Fall semester updates!

It has been a while since my last post, and I have a good bit to show since the summer.

This summer after finishing my land creature in zbrush I spent a lot of time re-working the designs of my last three characters to get them ready to model in the fall.

                                                    Anna (name for now)

                                                                                 

clothing WIP

Her flying creature. While designing this creature, I got really inspired by giant flying squirrels and pangolins.

                              started to work on this in zbrush

these are some concepts for delphi (name for now). I plan to model him next semester

I have also been working on some illustrations to give an idea of where each character comes from. So far I have been working on a illustration for Anna. 

Right now, I am going to take a break from this piece (caves were a bad idea for a first stab at environment) and move onto a painting for Delphi.

Updates!

I have been moving forward on my thesis. There have been a lot of changes/ updates. I have started a proxy for my female character currently called Anna. It is still rough, but feels good to start something.

There are more updates to come. Hold on to your hats or socks or both

Summer finals

Huzzah, summer session is over and I am officially on the longest break from school I have had since September. Though I am technically on summer vacation, I still have a lot to do for my thesis before fall, but at least I got a good start on one character. 

My goal taking CG605 early was to get a head start/ better understanding of zbrush, so that I wasn't learning it while modeling in the fall. While I still have a lot to learn , I feel like I now know the process well enough to get a strong start on my other 3 models.

Looking back there are a lot of things I would change now that I have a better idea of what I am doing, but my other characters will benefit from that I suppose. Over all even with the mistakes made, I am pretty happy with this guy.

This fall I plan on taking hair and cloth simulation. I am hoping to possibly play around with giving him more realistic fur on his tail in the future.

Below are a few final images of my creature rendered in Marmoset

           Visual timeline of what I did over the last couple months.

Intro to Zbrush

Long time no blog....So here we go. Since my last update I started taking a digital sculpting class focusing on using Zbrush. For the class I decided to get started on my land creature (name still undecided). I felt like he was simple enough for a first attempt in a new program, but had enough interesting detail to make it worth while for the class.

                             The first assignments were to work on a turn around and action pose. I changed the silhouette a bit... shortening and thickening up his front legs.

Next we had to do a more rendered illustration of the character. This was my first pass of my creature running.

After some critique I did another pass to give it more depth and play around with the facial markings. I also moved the position of the back leg to balance it more. I plan to continue working on it to put in more of the fine detail I have begun adding to my actual model and to correct some proportion issues with the tail.

For the last couple weeks I have taken this concept into Maya and Zbrush and have begun modeling it. I have really enjoyed Zbrush and how much more intuitive it is. It definitely feels a lot more like traditional sculpting.

After a re-topo he is happily waiting to be taken back from Maya to Zbrush

This is where I am now. First pass of my final sculpt in Zbrush. Haven't done very much fine detailing, mostly making sure the anatomy under it looks solid. Next steps are to finish the detail by next week and get ready to make some texture maps!

a few moments

For my thesis I plan to illustrate a short series of key moments between the two characters and their creatures as they grow up. I am not done with the designs, but  I did a test run of what these moments might look like for my character design class. Thinking of keeping them sepia tone, more like old photos of fond memories.

Work in progress

Here are some of my concept sketches for the two characters I am currently working on. Currently they do not have names. I wanted the two to be contrasting so I was thinking land and air. After some thought I settled on the girl and her creature, not flying but gliding and the boy a more terrestrial farmer type. 

 For the girl I imagined her as cave dwelling, so for her and her creature I was looking at lemurs, flying lemurs, and bat like things.

For the boy I was having a hard time deciding what I wanted, so I played around with some different ideas, but I ended up going with something strong and similar to a draft animals, such as horses, cattle and takins (look them up)

The Story

  Ok, So I have a backlog of work to post, but first a short overview of the story. Still working on this....writing is not my forte.          

           Rivalry is set on a neutral planet that over many years has been colonized by multiple races seeking a new home. The planet is vast and many of the inhabitants are isolated using their strength and unique abilities to work the land and make a living.

            Each year everyone comes together for a large market to trade goods, and share stories and news. Entire families make the trip each year including pets and work animals. Often integral to their way of life, the bond between child and animal starts young and lasts a lifetime.

            To celebrate seeing new and old friends, each year the kids race…. except for two…a boy and a girl…

            At their first market (about 8 yrs old) they are dubbed outsiders. Viewed as strange and different they are shunned from the race. Ostracized from the others, together they form a strong friendship and decide they will race one another instead…. a tradition they carried on ever since.

            This is my idea for an animated short that follows these two characters through vignettes of each year when they finally reconnect and race in their friendly yet competitive rivalry.