3D Portfolio Piece #2: Game Resolution Model & Normal Maps

So here's my progress at the second check-in!

And here's the topology:

Textures still need to be consolidated, touched up, and generated (when it comes to color & PBR textures), and the sword needs more work, but I did a lot of work and it was a blast! I really want to finish it as soon as possible!

3D Portfolio Piece #2: High-Resolution Sculpt

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I posted last. There's been an absolute gauntlet of things to get through here at FIEA, but I managed to find some time to split between Maya and ZBrush to create the (preliminary) high-poly sculpt for my second portfolio piece, the main character Bali from the webcomic Bird Boy (one can view the concept art from the previous post).

The reason why I'm calling this the preliminary high-resolution sculpt is because a lot of fine-tuning needs to be done in the face and hair especially. The costuming, however, I believe is close to done! I just need to insert a few laces and beads, but that can be done with the finishing of the face. Then it's onto retopology and texturing.

Which you guys will get to see in the next few weeks. Thanks!

3D Portfolio Piece #2: Concept Art

It's summer semester and it's time to focus on my next portfolio piece!

I'm still going to be working on the GW2 armor set, as I ran into a few technical snags over the brief summer break we had, and I still have to get the low-poly made for texturing.

Regardless, time moves on, and I decided to head in a more stylized direction for my second portfolio piece. After going between a few ideas, I settled on working on a 3D model for Anne Szabla's comic protagonist, Bali from Bird Boy.

I took the liberty of making a consolidation of concept art for him:

This would be multiple pieces, including the base model (on top) as well as several props including the mask, sword, and cloak.

I'm excited to work on it!

3D Portfolio Piece #1: High-Poly Sculpt

Good morning, everyone!

As you remember, I've been working on the female Norn stag armor from Guild Wars 2. I was permitted to go up to the high-poly Zbrush sculpt for my final turn-in, as I will continue to work on this with retopology and texturing in the next few weeks (and then I'm submitting it...!).

After a lot of toil, here it is:

It was a lot of work, since I'm still fairly uncomfortable using Zbrush for hard surface modeling, but I feel as though I managed to work between the forms Maya produced and the program to make something I'm proud of... even though some of those forms (in the chestpiece, boots, and helmet especially) escaped me, much to my frustration!

Here's the concept art, for comparison:

art by Kekai Kotaki

I learned a lot about Zbrush during this, so I feel as though I'll be more comfortable to head back in there for my next project. There are a few things I still want to touch up on before starting to build my retopology, largely having to do with the face. I want to improve it, but I was having trouble with Z-Remesher so I could get a decent base to work off of. Though the face isn't hugely important, I did want it to look nice, even though I probably will obscure the eyes.

So my current plans are to retopologize this during break and then use the first week or so of summer classes to make the textures look incredible.

Thank you!

3D Portfolio Piece #1: Blocking Out in Maya

So over the last few weeks, I finalized my figure sculpt (which needed a lot of anatomical fine-tuning, though unfortunately you can't really see it now!) and began to build out the forms of the armor in Maya. At this point I'm about 80% done (and I will update this post when the rest of the pieces are finished). One I have the armor pieces ready, I'm going to take everything into ZBrush so I can get the details sculpted out onto them. Then it's back into Maya for re-topology for the game-resolution mesh!

At times I worry that the complexity of this and the skill necessary in ZBrush might be a little over my head, but as I continued I grew more confident and started to have more fun. Now I'm excited about getting all the forms finished so I can take the next step.

Edit: Okay, I put in the time and finally got all of the forms in there. Next, I'm taking everything into Zbrush for a little texture- and final form-building before starting the retopology stage!

2D/3D Art Homework #21: Substance Abuse

We continued exploring Substance with Painter this week! Being able to apply the functionality of graph-based Designer with the more artistic approach of Painter was really nice.

Here's the helmet design that I ended up with after playing around.

I especially liked being able to use opacity and emissive masks.

Here's all of the layers as well:

Enjoy!

3D Portfolio Piece #1: Base Sculpting

Hello, everyone! Though we are still wrapping up things on Substance, I wanted to do a brief update on what I would be doing next in class. Focusing on character modeling, sculpting, and texturing, I am combining my first portfolio piece for 3D art with an art test that I am currently undertaking for an internship at ArenaNet.

Here is the image that was provided for the art test:

They asked for the character on the right: the armor for the female character model.

I need to do some research on hard surface sculpting in Zbrush, as I've never really done anything like that before this point, but I'm very excited to get into it. I did already get started, however, by making a base sculpt for the female figure. I decided to sculpt it out myself instead of finding a model online, partially for practice and partially because I really like figure drawing and sculpting.

So here it is so far:

With that squared away for the most part, I will be proceeding to tackling the armor in the next few weeks. And then there's making a low-poly game rez model in Maya... and then texturing!! So keep an eye out for it!