Merry Chimpmas!

This year's Xmas cards then.  Like last year, based on a silly gag.  The inside of the card was just going to have ooks and eeks but I tempered myself and added some English words.  He wasn't necessarily going to have fur but Daniel Bystedt's great furry character tutorial was on YouTube so I followed that for pointers.  Also I tried messing with the hue of the finished chimp to see if purple made more sense.  It did not!  No turntable for this, the back's complete but you're not really gaining anything.

Having said that about the turntable, here's an alternative.  I went through my incrementally saved projects and rendered out what they looked like at the time.  So you have, going clockwise:

1. Initial block out, I really do start with circles cylinders and rings.
2. Hands and feet.
3. Merge and remesh from many pieces into head and body pieces.
4. Remesh the head (a technical step that doesn't lend itself to a screenshot)
5. Head adjustment and body paint.
6. Head paint.
7. Body pose, banana creation, hat shape, insert curve brush fairy lights.
8. Hat refinement, bulb materials.
9. Hat bobbles, bulb inflation.
10. Head refinement and pose, new eyes, bulb inflation, material and light work.
11. Fibres!

I like:

• The fur!  Three separate sets of fibres: Close and dense fur, specific longer fur (thighs, ears etc), and sparse long fur for variation.  Very pleased with it.
• Those blocky squared off hands and feet.  Just what I was aiming for.
• The background, I remembered to add a shape for interest.
• The folds in the hat; largely started with very low level cylinder geometry pushed around to keep quads of the same row the same relative size, just like real cloth would  if it was quadded.

I dislike:

• Getting a really nice noise for the wrapped banana but then when it applied (or rendered) it broke my geometry, so I had to switch it off.  It looked just like slightly crumpled wrapping paper!
• The bulb placement (despite being an elegant solution) was a bit inelegant on the final composite.

Happy Christmas!

Ulala Blue!

Okay, so not as rapid an update as I was hoping.  Mainly due to 3D print woes on another project which meant I've been working on two in tandem, and generally not having time for either.  Anyways, more Ulala work!  A sister piece to last year's Amazing Tales magazine cover, using most of the same layout stuff from that, and my Ulala model, although with a new outfit:  Whenever I unlock a new costume in Space Channel 5 Part 2 I assess it for using for these projects, and this is one of those!  A very Courreges feel to the outfit and the layout is shamefully an homage to a Cosmonauts poster I saw in the Science Museum.

It went through a lot of revisions on the actual scene.  The intent was to have her walking on a small planetoid a la Super Mario Galaxy, with alien flora, as if her and the Morolians were out on a school day trip.  But I couldn't get a look I liked, hence this being in purgatory for a time.

I like:

• Most everything on this one.  Very pleased with how it all came together once I worked out the scene.
• That a friend thought it was a targeted ad when I showed her a sneak preview!
• The outfit - with a specular overlay in Photoshop it really looks like a futuristic shiny mini-dress.
• How easy it was to reuse whole groups of layers in Photoshop when on the layout stage, probably just how a professional would!

I dislike:

• Ulala's blown out face.  One brightness contrast layer too far.  D'oh.
• Everyone's a bit disconnected from the rainbow ring, as it glows, it's got no shadows cast on it.  A necessary evil, but it does make it a bit airy.
• How many iterations it took me with some masks and overlays in Photoshop.  I need to tweak my workflow on some of it to help with layer masks updating with the right layers.

Whether another cover of Amazing Tales gets made, I'm unsure, as I really want to move on to making an iPhone game which will take a lot of my creative run-time, and as such I've been trying to finish this project and the 3D print one.  I will always gravitate to Ulala though, my space reporter muse.

Gundam - Shaldoll Scout.

Crikey!  What do we have here?  A finished project!  I have had a bit of a block on finishing stuff:  I've another two projects that are 3/4 done, hence the lack of updates.  Here's a bit of a departure from ladies and monsters though:  A robot!  Not done one before and yes it's thematically similar to the Tortilus but this felt much different to build.

I say "robot", it's a Gundam, technically, and a RGE-C350S Shaldoll Scout to be precise.  I have a big book of Gundam line art of *all* Gundam ever, so thumbed through and found this model to use as reference.

So it felt like a departure from the Tortilus as this was 99% zModeler and dynamic subdivisions, which as an old box modeler makes me happy.  I can think in low poly cages.  No visible UV work either (the shoulder has a decal on it but I couldn't have a front view and that in the same shot) meaning all the noise is procedural noisemaker 3D placement rather than UV placement which made it way quicker.  Three layers: erosion, dents, and paint colour variance.  All composited together in Photoshop in post.  I'll definitely use that tactic again.

I like:

• Big robot!  Definitely fulfilling my own brief there!
• All the lines aren't super sharp, there's a little bevel on most everything.
• My noise work.  It seems too much up close but when it's printed A4 size it should be just right.
• That I didn't spend another x hours doing more kibble that wouldn't be visible or in keeping with the cleaner Gundam style.
• I have had all the practise with the zModeler brush I'll need for a time!  With that it's so easy to add secondary detail on low polygon cages then cheat the high polygon look.
• The Photoshop composite has made it look like there's WAY more fidelity than there actually is.  It oughta, there's 50 layers actually doing something!

I dislike:

• No visible decals.  Would it have killed me to add some warning signs in a PS layer?  It would've helped sell the size even if they became barely visible.
• That I didn't bevel the shoulder gun where the barrel meets the housing.  Look at it!  Amateur hour!  I mean, I'm not being paid so it's not professional hour but still...
• That you can't really tell that he's 18.2m tall but I did keep the camera low to aid that.
• Gundam v Transformer gripes:  If I'd done that latter I'd've had more visible interest with an endoskeleton, it wouldn't all be one material, and it would have been way more poseable!

Right, time to man up and finish one of those almost done projects!

Happy Christmas!

So here's the image that went out on my Christmas cards this year.  Enjoy!

I wanted to do the whole "A t-rex has short arms so can't do a thing" joke with dressing a tree.  Job done right?  I intended to do this as a purely 2D piece but was frankly laughably bad at sketching on my Wacom in Photoshop.  I probably need a Cintiq eh Santa?

I like:

• How I drew out seven different heads using pen and paper to explore the shape.  The tall snout came from this and that was me just trying something that pushed the norm.
• The tree, as it took many attempts to get the fidelity appropriate for the dinosaur.  It's got a touch of the monkey puzzle to it which suits with the prehistoric look.
• That I got to create a toon shader material in ZBrush for the end effect to help it be more illustrative.

I dislike:

• That he can still blatantly reach up and down enough to dress another couple of rungs of tree, but I was so pleased with the composition as it is.  Creative license.
• His texture's a bit wonky with the triangles, and after lighting and toon shading you can't tell his belly is yellower than the rest of him.  I'll push that more next time.

Oh and the inside of the card asks how he put his hat on.  A worthy question I'm sure you'll agree!

Tortilus.

So this latest project has been in development (hell) for a long time. The initial idea and shape were conceived nearly three years ago but I lacked the inspiration and inclination to box model all the hard surfaces in ZBrush at the time. Paul Gaboury taught another Mastering ZBrush course at UArtsy and focused on hard surfaces expressly for making a mech. I marched to the beat of my own drum and didn't do a gundam like the majority of the class. I did a late 19th century steam powered exploration vehicle in the shape of a tortoise. I give you, the Tortilus:

Neat huh? There's a ton of detail under the shell which is rather obscured but you can tell there's stuff going on there which is good. Not millions and millions of polygons due to judicious use of bevels and dynamic subdivisions. New ZBrush stuff as it was a new course.

There should be crew. Think Michael Caine in Zulu but due to time constraints and wanting to do an illustrative end image rather than photoreal he's remained in 2013. Maybe one day he'll be in the balcony.

I like:

• The concept. It's mine. It's clever. It reads British.
• It's not a pretty lady or a humanoid! Variety is the spice of life.
• Getting on the course for free as an alum, seriously, they may be pricey but it was great to sit in on a course I took three years back!
• Using the ZModeler brush. I'm old enough to have box modelling as a skill; it's nice to have that supported in ZBrush.
• It should 3D print pretty well. There's very little that's a fudge, structurally.
• The blueprints in the background. You can see the flywheel. Made in ZBrush's own render passes.
• That the class including Paul Gaboury and Ryan Kingslien liked the finished product and concept.

I dislike:

• It all looks the same material, because it mostly is. Steam tractors are generally painted metal all over, but maybe the carapace could have been different in hindsight.
• You can't see the substructure because of the carapace or lots of other incidental detail at that angle (flywheel, gramophone horn, suspension springs, steering wheel, rear doors, it's all there)
• I haven't got a crewed up grimed up (this one's too perfect too but as it's an advertising poster I'm allowed it to look off the production line) version actually exploring through a jungle. Not enough hours in the day or Keyshot experience.

My next project shouldn't be too far behind. 3D print one too. Staaaaaay tuned!

Sphynx Warrior 2015.

When I was starting to learn all this 3D stuff I had a short list of things I'd like to sculpt.  That list is now much longer, but sometimes I revisit items already cherry picked and ticked off.  This is one of those.  Four years ago I sculpted a "Sphynx Warrior"; a humanoid with a Sphynx cat head a sword and shield and chunky paws for hands.  I'll save you from an image of it, that description already does it too much justice.  Sphynx cats are amazing for sculpting though as they're hairless, and I could keep the accessories to a minimum to stop the project getting out of control.

While researching lightweight swordsmen, I happened across Angampora, a Sri Lankan martial art.  Looking reference up before the Internet must've been such a sleuthing job!  There's no way I'd've found out about Angampora from a library growing up in the 90s.  Anyways, perfect for the job:  Lots of lithe chaps leaping around with simple outfits and lightweight weapons.  In fact, the pose is largely taken (sword arm, feet kicked back) from a picture I found online.

I've rendered out two views, as I was intending just the right facing one as the hero image but that missed out on the sash knot (yeah I could've just mirrored the sash before posing) but it turns out the left facing view feels more dynamic.

The background is a recoloured Utah salt flats pic taken by me that is also about four years old hah.

I like:

• The anatomy.  Enough to not put "anatomy" in the "dislike" section.  The wrinkly Sphynx head is good, the incredibly rotated right shoulder is good from the angle I'm viewing from, the feet and hands suit the character.
• The knot on the sash.  It's again a real flow of geometry.  It's how you tie a karate belt!  I like doing ZSphere knots.
• The eyes.  They have concave irises and there's another spherical tool which is transparent over that.  Much better than just painting on a sphere.
• How the pose has a sense of motion and reality even though it's quite extreme.  Especially in the left-facing view.
• That it's a measure of how I have improved over four years since my last Sphynx Warrior.

I dislike:

• Not spotting the surface on the lower section of the trousers with its normals inverted, a feature extruding inwards on ZModeler introduced, which made the cloth texture noise displace in rather than out on the lower leg.  Fixed in the pics, after another two hours swearing at layers.
• Slight colour differences between the two views despite using the same layer stack!  Missed something subtle.
• The right-facing view has lost some of the movement that was there when sculpting, probably from when I pulled back the perspective distortion to make it less fish-eye distorted.
• The cloth is too clean.  I should try doing tattered cloth one time.  The lack of grime / wear and tear is a common "flaw" of my work.  The cloth is also missing seams and stitching.

Overall, very pleased, although my improvements are now less leaps and bounds between projects.  It's entirely possible that my next posted project is also an old one.  I'm back on Paul Gaboury's UArtsy class and it's giving me a chance to revisit a mech I left 20% done as I didn't know where to go with it.  A toss up between that and more Ulala!

The Moon.

So here's one of those thought experiments that looks more complex than it is: Can I make the moon based on NASA imagery data? A ZBrush sphere comes with a UV map like a Miller Cylindrical projection. To that add a topographical greyscale map of the moon, apply polypaint from texture, then mask by intensity. Now you have the surface very masked for low points, not so much for high. Inflate that, and badabing! Instant craters. This one's had that pushed way more than it is in reality otherwise you really wouldn't see the difference. To make it pop a little more I added a truecolour map of the Moon over the top of the inflated sphere, also from NASA, which pleasingly shared the same co-ordinate space:

Nice huh? Yeah it's precisely what displacement maps are for but this was a nice ZBrush-y way to approach it. Here's the video too but Vimeo has rather softened the image with its compression. Also as ZBrush spins the objects in the scene rather than the camera, the lights stay put while the moon moves. Slightly unusual for Earth based viewers of this blog!

Moon from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

Introducing: Ulala!

Another sculpt from the "list of things to sculpt".  One that had been on it a long time too!  Those who know me will know my favourite game of all time is probably Space Channel 5.  Part 2 technically as I can actually play that without digging out my Dreamcast from storage.  The star of this is Space Reporter Ulala.  She was due a good quality high resolution update.  Yeah this is an odd subject matter as I'm basing it on a 3D model already, but it's all from my own scratch (Space Gal's musculature and head) tweaked greatly rather than me finding the original SEGA meshes and subdividing those.  Here she is:

In the spirit of me getting projects to a "print and hang on the wall" level I've gone for a retro magazine cover which was a lot of fun to do and really matches her dorky nature.  Her outfit's colour scheme is her original Part 1 one, not the white one from Part 2, although as I have the model made, I'd like to think I can make time to do a whole series of Amazing Tales Space Reporter Ulala Adventures.  She may well get 3D printed too if I can work out hip joints I'm happy with and find a flexible material for her skirt.

I like:

• That she's Ulala, blatantly.  So this project is an outstanding success.
• Her index finger mittens.  Turns out these exist in real life so I felt okay with keeping them and not doing proper gloves.  I assume her original model had to keep the polygons down so four fingers and a thumb was too much of an overhead.  They add to her charm.
• The magazine cover.  I might do that as a finishing technique a lot.
• Her anatomy, especially the hints of knees, although having said that...

I dislike:

• Her stomach.  There's no hint of abdominal muscles.  That's a mistake.
• The angle of her on the cover.  She's got lots of curves going on and the view I picked is too flat.

Right, better get a turntable sorted, although the latest ZBrush has changed their export options for movies and I'm not a fan of that at the moment as I can't make them loop perfectly, which is a key point to a turntable!

Happy (slightly belated) Christmas!

So this is this year's card. Yes the list had names on, but I have obfiscated them as they were the actual recipients:

It's all pretty straightforward stuff. I like the list the most, it had a nice workflow to make and make look good. Also there's many Photoshop texture overlays to save me doing the texture work in ZBrush which was a new technique for me (bricks, mortar, paving slabs, wood). Here it is direct from ZBrush:

Also, after getting Space Gal and the Green Man Knight printed out to hang on a wall it turns out I've been running with my monitor's brightness set to 100 which wasn't even vaguely representative. Hence the lower pic being so dark, and the upper being corrected. This is true for everything I've posted before too, which is well, irritating, to put it mildly! Fixed from now on though.

Wishing you all the best for the season!

Green Man Knight.

Cor long time no post!  I blame a few things; the World Cup, a long hot summer in beer gardens, and needing to create something up there with Space Gal and Space Skull (not necessarily Space *something* though heh).

The idea that'd been bouncing around in my head for ages was "Green Man Knight".  The Green Man being an ancient possibly pagan symbol, frequently appearing on churches (and pubs) in the UK.  I figured a knight with that symbolism would work as a sculpt.  Here he is!

And yep, I think he is up there with Space Gal and Space Skull.  So, for back-story I figured different trees would give different benefits to his armour.  Here I've made him a traditional gaming tank, where the Oak symbolises stamina bonuses, and the Ivy symbolises resistances.  Note the acorn studs on the mace.  I'd be made up to have this armour in a MMORPG hah!

I like:

• That he's both menacing and a bit twee.
• That he's from my own mind rather than someone else's concept, although I suspect that's a big factor in why he took so long!
• The fact the only red on the entire build is the eyes.  I had to change the snail from "garden" to "grove" to remove some browns.  It's a really nice palette choice.
• His integration into the background, which was initially a photo of the Wye Valley, taken by me on one of my trips back to where I grew up.

I dislike:

• Hardly anything!  But if I were to be super picky I'd refine the wood more, put a little curve into the arm guards, and well, try and not put as many man hours in as I did.  I lost a good few evenings trying and failing to remesh the helm to put UVs on it.  Also some lines are too tangential; the shield into back of the elbow guard, and the scratch that intersects the snail's eyes, both only spotted in post.

Overall though, delighted!

So do I 3D print or not..?  The leaves would need bulking up, and I'd lose the snail, and he'd not be pose-able without spending another age on him...  So probably not for now.  Plus I have Christmas cards to make!

Stylized Character Design Finished!

Crikey that was a lot of work hah.  Finally completed the Space Gal project I've been working on as part of the twelve week course I was on.

Cheated the angle of the dog for the sake of the 2D version, he's not looking anywhere near the ball, not that you can tell.  A lot of the posted 2D concepts had similar tricks so I figured I'd steal that for my final composite.  Turntable is "correct" angles though.

I like:

• The heads - both have come out appealing.
• Suit wrinkles - I don't do enough cloth, this was good practise.
• The pose - took a while to find one with minimal tangencies.

I dislike:

• The gal's eyebrows - they're more defined than that, might've lost something on posing.
• Composite feels a bit jagged - should've done an anti aliased half size render.
• ZBrush's transparencies - it works to a point but isn't proper caustics.

Frankly I'm delighted with the end product.  Okay, back to the 3D printing stuff I'm now literally weeks behind on!

Beastman Chaos Champion of Tzeentch

So I finally finished the project I was doing before Xmas cards.  Yikes, this one's been a slow one!  Not really sure what I can ascribe that to, although complexity may have had a hand in it.

Anyhoo, I give you, Traegor Galdbuck, Beastman Chaos Champion of Tzeentch (I'll come on to the backstory in a bit).

The seed here was a skull of a blackbuck antelope from my big book of skulls, and to do a daintier beastman, one that wasn't extrapolated from a burlier ungulate.  Tzeentch was chosen as the patron as I could use my Realm of Chaos book for backstory / ideas, and Nurgle discounted as I'd be forever on the skin doing numerable diseases (yeah this post requires mad levels of knowledge of Games Workshop in the 90s)

I like:

• Chestpiece - Fiddly, masses of detail, painted and sculpted, scratches, good result.
• Face - Brief fulfilled.
• Eyes - They're version four, and hand painted.
• Horns - Just right.
• Horror hand - Ludicrous but it works.
• Legs musculature - Largely made up, but it's sensible enough.

I dislike:

• Chainmail - It's too perfect, despite being sculpted geometry.
• Hoof hair - I should've added more further up getting progressively shorter.
• Photoshop composite - Wound up too saturated and not enough contrast, possibly, seems quite monitor dependent.  The 90s GW colour scheme didn't help there!
• Symmetrical ears - It'd be simple to just adjust one, an oversight.

NERDY BIT:  Okay so this chap's a patron of the chaos God of change, Tzeentch, hence the blue and gold colour scheme, and the choice of decals.  He's been awarded the following visible gifts in service to his God:  Hand of Tzeentch (the pink one, it's a manifestation of one of the demons of the God), Rune of Tzeentch (but on his right shoulder so you can't see it, check the turntable), and a warpstone charm, fashioned into his watch-like bracelet.  The runes behind him are correct for spelling his name and title.  The colour scheme is VERY Games Workshop circa 1992, with its very saturated look.  Souce material - Realm of Chaos - The Lost and the Damned, Games Workshop, 1990.

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.

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.

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.

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*