Belated Happy Christmas!

So last year I printed some Xmas cards with my own 3D stuff on it.  Figured I'd do the same this year too!  I'm very pleased with how they've turned out, even if the composition and subject is a little staid.

I like:

• The tree, it's fibers, first fiber tree!
• The holly, it's fibers with micromesh, first time using that combination.
• The ends of the presents, the polygons and UVs are like you would see if it were a real present, so the wrapping looks legit.
• Cards on the mantelpiece, well, the violet one, it's last year's.  How meta.
• Reuse of assets (Cinderella's redressed and I have some wings from a barely started project for the angel)

I dislike:

• The wrapping paper is a bit dull, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't using anything copyrighted.
• The tree lights are just done in post, more a limitation of how ZBrush deals with lighting a document.
• How terribly insipid the whole thing is.  More salacious next year I think!

Right, back to the project that was stopped to make room for this one.  Hopefully that will mean there's less of a gap between the posts.

Rooster Warrior Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Rooster Warrior.

Rooster Warrior Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Rooster Warrior.

Cor two months?  Long time!  I've been moving house, so yeah, that's taken up most of my head-space, but was free at the weekend enough to ease myself back into sculpting with a quick project.  Another Jake Parker sketch turned into 3D.  Colour scheme is Alan A Dale from Disney's Robin Hood, it works rather well I think.

Cinderella Turntable.

Associated turntable of Cinderella. I couldn't not show off the boots right?


Cinderella Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Fables Cinderella.

From a comic cover by James Jean, part of the Fables series, where traditional fairy tale characters are reimagined in modern and fantasy world settings.  Cinderella is of course a hit lady in this universe heh.

Original art from here.

I like:

• The consistent fidelity, there's nothing that is massively more or less detailed than the rest.
• The hair, new technique involving curve tubes from Ryan Kingslien, lengthy but worth it.
• Face texturing, from a tutorial by Cezar Brandao, again not quick, but again I can't argue with the result!
• The face in general, after Alison winding up looking a bit of a shrew!

I dislike:

• The fur, I mean it's okay, and works as part of the piece, but there's no easy way to sculpt, or fudge it, unless I went down the fibers route which I was intentionally avoiding.
• The lights, but only because I tried again to get a Lightcap working in ZBrush and failed hard, what you see there is almost three point lighting.
• Whatever is going on on the side of her nose, should've spotted that.

Next project I intend to finish isn't a lady and isn't clothes!  Complete switcheroo, until that one ceases to spur me on.

Thief Turntable.

Associated turntable of the thief.  Actually version three, after adding eyebrows and fixing the back straps after one, and then removing some post production noise in number two.  Good job this was a "simple" one!

Thief Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

A Thief, With Goggles.

A "little" project from a sketch by an artist called Jake Parker, one y'all should check out *nods*.  Didn't paint it or put it into Photoshop as I was after something that looked like it might have been 3D printed.  Job done!  Also, always write an asset list, I'd finished the render *and* the turntable before realising I'd not done eyebrows, not that ya can really see them anyways!

I like:

• That he does look like he's about to be 3D printed!
• Torso armour, the straps looks strapped in with some tightness.
• The base.
• The hair, although...

I dislike:

• The hair.  It does work, but could be better.
• The bag, which to be fair looks like that in the illustration.
• The head, it's functional, but the biggest departure from the source.

Speaking of the original, you can find it here.

Paintball Turntable.

Okay let's see how Vimeo embeds a video then!  Here's the associated turntable for Paintball.  Enjoy!


Paintball Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Holey moley, it embeds it perfectly!  Nice one Vimeo!

Paintball Project Polished Off!

Finally I finished a big project.  Alison Brie from Community's Season 2 Paintball episodes.  Yeah the face isn't right, but I had to call it at some point.  Looks like her from some angles and some distances, honest!

I like:

• The boots.
• The lace.  Really, that's come out lovely.
• Fingernails.  Done a bit more sculpty than as separate tools.
• Sock wrinkles.
• That badass orange gun.

I dislike:

• The fact the face isn't close enough to the subject matter.
• The too nondescript texturey textures, on the shorts especially.
• That odd lump on her left forearm, should've spotted that.

Overall it's continuing the "better than my last project" theme, so yeah, very pleased with the end result all in all.

One Hour Head 03

Again posting something I did a week ago.  More monstrous, started by thinking "Lion" but have wound up more with "Bugbear" heh.  Oh, and I've switched my matcap for these to Shiny Old Skull to pop the contrast up.

One Hour Head 02

Sculpted two weeks ago.  Much improved, and having the eyes in place from Head 1 meant I could get more done, and have something to work to from the get-go.

Render compositing workflow test.

Here's the one hour head after following a BPR Rendering Workflow tutorial on 3dtotal.  After finishing I wish I'd used a more refined sculpt!

I like:

• Overall result, which is nice.
• Depth blur.
• Cavity map spoofing using a sketchey material.
• Nasal labial fold.
• Eye bags.
• How the rim light worked out.

I dislike:

• Needs a big smooth after sculpting, too grainy, especially zoomed in.
• Lips, lower lip especially, needs better definition at the edges.
• Lip polypaint, more an omission than a dislike.
• There's no eye specularity despite being a pretty shiny material.
• The lump on the sternocleidomastoid, shouldn't be there, probably came when rotating the body to make it less symmetrical.

Overall a good afternoon's work *nods*

One Hour Head 01

As topic title says, a head, done in an hour, starting off from a sphere.  It was supposed to be a lot more fantastical but the more I refined it the more normal it became, the only indication is the slightly high ears.  Good practise, I'll be doing these more, plus they give me models to use for testing things like materials and Photoshop composites (to follow).

An introduction...

Hi there, my name is Tom and I play around with 3D graphics for a hobby.  Pretty much exclusively ZBrush for the 3D bits, and Photoshop for the 2D bits.  I wanted a blog so I could put bits and pieces of works in progress and experiments down as a collection of my progress.  I've been using ZBrush for two and a half years now, and thoroughly enjoy it.  Thanks for stopping by!