A Crash Course in 3D Modelling

Just before I left for Easter I decided to have a go at 3D modelling. Whilst I had tried a little bit of     3D modelling in maya last year I had not properly picked up the basics and I struggled to follow tutorials. When I was working on Kirk's third year project I was watching the modelling process for the Goblin character and one night I started playing around in maya trying to make my own version.
I had not yet learnt the basics of modelling so the geometry so the geometry is pretty horrible (I didn't know everything has to be made out of polygons so I was using a lot of Ngons and trigons) and I didn't understand the flow yet. My approach was basically to start with a cube and then add edge loops and move the vertices until I got the basic shape, I would then use the interactive split tool to add more geometry and detail.

Although this is a pretty terrible model everyone has to start somewhere and it was really useful to  try modelling something which I had also designed. I would definitely recommend that 3d modelling your character designers because it made me think about the volume of the character and the general shape. I often look at my character turnarounds and think that I spend to much time on the front view and ignore the back and sides and this has helped me to understand the design as 3D shape.
Next I decided to model a monkey I had designed recently, once again I started with a cube, added more geometry and extruded out the limbs and head.

The model needs some more work as I think the character looks off balance in the side view (also the tail and hands need modelling). If i have some spare time over the summer I want to put ome more work into this and sculpt and texture it in mudbox. Although the geometry is a lot better on this model (it's all polygons this time) it still doesn't have the polygon flow I was aiming for. I spent about a week working on this in the evenings (I worked on my coursework during the day).

So having learnt the basics through trial and error I decided to set a weekend aside and solidly work until I had a 3D model of a head (with the occasional break for food or exercise). Over the summer I read a book on dynamic figure drawing which, with some practice, really improved my ability to draw heads (check it out here)(I'm currently working through the theory of drawing the rest of the human figure). I had drawn Walter White from "Breaking Bad" a few times since the summer so I'm very familiar with Bryan Cranston's face which was useful as I was modelling.

This really wasn't easy and I felt like giving up a few times but I pushed through and this is how far I got. By the end it was approaching Monday morning (I began Friday evening) and I needed to stop and work on something else. I don't think this will ever be fully finished as I'll always notice bits that can be tweaked or details that could be added but this is where I got to. If I'm honest I was stupid to go for something this ambitious (I'd only been 3D modelling for 3 weeks, this was the third thing I'd modelled and I'd never sculpted in mudbox before) but I'm still proud of what I achieved. I think sculpting in mudbox is easy if you can draw because all the skills are transferable. After this I also noticed my drawing skills improved and I gained a greater understanding of the structure and form of the face.

Chimp

Over the past couple of weeks I've been doing a lot of work for my course and 3rd year projects so I haven't been completing as many personal drawings as usual. This evening I decided to take a night off and work on something non-animation related so I looked through my sketchbook and found a concept which I'd been wanting to turn into a drawing for a while. I put on some music and immersed myself in this drawing and by the time I finished it I looked at my clock and realised I'd concentrated on it for a solid two hours without a break (which is impressive considering I have the attention span of a labrador). I'm quite happy with how this turned one out, I sort of drew it in the style I used about 2 and a half years ago when I began the I.B. and comparing this with my work from back then made me realise how far I've progressed recently. I did the whole thing on one layer using a square brush with 100% opacity in photoshop.

Deep Project Continued...

Here's the latest images from my section of Deep, I spent the weekend immersing myself in the Hellboy and Sin City comics and trying to replicate the styles as I re-drew the storyboard panels. I wanted to recreate the really intense, gritty style of Mark Mignoloia and Frank Miller so I tried to implemented a lot of dramatic lighting and atmospheric backgrounds. I've still got about a few panels left but I'm a lot happier with the visual style.

For the opening shot I wanted the viewer to be drawn to the bag so I gave it a white silhouette.

For this shot I she walks through a clearing, the idea is that the lighting flashes on her face as she walks past the gaps in the trees.

I'm still not happy with this shot so I'll probably revisit it once I get feedback from Derek.

This is one of my favourite shots, I wanted it to be very simple and atmospheric.

I for this one I tried to use the lighting to make him look menacing.

This was the panel I struggled with the most as there shouldn't really be any light but I added in white eyelets on the boots so you can see what they are.

The panel above is my favourite, I wanted to transition from a simple silhouette (in the previous panel) to an intense shot of with a Frank Miller style trench coat.

Theatre Project

Over the past week I have been working on Kirk Tierney's live action 3rd year project about a cleaner in a theatre who has animated schizophrenic visions. I designed the characters for the visions which will be 3D modelled and animated. Most of these drawings were done in photoshop in under 10 minutes as I would be shown a section of film where a character was needed, I would draw the character and Kirk would put it into the rough edit of the film. Below is a selection of the concept drawings I did for the project this week;

More Photoshop Practice

Since about the end of the summer I've been reading a lot about lighting, composition, colour and perspective in a quest to become a better pre-production artist as well as trying to brush up on my painting skills. On Monday night I went to see Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" at the local cinema and I was blown away by the visuals of the film which perfectly complimented the brilliant performances, I wanted to pause the film on every shot so I could properly take in the cinematography. I have a bit of time off after my next deadline so I'm hoping to get my hands on copy of the film so I can go through it and recreate some of the shots as environment practice.

This morning I've been speed painting between working on essays and other projects (I get bored if I work on one thing for too long) so I decided to try try out some more custom brushes. I've been trying to paint in photoshop without my work looking overly digital (my pre production lecturers are always criticising work for looking generic and photoshopped) so I'm trying to recreate the styles of non digital artists. I've been studying the work of Andrew Salgado (currently my favourite painter) and Lionel Smit (whose paintings I saw in South Africa the summer before I started uni). The aim isn't to get my work to look exactly like theirs (that would be impossible as I only started painting very recently and they have different processes to me) but I want to paint in photoshop with a similar aesthetic but still with my personal style. I've been doing lots tutorials from "Digital Painting Techniques Volume 1" and "The Digital Matte Painting Handbook" so I painting faster and more efficiently every time I approach a new painting. The painting below took about an hour and a half, I began with a default brush and then made a custom brush which made the brushstrokes I wanted. I'm finding my self taking bigger risks with each new painting.

30 minutes;

 60 minutes;

 90 minutes

Photoshop continued...

Here's another photoshop speed painting, I'm currently experimenting with custom brushes and researching the techniques of a range of different artists (I'm trying not to stick to any particular style). I've decided that I'm going to spend the next term focussing on pre-production art as it's the area I feel I'm most suited towards. I've been looking at a lot of digital art online to try and workout what works visually and I'm trying to make sure my work doesn't look like the typical vectorized, solid line stuff you find all over the net. I think photoshop is essentially a (brilliant) tool but if you don't already have an understanding of drawing principles (which I only picked up recently) its not going to improve your work.

I wanted the drawing below to have a different look to the rest of my work so I created brushes which look like they're being used on a textured surface to give the painting a rougher aesthetic and I purposefully muddied the colours. I've been trying to make brushes which look like spray cans and I used them to give the painting my sloppy, messy style. I find that drawing with the navigator in the right hand corner helps as the thumbnail view lets me see the whole composition so I don't spoil the overall concept of the piece. I'm learning a lot about light and shapes and I think this has helped to make my drawings look less flat. The reason I chose this picture (I used a screen shot from the Joel Schumacher's "Falling Down" as reference) was because I noticed that most of my work is centered around expressive eyes so I set my self the challenge of portraying the character using everything else. The aim is to keep learning until I can apply these skills to my cartoons and design work.
It took about 2.5 hours to complete this (so it wasn't really a speed painting) and I learnt a throughout the process. I wish I'd started painting in photoshop earlier because it's the piece of software which has excited me the most!

Learning to Paint with photoshop

Until mid December I'd done all my digital work in sketchbook pro but I decided this christmas I would bite the bullet and learn photoshop. So far I've just been playing around with the default brushes, here's a couple of speed paintings I did to try and get the hang of the program (none of these took more than two hours).