Tribal Character Finish - Digital Art Practice Week 20

 This week I finalized my tribal character all though the lineart stage to the end. It was a lot of work but I am really proud with the result. I first started with making three layers of lineart, improving it each time. I copy pasted some elements that I liked into the next layers while remaking the ones that needed fixing. This ended up with a very nice lineart that I could work with.

This is the final lineart. I decided to make the backpack separate from the main base. I added all the previous design elements that I had sketched last week. 

For coloring I used a combination of photos and game screenshots. I started by blocking out the values as seen on the back view of the character. I kept everything separate and this allowed me to render the elements separately. Losing the ability to blend things together was a challenge for me as I usually utilize that in my own work.

I decided to go for a similar workflow to what we learned in 3D, by doing a base color first and adding lighting separately. This would allow me to utilize the separate layers workflow to it's fullest potential. I also added some dirt and wear as a separate layer. I avoided adding too much shading with this layer as well.

With my base color layers complete, I could proceed to adding the color layers. Doing the painting this way presented a totally different way from how I usually work and was a pleasant change of perspective to the way I paint.

I put the backpack in perspective. I added one new element that wasn't there before which is just a microwave. This simple addition would be a great help at identifying what the backpack actually was.

I put the backpack on a separate layer to preserve the non destructive workflow. I developed the lineart to finalization and then masked the thing. I would be using my own painting style here.

The finished product looked something like this. I was very pleased with the way my character turned out. 

My biggest challenge in this project was definitely my lack of character design experience as I usually work with environments and props. I also usually work with a much more loose style resembling traditional oils or gouache so this painting style was challenging. I had much less trouble compared with my orthographic scene from the first semester though, which I feel is an improvement.

ZBrush Intro - 3D Game Production Week 21

 

This week I started with Zbrush. The software came to me much more intuitively, as the sculpting process was really similar to Blender, which I have experience using. Specifically, being already acquainted with concepts such as dynamesh, different brushes such as clay strips, among many other things, allowed me to get a quick start on the software. For starters, I decided to sculpt some basic materials that would be useful for my next project, such as wood and rocks. 

I limited myself to the basic clay buildup brush for the time being and got to know the software better. I trimmed the edges to create a worn feel. Adding details on the edges alone made the model feel much more believable and nicer to look at. I was able to create further visual interest using variety is the wear amount throughout the edges. 

I tried some different brushes to get other interesting effects in. I used this brush to create a feeling of cracked rocks. I failed, but I learned a lesson in what not to do next time. Having every surface being damaged doesn't create visual interest. Having every surface have the same amount of damage just looks bad and fake. 

After messing about with sculpting bricks and planks for a while, I did a little test sculpt to see what the software was capable of. I was impressed by the variety of brushes and tools available and created this little backpack below. It was a fun little project to just test out some of the brushes and the tools, like the move tool. Although I am aware that a real asset would first be modelled and then sculpted, obviously.

I did some further sculpting on the backpack before leaving it for later. Overall, I feel like I understand the way ZBrush works now. The amount of tools available by default and the remesher stood out to me as very convenient. I am looking forward on working with it in the future.

I did some research and some concept sketching for my fireplace. I had used mostly realistic references so the design ended being an accurate one for the most part. On the low right you can see the final concept that didn't change much for the entire project since it accomplished everything I wanted it to.

Equipment and Anatomy - Digital Art Practice Week 19

 This week I finalized all the designs for the individual objects. I also made an anatomical base for my character. I used this to get used to working with masking characters, as usually I would never do this in my own work.

I took a bunch of references which I used to paint the anatomy base of my character. This was really fun to paint and I hope to paint more of these in the future. The anatomy is not perfect and there are a number of mistakes, but this would have to do as this was not a priority by any means for the final design.

I finally decided on how the backpack would look like. Combining every element together created a much better design of what I had before and I was pleased with the result.

I finalized the clothing design as well. I added some little elements as seen below that didn't exist before.

Further detailing on how the character could look like. I had a lot of fun doing these.

Museum Visit - Traditional Art Practice Week 17

This week we visited the New Walk museum in which I made drawings of skeletons. For my sketches I went around I did drawings of different bones. I didn't do a lot of shading with these since they're just thumbnails. Since animal skulls are something that I draw myself time to time this was kind of a comfort zone type of deal.

 

For my finished drawing I went with this hippo skull. After making the thumbnail, I made my lines thinking of line weight, and then shaded the dark areas appropriatly. The shadows weren't very prominent so I took a little bit of creative liberty with some of the shading in order to make the shapes stand oiut.

I touched up the drawing in photoshop in order to bring out the values.

Gladiator Finish - 3D Game Production Week 20

 This week I developed my gladiator to a final stage. After this week only the textures could be improved, and so I decided to focus on completing other things first before improving an already developed part of my work. 

First I added a biped to my gladiator model and did some rigging. I was surprised by how intuitive this was to do, and making body movements came naturally to me. I started from the pelvis and worked outwards toward the limbs. 

I worked on each part separately, thinking of the motions my character would be doing in a game environment. I put the rig bones in the middle of the anatomical forms, against putting them where real muscles would be. The distinction made sense after a while, as this would allow me to have an easier time skinning later.

After rigging the main parts of the body, I used some of the extra bones in order to add shape to the dangly bits of my character, this being the wrappings on the arm, as well as the cloth pieces on the waist. I found three bones to be enough for these as I didn't need more.

I rigged the fingers as seen below. Before starting my skinning process, I checked everything and created a test animation to simulate some motions.

Next, I added the Skin modifier. I had already reset my xForm and have created copies just in case I accidentally collapse it. Which I didn't. The animations that I had created were really useful in this stage as they allowed me to quickly move my character into various poses and fix him up. 

I added more weight to the center of a bone, and lessened the weight as the bone ended. The automatic balancing in Max helped me out a lot in this stage as I didn't actually have to waste time going through every single vertex.

I imported my gladiator into UE4 and made sure there were no errors. I separated the helmet and the other equipement and imported them separately. I created materials for the model.

I used the last key of the animation that I created to make my character strike a pose. I went back into Max and fixed the skinning in this pose a little bit.

Color Iterations and Lineart - Digital Art Practice Week 18

 This week I worked on color iterations for my character. I decided to go for earthy colors since the character lives in an arid area without much vegetation. Red and blue colors had to go despite being a huge part of the Ainu clothing culture. Due to the design decisions I made previously I didn't have to take much creative liberties after this, thankfully. 

I decided to finalize my design ideas before starting on the lineart. I developed the general ideas of the individual elements.

I also made some materials this week. My favorite of these is this cloth material which I am really proud of. I incorporated the initial lineart I made in this one even though I usually just paint over it. I feel like the lines really improve the feel of little folds and ambient occlusion shadows created in the creases.

Value - Traditional Art Practice Week 18

 This week I worked on the value piece. I started out with some thumbnails to figure out the framing and locations of objects. I kept in mind the use of different local values for objects while making the sketch. 

For my final piece I again started with a block-in of main values first before any shading was done. This again allowed me to create much cleaner forms and to convey the objects far more concincingly.

I touched up the thing in photoshop to bring out the values. Now that I look at it, I can see another shortcoming of my artwork which is a lack of cleanliness. My shading lines go in different directions and the bottle shading is pure laziness. I think I have discovered another thing to work towards in improving my artwork.