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!

African Drummer 3D Print.

And now for some more 3D printing!  My family and I lived in Nigeria for a couple of years when I was a kid and as such we have a decent number of knick knacks from then.  One of these is a collection of wooden figures doing various traditional bits and bobs.  I took a load of reference pics a couple of years back intending to "just" do the sculpt digitally but with 3D printing taking off I decided to go one better.  I got three copies of this chap printed out:  one for me, one for each parent.  My brother's missed out as his young son might enjoy the small parts too much!

Cute aren't they?

I like:

• Beige material - It looks almost patinated which really added to the hand made feel of the finished piece.
• No glue - It's all pegs, which makes them a little wiggly, which I think adds to the character (the head has some rotation in it for example)
• The reaction my parents had to them.
• The existence of 3D printing.  It's still bordering on magical getting physical output from my virtual toil.

I dislike:

• His stoop - due to a small amount of looseness on the feet / base connectors, a feature of the wiggle room.
• The elbows - Those joints were nearly impossible to get in.  Credit to Sculpteo's plastic that it didn't snap.

I needed to get this update published as the next project's just about finished!  Staaaaay tuned.

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 Turntable.

Associated turntable for the Green Man Knight.

Green Man Knight Turntable from Tom Lewis on Vimeo.

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!

Skull Chaser 3D Print.

Still grasped by the 3D printing bug, over the late May bank holiday weekend (and another two days) I went back to some Jake Parker illustrations for resources and inspiration and decided to take his Skull Chaser as inspiration.  I'm not going to post ZBrush shots as there's plenty of end result real ones to get through and as Slimer proved, the end result is precisely what is in the virtual realm!

As before all the visible joints are the model's own.  All Revoltech.  These were much easier to get in this time as the material printed in is plastic rather than the much harder multicolour material Slimer was.  Again, all printing by Sculpteo.  Onto the pics then.  He's about 15cm tall.

Neat huh?  I really need to get my own IP so I can sell this stuff hah.

I like:

• That he can stand on his own without the stand (that admittedly fits lovely into his backpack.)
• The plastic material.  It has WAY more give than the multicolour.
• How spot on to the reference it is heh.
• How nice it all fitted together.  The only glue is on the tips of the white antennas to attach the visor.
• The helmet pivot.  It's a standard pivot joint, but so satisfying to click in place.
• That I've managed to fit in a 6mm joint as a neck inside the helmet.  Not a lot of range of motion on this one but enough to offset the helmet being unable to look up or down.
• That the knees and elbows can't bend the wrong way due to good cuts when slicing the model up.
• All the extra bits (spare head, hands, gun) makes it feel like a proper Revoltech piece.
• That he can facepalm.  Always a good test of a figure.

I dislike:

• Snapping the antenna when gluing the visor on.  Grrr.
• Paying extra for "polished plastic" on the black plastic.  I can't discern much of a difference.
• The angling of the hips pivots.  They needed to be angled off horizontal to fit both into the slim hips.  It's making posing harder than it needs to be.
• My pictures.  Don't do him justice, especially on the white plastic which is quite translucent.
• The gun.  I didn't hollow it, so it's overly heavy, and I didn't hollow enough out for the grip to go in and had to file away a chunk of material.  You can see the uncoloured white plastic at the top of it in the pointing pic.

My First 3D Print!

So the *other* ZBrush Workshops course I was enrolled in was "3D printing for artists", hosted by Pixologic's own Joseph Drust.  This week I got my finished piece(s) shipped to me after having them printed through Sculpteo, woop!  So diving straight in, here they are!

Yep, Slimer from Ghostbusters.  Technically from the IDW comics version of Ghostbusters.  An old sculpt tidied up (improved musculature, creases, and hopefully appeal.)  Here's a quick ZBrush render:

The joints in the first shot are standard revoltech joints.  I've had to cannibalise some of my regular action figures for them, but that's fine, someone else made those hah.  Here's some closeups to show off the multicolour material:

As far as materials go it was a good choice for colour purposes, but it has literally zero give in it, and is quite heavy (despite the body being hollowed out, what a mission that was!)  I did test filing down some of the ridges, but it took too much colour off, so stopped that pretty quick!  The material is akin to ceramic, and as such has really good compression strength.  However, not so good if you are trying to twist in joints into holes that have set a hiccup too small.  Here's a pristine hand, and after me screwing in a joint.

D'oh.  Then I promptly went and did the same with his other hand.  They're not even symmetrical pieces!  Ah well, live and learn.  Next print will be in the Sculpteo plastic material.  Interesting to see the cross section of the multicolour material though.  It shows how deep the colour goes.  Anyways, after a bit of judicious gluing and a lot of not so gentle wearing away at the holes with watchmaker's screwdrivers, here's the finished piece:

That, is pretty cool.  Note the tongue, it's on a joint, although due to me angling the hole so I couldn't get access straight on (the hole points at the pallete rather than forward, silly design decision) it's not as perfect as I'd like, and I don't want to start twisting it to pose it in case the torque does bad things to the eggshell of his body.

And finally, a source, ZBrush, print pic all in one.

Learnt a lot from the course, and it's really fired up my drive for getting more stuff made "real".  Next project is actually almost finished, and will be in plastic, so will hopefully be even more refined.