A holiday well spent

Here's something I've worked on during the holiday titled "Tiny Companion". My friends and I wanted to do some sculpting together to practice anatomy. I originally intended it to look like and actual sculpture. Hence, the lack of textures.

I'm just going to dive in and explain how I went about creating this. Started out in Maya for the base mesh. It didn't take me long since I already have a human base I created from one of my previous assignments. Deleted it from the hips down and blocked out the horse bit. Here's how initial blocking turned out.

ugly is what it looks like! :P

 After that I exported it to Zbrush and adjusted the proportions.Mostly used the move and inflat brush. Since I didn't have any sketches I looked at photo references to block out the proportions.

Earlier on I just referred to a lot of images on the Internetz (actual photos and 3D references)  and books to block out the muscles. At first I wanted it to have a hero type physique in a dynamic pose.

so much abs!

made him more muscular

At this point I felt like I needed a break from sculpting since I've been staring at it for too long and it wasn't really going anywhere. Its always good to spend sometime doing something non cg related so that when you come back its easier to spot mistakes. There were many of course but I like how his face looked.  The problem now was that it wasn't matching well with the body. I played around with different proportions and smoothed out some of the parts that I felt like it wasn't working. Never feel reluctant to just erase away something that isn't working just because you've spent too much time on it. Starting over is good and remember that layers can do you wonders.

Most of the sculpting after I posed it was done with symmetry turned off. 

Now I was getting somewhere. I've never sculpted a chubby guy before and had no clue how to sculpt realistic looking muscles that look like they have proper weight. Took me a long time to figure it out, especially those man boobs. You should never take man boobs lightly.

Remember when I said I wanted a heroic guy in a dynamic pose? Well after making him chubby and a little old looking I decided that wouldn't work anymore. I was thinking that if things looked subtle he'll be more convincing as a character.

 I also posed a lot in front of the mirror. It really helped me understand form changes when you move an arm or turn your head. Made sculpting a lot easier. Especially with the arms.

Here's a test turnaround with lights in Zbrush to see how he looks like:
http://bit.ly/TQvWmW

In some earlier versions I gave him long hair. Sculpting hair is very time consuming
and I decided not to go ahead with it because I might not finish it on time.

He looks really weird without the beard now.

I tried out some basic three point lighting in Zbrush to see if the forms were looking ok. Especially with the beard. If you think man boobs are hard to sculpt wait till you try sculpting hair. But like everything, if you spend enough time really figuring out stuff it pays off.

Decimated the model after sculpting so I can export it to Maya to do Lighting, Materials
 and Rendering. Here are some early tests with materials and lighting. 

Final lighting, Material and Render.
Check out the HiRes version here: http://bit.ly/TQoTuC

In the end I spent all two weeks of my holiday working on it. Quite satisfied with the result. A good way to start the year. My friends and I are aiming to do a sculpt every month depending on how much free time we have apart from work and assignments. Hopefully we can be consistent. Their feedback was a big help and most importantly I had a lot of fun doing it :)

I'm looking forward to doing more sculpts this year and I'm really excited about my final project. But I need to manage my time so that I can always spend a few hours every week doing something of my own to put in my portfolio. Happy New Year everyone! May this be a great one :)

One small step

Sup  :)

It’s been a month since I started drawing every day. I find myself more involved with it. I’ve noticed a change in my attitude towards drawing and the need to constantly learn new stuff.

I used to plan things in my head, how much I should draw everyday or what I should practice next. Discussed with friends and other artists on how much discipline and hard work is important, but never actually did something. So to everyone reading this, if you feel like you’re not improving, start…start NOW. Don’t wait for a new day a new month or a new year. Start now or you’ll never get around to doing it.

Don’t rush it either, when I’m practicing anatomy, form and other stuff, I really take my time in understanding what’s happening with the drawing. How something takes shape, why something is drawn a certain way, regardless of whether it takes me half an hour, to get the shape of the head right I get what’s happening. And the next time I draw, I take less time to draw it. Practice till you get it right. If you’re stuck then take a break, draw something else or do something else and come back again. Speed eventually comes to you. Believe me; a month ago I couldn’t properly draw a straight line using the stylus. Now it feels really natural and easy. Even if it’s a little accomplishment, it feels great and I want to find more time in a day to learn more. So yes, start now. Don’t think about it too much, like how and what and when you’ll do it. Eventually you’ll find yourself drawing and determined to learn more J

The highlight of this week was that I got to attend a masterclass by Rishikesh Nandlaskar from Rhythm and Hues. He’s the guy who modeled the hulk (the recent one) and a lot of other cool stuff. He showed us the actual models in maya and talked about how he goes about creating one. too bad we couldn't take photos though. apparently there'd be some issues since the content belonged to Fox and Universal. It was so fricking awesome!! The talk was very inspiring, and awesome. I said that already :p but yeah, it was hehe check out his gallery :)

Next week I’m going to start practicing drawing the skeleton, simplified and semi-detailed and more anatomy. I've been using a book called "Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life". Hope everyone has a great week. Till then, happy drawing :D

p.s. ooh ooh, I’m gonna start learning to paint in gouache soon. It took me two weeks to save up to buy the materials. Very excited :D 

my friend's from college and i started a little sketch group in facebook.
 just a weekly art jam, to have fun and to learn.
here's a material study from this week

after a successful month of drawing