Postings

Alright, I haven't posted in a while. Hopefully I have enough stuff to show to redeem myself. Since the last post, I've been working on my new character, Sam, and also helping Andy with some more character rigging.

As rigging is possibly the most boring thing in 3D to talk about, i'll gloss over that (but don't you forget I did it!) and instead talk about the character, including pretty pictures.

So to start off I compiled a little folder of images to use as inspiration for the piece, along with a few sketches and other bits and bobs. Around the time I was scouring the web for pictures I came across an article, by chance, on Mick Jagger who must've been some sort of subconscious influence on my guy because they aren't too disimilar.



The main thing that I liked about these shots of Jagger was his ridiculous gurn, most of all his mouth, which was the sort of expression that i've wanted Sam to have for some time.

And then out of nowhere, here we have a disturbingly attractive shot... weird, but I like the contrast.

This is another image I picked up. Real life sculpting, folks, but obviously whether it's digital or RL, it's not so different really. The mouths, again, I thought would be helpful. Also the lion-o sculpt is boss.

This is one of the first few pages I drew of Sam that I thought fit his personality.
And after many attempts, here is the turnaround sheet for Maya. This was pretty difficult to get right. I wanted him to look fairly unhinged but not axe-murderer or mental asylum mad.

A fairly crappy looking pose sheet (so bad at these, really need to practice.) I went for the one on the middle right. You'll see in a second.

So I got to modeling. I decided to model him in a traditional static pose and make a crude rig in Maya to get the rough pose which I would later take to mudbox to make pretty. Above is me testing out a bunch of different render settings, trying to get rid of the grainyness in the shadows. Didn't really work, need to figure it out for final renders.

Close-up of his face. It's really difficult to get an accurate translation from 2D to 3D I find. Especially in Maya since it's quite restricting as far as if you want to make major changes then it takes a good bit of time. He looks like he's possibly passed into the realms of mad-mad, but I think i'm leaving him like this until mudbox, where I find it much easier to change proportions and stuff. A little worried about bringing him back into Maya after that, though. Do I retopo? Disp maps maybe? Hmm.

Well that was pretty sharpish. Finally I'll leave you with a link to the turnaround (will probs embed later). This is where i'm currently at: http://vimeo.com/11428114
He's posed, needs a few tweaks and to be UVd but then it's into mudbox :D (should I have UVd before posing.. perhaps.)

P.s. Website is well underway, and it'll be an awesome one :D when that's done i'll probably start blogging there instead. Anyway, seeya soon!