Old One - ZBrush Workflow

I decided to take the Lovecraft-ian inspiration and really drive it home with this piece. What I wanted to achieve with "Old One" was to encapsulate that Cosmic Terror that famously embodies H.P Lovecraft's work; and because his body of work infinitely inspires me, I felt it was necessary to latch on the something recognisable in the Cthulhu mythos ie. A tentacle abomination. Below is the finished piece and I'm going to walk through my process for the digital creation of this creature.

Since fear, intrigue and ambiguity were the dominant emotional range I wanted my viewers to feel when looking at the piece; I needed it to strike a very specific colour balance. A colder more desolate mood needed to be the temperature for the entire piece while the creature itself needed to have a direct connection to the ocean. Much reference, research and illustration took place in the early stages to get the right anatomical features in place for the creature design. I wanted the creature to look like something that would wander from the darkest depths of the ocean; strolling around on a moonlit beach, looking down upon us with indifference. A horror almost indescribable; making you want to look away but leaving you no other choice but to stare in terror. A dripping, translucent mass of tentacles with an almost soul-absent stature and presence.  

The bulk of the effort to achieve this tone was done in post with hand painted and textural techniques in mind. Some poly-painting was utilised in ZBrush to assist with a solid base to further extenuate the sculpture with compositing.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result of this piece and I learned a lot about "simplicity" sometimes being the key to achieving a specific stylistic look. Sometimes getting bogged down with technique and the more technical aspects of this process can hold one back from using what's at our very own finger-tips to think more practically with art. My favourite pieces are the ones that teach me.

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The Deep - ZBrush Workflow

I decided to catalogue my workflow on this portfolio project I aptly titled "The Deep". I wanted this to be another creature project but this time my desires lied in pushing my artistic ability further than the more solo creature pieces I've done in the past. Thus I got to experiment with new techniques in ZBrush that assisted in making, what I would consider to be a successful monster piece.

I took inspiration from Pascal Blanche', a wonderful CG Artist you could easily find plastered all over ArtStation (and rightfully so). I tried to use Color Range selection methods to really amplify the saturation levels of this image which then further amplifies the Bio-Illuminescense of the tentacles. This is done by utilising a contrasting color palette mixed with the genuine atmosphere of the ocean, further extenuated by some dust and particle compositing work.

  What I wanted to accomplish with this Photoshop paint over was to really sell the "texturized" look of all of the components of the creature piece. Keeping everything harmonised but still capture the uniqueness of each material in the objects. I didn't go in with much of a plan in color palette which may have held me back direction wise, this is something I'd like to improve in future portfolio pieces.

The images above detail my sculpting process which differed heavily from any piece I've done in the past. I focused on multiple subtool sculpting; a main body, sea shells and tentacles. I also played around with transparent materials within ZBrush itself to get the bioilluminance on the rear tentacles working. As you can see, despite the consistent brush usage between the subtools, there was a variety of Alpha Brushes used to gain different levels of detail.

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Invader ZBrush Creature Study

After spending a tremendous amount of time re-writing the syllabus for my Q6 ZBrush class at Davinci College; it occurred to me that I could take advantage of the lesson plan by creating educational in-class content while simultaneously updating my own portfolio. So far, this method has paid off, as you can see in this post.

The project I assigned to my students was to design an extraterrestrial being that must showcase some semblance of human anatomical structures mixed with unique ones. I had them work on this in tangent with weekly Human Anatomy studies in ZBrush to build anatomical knowledge and practise while also taking what they learned and applying it to a unique creature design. Understanding proper human anatomy could, after all, assist them in converting targeted bone structure, muscle groups, and proportions into uniquely "alien" design elements; thus making their work stronger.

Did some more experimenting with looks for the final image here. Worked on techniques with saturation levels and using a basic two color system to get an interesting final composition.

I even included a breakdown of the compositing process for the purposes of showing the students how ZBrush and Photoshop work hand-in-hand when it comes to the post processing section of the design process. With future designs I'd like to do this more frequently with even more visual aids; like Photoshop layers and Blending Mode settings.

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Sketchbook Studies 2017 - V01

Decided to do some alien concept designs for a class based project in my ZBrush class I'm teaching this quarter. I plan on working towards using this sketchbook template exclusively for the year.

ZBrush - Orc Study

Catching up on some posts in the New Year, prior to the break I got my students to do Facial Anatomical Studies. This warm-up was to create a Orc based character study based on Tolkien's universe.

The nature of the exercise was to showcase how using asymmetrical details to design a specific type of character based on a pre-existing universe.

Creature Sculpts - In Color

These are some of my more recent designs/creature studies. The first (left) is an original composition I sculpted in Zbrush based on an illustration of my own. I believe this was the result of sheer boredom in a mall food court one day or something along those lines. Either way, I was happy enough with the sketch to push it forward into a digital design.

The second design (right) is a re-creation of a concept by a fellow concept artist friend of mine (Sophie Fong) titled "The Grief". I will be including accompanying images of the illustrations that inspired these designs at a later date as it will make the inspiration more clear as well as where liberties were taken.

Sketchbook Doodles 2016

These are a collection of sketches of mine that I've taken the liberty to clean up and colorize in Photoshop. Inspiration for these sketches ranges from the comforts of my own home while watching films, coffee shop doodles or taking my students on field trips to the local museum.

Video Game Environment Art - Part 2

Over the course of 2 years working in the Game Industry, I've collected quite the body of work. Here are some images/renders I've compiled showcasing my artwork as an Environment Artist. In the two years I worked for Orpheus Interactive, I managed to jump job positions quite a lot as each of the developers were meant to wear multiple hats. Though I was predominantly an Environment Artist, I was also responsible for Character Retopology, Facial Animation and UI Design.

The above images are a collection of images for a Prison set that was going to be a major setting in the game. All assets were created in Cinema 4D and are optimized under strict polycount and texture specifications. Each set was meant to feel like a TV/Film set and were constructed according to the mood and feel of the "Sons of Anarchy" television show, right down to the more desaturated colors.

These props/assets were designed for a casino environment that was never finished. I was directed to create models that had the cultural aesthetic of a native american background; with my own twist. It was especially fun to design the tribal animal masks as I was really happy with the texture painting process involved with those.

             
             

Video Game Environment Art - Part 1

Between 2014-2015 I worked for Orpheus Interactive on "Sons of Anarchy: The Prospect" as an Environment Artist. Below are some of many examples of the level design assets I had to create for the game. The mood/tone we were going for was to try our hardest to emulate the TV show while also adding our own unique artistic flair. I designed an Art Direction document/guideline that was used as the core template for the overall look.

                                                       

Each environment was meant to have its own temperature, tone and feel but overall; they all needed to feel grounded and real. The above images were for the main characters home; which had a very run down, unkempt feel to it. Everything from the stains in the carpet to the dishes in the sink have a purpose and are to make the player feel like this environment is a lived in place.

The following link takes you to a sketchfab glimpse of the model:
 https://sketchfab.com/models/89c45d1d5dfa4876ba353c86007084b8


                          
                                              
             

Monster Trading Card Series - Part 5

Monster Trading Card Series - Part 4