Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Concept Art: Robots and Fish


Hi, it's been ages since an update, so I'll add an extra pic. These are a few more concepts like my previous entry, featuring a group of robots, and a few fish designs.

The first set I'll show is the robots. I've designed these for use as most likely friendly characters, peaceful and that sort of thing. Using a basic bipedal shape as the base idea, I built four designs, two taller humanoids and two much smaller, large headed robots. The basic idea is that these robots, along with other designs, would populate a city possibly ruled by the main villain. Of course, few of the robots would actually enjoy his rule (unless they were part of his military forces), thus they would be happy to help the player proceed.













The second set are a few ideas for water-dwelling enemies, all following the basic idea of a fish. Each one was designed with a different environment in mind. The top-right would appear in rivers and other inland waters, while the bottom-right would be suited to coastal or oceanic scenes. The bottom-left would appear only in deep dark zones, such as the bottom of the sea, or in a deep cavern. The top-left creature is a different case. Being skeletal, it would appear in a haunted house, or a spooky castle's moat and other dark spooky locales.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Concept Art: Weird Swamp Critters

Back to Uni again now that the second semester has begun, I've got some fresh new concept art. The project, much larger than our previous ones, is to design a main character and two sets of enemies, then sculpt high-resolution 3D Models of one main character and one enemy using ZBrush. So far, I've drawn up one set of enemies. My basic ideas were 'lots of teeth' and 'plant creatures'. As you can see, a few of the designs mix both ideas, while the rest lean to one of the ideas. My favourites are the top-middle and bottom-left creatures. I'm especially happy with how the bottom-left chicken-legged monster turned out, from such a simple base (a circle with a crescent attached). And I love the top-middle creature, simply for it's oddity. How does it find prey, when it has no eyes or ears, just a big-lipped mouth? How are the vines growing off it's back? Is that a beard of grass and roots? I really do enjoy my work at times.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Final Draft: Clockwork Knight 3D Model

Today, I'm showing the end result of a low-polygon 3D model project. The model is based off a piece of concept art shown here. The clockwork knight is 750 polygons, while his axe is under 200 polygons (the limit was 750 for the character, 250 for the weapon).
I'm not 100% satisfied with this piece. For one, the texture could stand to be shinier, and the head is noticeably low-detail. I'll most likely end up re-doing the model, since I want to eventually animate it, and in its current low-poly state, it certainly wouldn't animate well.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Final Draft: Winter Lake Matte Painting

Today I've got an image. A mix between 3D Modelling, and 2D digital painting.

The idea was that I was to make an icy lake scene. I modelled and textured the trees and ground in 3D, as well as the ice lake. Then took the render into Photoshop and added grass, lighting and the reflection on the ice. One major problem I noticed is the trees in the background. I had rendered the 3D scene before adding more trees, thus only the ones in the foreground have proper shadows and lighting. The rest, I made in Photoshop. Overall, I think it's not bad, but I definitely see spots where I could improve next time.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Final Draft: Dire Scorpion Video

Today, I've got a neat piece of work to showcase. The first animation project of this course, the Dire Scorpion. The task was to design a six-legged creature (yes, I know scorpions tend to have more than six legs) and then build the model and animate it. Some nice touches I added were the mischevious character of the scorpion and the cameras reaction to his movements. Hope you enjoy it!

[Link Here]

Monday, May 16, 2011

Concept Art: Clockwork Minions

Today's piece is a bit of concept art for a low-polygon model. The task was to create five images of our concept. I decided to create a small humanoid robot with a key in the back, to give the robot a 'cartoonish toy' feel. The top-middle piece shows what the basic robot would look like. The remaining four show the robot in various roles, such as a knight or a scientist. The basic shapes were done in Inkscape, while details were added in Photoshop, using techniques taught in class. My personal favourite is the knight. My brother prefers the barbarian (top-right).

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Final Draft: Energy Tower

Been a while since I last updated, but I've got a rather good one this time around! Presenting the Energy Tower! This tower is the final result of an assignment in which we were tasked with modelling and texturing a 3D Building. I based the design off a combination of a Tesla Tower and the tower of Barad-Dur as shown in the Lord of the Rings films. I ended up deciding to make the tower smaller, which gave me the idea to add ladders on each floor. I originally planned to make a stairwell or spiral ramp up the tower, but couldn't get it to look right and ultimately scrapped the idea. The idea of the energy tower is that a large machine at the ground floor powers up a large sphere of energy at the top floor, held in place by six claw-like brackets. I'm very happy with how the dark atmosphere turned out on this one. And the fiery sphere's illumination in contrast to the darkness around it.