the title pun across 4 different websites now so I can finally say that I promise to never use it again. ;)

Been a little while since my last update and in that time I've gotten a fair bit done, so what I'm going to do is split my progress into a few different blog posts so that they don't get too long. :) As the title suggests, I'm gonna start off with a family of rocks that I made.

I started off sculpting one of them in ZBrush which was quite an easy process. Rocks aren't that complex in shape so it didn't take long at all. Here's a picture:

He's just happy to be here really! 

Up to this point all was going well! I got him textured to a standard I was happy with, got his normals sorted out and all that jazz - all I had to do was put him into Maya and bake the high poly onto a low poly version. This is where I started to get a few problems. :( 

Since I had sculpted the whole thing in ZBrush, the polycount was preeeetty high. Ridiculously high. I don't want to talk about it levels of high. So when it came to trying to reduce those polys it was a bit of a pain. I had done this with a tree and had no issues at all with it, so I assumed it was going to be the same simple process. Oh how wrong I was!

The rest of his body was fine but because I had sculpted his face into the model it was causing a few issues. Lowing his polys would work to a certain point and then just mess up completely, and in turn refused to bake onto a lower poly version. :( 

So with a heavy heart (and some useful advice from Jim) I decided it was time to just go back to the basics and make him in Maya instead. Here's the result of that:

He's a little more blocky than the ZBrush version but overall I think he came out pretty well. I also cheated a little and used the UV map from the original, then applied it to the new model and painted over that to save some time. Here's his UVs so you can get a look at the painting:

With the first rock done it was time to make his family! This was a much faster process when done just in Maya, so thank you Jim for making me see sense! Here they are all together having a good time:

I wanted them to be a range of different shapes so that they're easily distinguished from all angles. My plan is to use them in my upcoming scene and have them having a picnic or something. I was originally going to separate them across the environment, but I can't quite get myself to split them up now! 

The whole family are up on Sketchfab, so if you'd like to get a closer look at them you can do so by clicking this link! 

Finally, here are their UV maps too - just for continuity. ;) 

That's all I'm going to write about these rocks for now. I'll post more about them when it comes to putting them into a scene. :) 

Thank you so much for reading and have a lovely day!

Log blog

Hopefully my last blog post on logs for a while, for the sake of my own sanity if anything. ;)

I finished the second ZBrush log I was working on in my last blog post. I finished it up by putting it into 3D Coat and painting on it, so here's the result of that:

I also put the model onto Sketchfab so if you'd like to have a look at the full thing and spin it around and stuff then the link is here! 

The second log related thing I've done is go back and repaint some of the concepts that I originally posted before I began to model. It's quite amazing to see the difference a few extra days using a program can do, because the difference in quality is quite evident. Here's a picture:

(The one on the left was my first try, one on the right is the second try just in case it isn't clear, which I hope it is...) 

For now I'm going to focus on making some quick scenes to try and get quicker and improve my 3D skills. I honestly just really need to move on from this part of my project because it's been too long. :'D I'll come back to him sometime, but for now I need a break.

That's all for this entry, thanks for reading and have a nice day! <3

Growing Slowly

It's been a couple of weeks since my last blog entry, so I have quite a lot to talk about!

Since my last post I've been working with ZBrush to try and bring a tree stump to 'life'. I've made 2 separate attempts at it, and I'll explain why...

Here's the first one that I made:

Looking back on it now, I can understand why people weren't really registering it as a tree stump. Let's look at a picture of an actual stump for reference:

Notice the issue? It's the bark - it doesn't grow horizontally around a stump, it grows vertically up as that's how the tree grows. Now with that in mind, here's the second tree stump I modelled:

I think this one reads much better as a hollowed out stump, but I do still have a little way to go with it. It's also tricky to tell how convincing it'll truly be without texturing it, so I need to do that next.

For now I want to go back to some concepts - I've spent way too long on tree stumps and I need to get moving with this project so that I can make what I actually set out to make! 

Thanks for reading and have a nice week. :)

Friendly Treestumps

Since my last post I've been working on some tree stump designs. They're the first characters that I want to try modelling for my scene so I wanted to spend some time desinging a few different stumps that I could try out.

Here are the sketches that I started off with:

Josh suggested that I try Paint Tool Sai to create these, which I hadn't even considered. :'D Sai feels more like you're actually painting onto a canvas, and this is something that I really want to apply to my work. So rather than working on them in Photoshop, I've taken on the challenge of trying Sai. Here's the first tree stump to go through the process:

I feel happier with the texture that this image gives off, so I'll definitely be sticking to Sai for the other designs too. I'll be getting them finished over the next few days and will post them when I'm done. :)

File > New...

It's been a while since my last blog post (sorry!) so there's some things to catch up with for this one.

The main thing being the focus of my MA and where I'm going with that, so let's talk through that first - you may want to sit down, I'll make you a cup of tea, you help yourself to biscuits, etc...

So for my previous project I was focussing on AR and making characters out of objects in the real world. I had a lot of fun with this but I'm realising that I really can't get close to the results that I was hoping to achieve. There just isn't an app out there that does what I need and I'm not capable of making one on my own. ): Though it was a fun concept to work on.

So now I'm going to try focussing on a similar thing, just in VR. I still adore the idea of hiding places and little characters hiding where you wouldn't expect, so what I want to do is make a calming forest that you can walk around in, with hidden places to explore. Now this is much more work than my last project, but it's a challenge I'm willing to take. ;)

To do this I also want to get a good grasp of ZBrush so I can make some really nice character models to put in there, and have been learning the ropes with a Low Poly model I made of Pinecone Boy in Maya and imported over. Here's a screenshot that's kinda out of date but turns out to be the only one I have on my surface oops:

He's progressed a bit from there so I'll add an updated screenshot when I get home. :)

Then in unrelated but still-somewhat-related-because-it's-a-study news, here's a crystal study that I painted:

It's been a while since I did a study like this and I really wanted to focus on improving my colour theory, so a crystal was actually a pretty great subject. I learned a lot painting this, so will definitely aim to do more in future!

That's all the visual stuff I have to show for now, but I'm going to be doing some sketches and hopefully some 3D work this coming week, so look out for that if you're interested. :)

That's all for this entry, thanks for reading and have a great day. <3

Igniting 2016!

I realise that I now have to use another fire extinguisher title for my next blog post otherwise I'll end up leaving a safety hazard open for all future posts. :(

Anyway, happy 2016! I hope that the year is filled with wonderful memories and happy times. <3

As mentioned in my last post, I've been working on a fire extinguisher character in Maya. The last post only showed some character sketches and the base model, but since then I've UV mapped and textured him so am ready to show the rest! Here he is:

I've also put the model onto SketchFab so that you can interact with it if you wish to do so. Here's the link. :)

I learned quite a lot while making this guy - he may look simple but I tried to challenge myself to use a few new techniques that I previously wasn't too comfortable with. Making smoothly curved objects was one of them, so I'm very happy to have been able to learn and use that technique on this model!

Time to Extinguish 2015!

Maybe 2016 will be the year I finally stop using terrible puns for blog post titles. ;)

This is my last post of 2015 and I'm sorry for the inactivity over the last week and a bit. My lovely Ivana is visiting for Christmas & New Year so I've been on a work hiatus to spend time with her and be a good host! She has begun telling me to do work though, so I take that as a sign that I should begin to do so. ;)


So here's what I've been working on, first some character sketches of a new character:

I've also modelled him and now just need to UV map & texture, so that'll be in the next update. Here's the model:

That's all for this blog post, thank you for reading and I hope that you have a wonderful new year! Thankyou so much for sticking with me over the last couple of years. <3