Three point perspective project - development

When I saw the brief I knew that I wanted to do something unique. So I chose a not so ordinary setting, that being a room on a futuristic space station in space. I wanted to do something that has a big window, with a view of the earth. So I started to look for references, and I was surprised by how many photos I was able to find to help me with this task. 

The room I was about to do was going to be an observatory, that looked very high-tech but also abandoned. So I started sketching in the idea using the perspective lines

After that, I painted every object/wall with a different block colour, to make painting easier, as per usual. I put my head around the lighting scenario, where and how the shadows were going to be cast. 

Then I started painting everything individually, choosing a more stylistic approach, using the oil paint brush.

Then I added the background, the cracked window that suggests that the place is abandoned, and the boxy control panel. 

For the final touches, I added in the light beams, some reflections and touched up some mistakes that I have previously made.

I can happily say that the final look of the piece really resembles the initial idea that I had, but I think I could have added more details. 

Future tribe character - final development

After my iterations were done, I had to choose one to develop into the final project. After asking lots of people with and no background in art and also following my instinct I ended up choosing the first iteration, which was not actually the first that I drew, but the first one in the picture from the previous post: The royal guard

Since my iterations were quite developed from the get-go, I did not really have to think about the materials, since I have already done that previously. What I did have to think about though was the colour palette and how the back view was going to look like. I ended up making one with lots of turquoise shades, blues, violet, pink, but also complementary colours. 

The shorts were going to be made out of fish skin, the top from some elastic material, the same with the belt, the shoes from some thick material. The wires that are holding the glowing spheres were going to be electricity wires and the shoulder armour metal pieces repurposed from some tech objects from the city. The glowing spheres were taken from glowing fish from the deep ocean. The tubes that are connecting the shoulder armour were going to be recycled from the city as well. The strips attached to the material belt were going to be jellyfish tentacles. For the spear, the tube that he is holding it from was going to be a pipe from the city, and the sharp things bits of coral found in the ocean, everything being held together by an elastic material and electricity wires...

Then the redrawing part has begun. I used the techniques shown in the video from blackboard to sketch the pose that i had in mind. I made sure that both proportions and perspective were correct throughout the entire process.

I made a rough sketch first and then added cylinders and other geometric figures to achieve the form that I wanted. The character was going to be well built, making sense for his purpose in the tribe. I found that working on the front view and back view at the same time was the best approach. 

Then I searched the entire internet for references of the musculature and the anatomy of the human body. I wanted everything to be correct from that standpoint. 

    Then I sketched in the anatomy on top of everything, looking at tons of different photos. I even asked a friend to pose his arm and hand for me so I could make a sketch. 

Then I added the clothes on top of that, and sketched in the face. Deciding how my character was going to look like was a hard process, but I ended up choosing him:

At this point I made some changes to the design, getting rid of the cuts in the clothes, since they did not look high class at all, and he is supposed to be a royal guard.

Then, the renderring process has started. 

Firstly, I added some different block colours to every object, so I could easily paint inside of them afterwards.

I have not painted any of these thing in photoshop before, and I was struggling picking up the brushes. I ended up choosing the wet oil paint one, painting the big shadows and highlists first, and then adding the midtones and details. I chose a more traditional painting approach which ended up looking extremely good and realistic in the end in my eyes.

Painting was very fun and challenging the same time. I had to choose where the light was coming from, where the highlits were going to be, what shadows would be casted, while always mentaining the tones of every element. For the clothes, I had to think about how the mucles underneath would look like, making use of the anatomy of folds that i have studied previously. For the shorts I ended up making a costom scaly brush that saved a lot of work time. For the hair I have used the hair brushes Craig has linked us to, which were extremely helpful! 

In the end I want to say that I am extremely proud of the outcome and I couldn not be happier with the result. The enourmous amount of work time that I put into it was definitely worth it!

Going Forward

 It has been a long and difficult year for me. Firstly, looking forward to next year, I really hope that everything will get back to normal and we will have physical classes again because the online approach was not the best one for me. A thing that I learned during my first year is just how important time management is! Assigning a dedicated portion of time for a specific task is something that I will definitely do next year. Course-wise, I think next year will not be as difficult as this one, since we literally had to learn everything from ground zero, therefore since we already have the basic skills now, everything should be more intuitive going forward. 

During my summer break, I am planning on working a lot more on characters. Sculpting them in Zbrush, retopologizing, texturing, even making them in 3ds max... During this year, I realized that character design was the thing that I enjoyed the most, so I want to practice it as much as possible this summer. Who knows, maybe this will be what I end up choosing for my final project in year 3. This will give me an opportunity to expand my anatomy knowledge as well, which is great, and I think it is a great step to me becoming better at 3d. 

Regrading how my perspective has changed towards 3d this year, I honestly do not find it that impossible anymore. I was extremely scared at the start, but now, seeing how much I have learned, I can not wait to see what I will create in the future using the skills that I have acquired so far! I am optimistic about next year and can not wait to get back on campus!

Fireplace project post mortem

 Seeing the fireplace finished is just mindblowing to me. I love everything about it and I am more than happy with the result. There has been a lot of work involved, but it was totally worth it in the end. Just like with the gladiator, there are things that I could have done better, but overall I am pleased and can not wait to do some more work including baking and also substance painter!

A design choice that I do not regret at all was keeping the fireplace simple. As a final project, it looks very high class and expensive, just how I intended it to look like!

Gladiator project completed

 Now that the gladiator is finished, all that I can do is look back at it and reflect. I am really happy with how he turned out. Being my first 3d character, I can surely say that it is way better than how I expected it to look out in the end. Of course, it is not perfect. There are some things that I wish I would have done differently, things that I have to get better at, but overall I am pleased with the result.

Also, I was surprised that everything looked 10 times better in engine than how it looked in max, including the textures which looked kind of flat in max. It was extremely relieving!

Week 29: Virtual Tour – Transport Museum

 For the record, I have never drawn a car before... I just never found cars interesting enough to be drawn. So working on this task was a total premiere.

In order to keep things more interesting, I decided to pick a more unique car, that being the Tesla Cybertruck, with a very futuristic design. 

After I found the reference that I was going to base my drawing from, I started drawing some perspective lines to help me in the process, and then I started sketching the silhouette of the car.

Following that I started adding the shading, the main focus being the highlighted parts of the car, to induce the metalness. I have added some shapes in the background to help with the contrast but also to make the setting more interesting.

I am not really happy with the result. I think the drawing looks too flat, maybe some more detail and more careful shading would have helped a lot to the final look.

For this drawing, I have used a B pencil, a 2B, a 4B, a 6B, and an F one.

The material study project - development

As with all my other projects, I intended this one to have a theme. After all, these objects are supposed to be shown in the inventory of a game. After some thought, I ended up choosing an action-adventure game that mainly takes place on an abandoned ship but also on an island.

Then I started to look for references for the objects. I made sure that I met the brief's requirements and chose objects mainly made out of wood, metal, glass, and leather.

Then, the next step was sketching everything out.

After that, I added some block colours to help me with painting but also with the colour palette. 

Then I started rendering every object individually, using different techniques to achieve the material specific look. 

I also added a simple and minimalistic background with some droplets on it. I am very satisfied with the final result and I think that the objects succeeded in looking believable.