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My daily 3D modeling sketchbook.

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polycounter lvl 11
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Fingus polycounter lvl 11
Ahoy polycount! I am taking a class at the Academy of Art University this semester where our teacher has us do a one-hour model each day, in addition to our weekly homework. It's a lot of work but I'm learning a lot! He is a very skilled modeler who works at Massive Black, and he really inspires me to push myself to become better.
This semester is all hard surface, but next semester I plan on taking his organic modeling class. I aim to be a character/creature artist so I bet I will have a blast with that!

All right, here are what I have done so far:

Week1:
day01_gun_lighter.jpg

day02_coffee_cup.jpg

day03_chef_knife.jpg

day04_fork.jpg

day05_saucepan.jpg

day06_binder_clip.jpg

day07_exacto.jpgg

Week2:
day08_pepper_grinder.jpg

day09_grater.jpg

day10_apple_slicer.jpg

day11_pills.jpg

day12_kukri.jpg

day13_power_plug.jpg

day14_dnd_dice.jpg

Replies

  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Week3:
    day15_sauce_bottle.jpg

    day16_word_lock.jpg

    day17_battery.jpg

    day18_sansa.jpg

    day19_processor.jpg

    day20_wacom_mouse.jpg

    day21_fireaxe.jpg

    Week 4:

    day22_ipod_cable.jpg

    day23_french_press.jpg

    day24_light_switch.jpg

    day25_tongs.jpg

    day26_ikea_glass.jpg

    day27_SDcard.jpg

    day28_lightbulb.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Week 5:

    day28_Starcraft_flash_drive.jpg

    day29_kodak_film.jpg

    day30_usb_hub.jpg

    day31_longsword.jpg

    And that was all the dailies I have done so far! I'm behind schedule because of GDC so I need to do two today.

    Here are the bigger weekly assignments we got. They were both two week projects, first week to model and the second to do corrections and revisions. We actually got one more week on the lamp so I will get that one done today. I plan to make lowpoly cages for both of them and bake normals so I can turn them into game assets. I just need to find time. :P

    project1_akg.jpg

    project2_lamp.jpg

    Here is the reference for the lamp that I worked from: https://picasaweb.google.com/Sindre.Opsahl/Lamp?feat=directlink
  • conte
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    conte polycounter lvl 18
    delicious modelling!
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    yeah it's good to see this kind of volume. And when you say 'falling behind because of GDC' is that just because you're reading everything coming out of it or because you're a lucky bastard and are actually there?
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    The latter. I live in San Francisco. :D

    Although I didn't actually go to GDC this year, I wasn't able to get a ticket through my school and I had nothing resembling a portfolio so I didn't see the reason to spend money on it. Instead I met up with people after the convention. I went out drinking with a bunch of graduates from DigiPen that I got to know through the guy who subletted my room over the summer for an internship at Lucasarts, and some friends of mine who run an indie studio in London. Next year I will be prepared.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    All right, as you might be able to tell I got rather bored and unmotivated with these sketches so I'm going to take a different approach to this. Instead of modeling a random item from around my apartment I will do something more ambitious and model a suit of armour piece by piece. Originally I was thinking of doing a Milanese style suit of plate armour but then I stumbled upon this beautiful piece of german madness. The level of detail is making me shit my pants so I'm opting for this because it will be a bigger challenge. Also there seems to be more variation of details with all the decor and fluting as opposed to the rather clean and smooth milanese suit.

    SIG%20LEG%2003_JPG.jpg
    HELMSCHMID%2023.jpg
    DSCF1253_JPG.jpg
    GERMAN%20FIELD%20HARNESS%2006.JPG
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Starting this up again. My boss at the studio I'm interning asked me to do 4 hours of anatomy study every day. Here are a few days worth of work. Not much I'm afraid, I really need to work on my speed. Just pencil and paper so far but I'm going to switch over to 3D from now on. Will try to do one every day, four hours should be plenty for that.
    By advice from my boss I'm starting with hands as they have a ton of stuff going for them that carry over to other body parts. He says if I can nail hands the rest should be easy.

    hands%2525200.jpg

    hands%2525201.jpg

    hands%2525202.jpg

    hands%2525203.jpg

    hands%2525205.jpg

    hands%2525207.jpg

    hands%2525208.jpg
  • OverMarvelous
    By the sounds of things you have a boss who knows what hes talk about. Just make sure not to only practise hands. People are intimidated by them, but they are actually really simple if you break it up into primitives. You're doing great though, make sure to keep it up!
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Yeah he knows his shit for sure. I'm learning so much stuff over there, I don't care if it's unpaid. I'm going to try to alternate between feet as well, and when I feel fairly confident in hands I will move on to other parts like eyes and mouths which are two body parts I really need to practice.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Here's the start of a 3D hand. Thinking of doing this old school and do it completely in Maya, but I'll set a clean version to the side to serve as a basemesh for zBrush. Just 2 hours so far, I'll put in the remaining two when I get home from work.

    Screen%252520shot%2525202011-07-01%252520at%25252011.48.20%252520AM.jpg

    Screen+shot+2011-07-01+at+11.48.29+AM.jpg

    Screen+shot+2011-07-01+at+11.48.46+AM.jpg

    Screen+shot+2011-07-01+at+11.49.30+AM.jpg

    Screen+shot+2011-07-01+at+11.49.34+AM.jpg
  • OverMarvelous
    Could give a bit more space between the circled blue part of the hand ???
    20ktxzn.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Good catch, the thumb is pretty fubar right now as it's still heavily WIP, but thanks for pointing that out! I'm basing this off my own hand so it's easy to have ones observation skills fuddled because it's such a familiar sight.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Today's update. This is about as far as I'll bother taking it in Maya. From this point on it would just be excessive nitpicking that wouldn't be an efficient use of time. Of course unless some of you can point out some major flaws or changes that I need to do. :)

    I'll start doing quick sketches in zBrush from simple basemeshes now. At least one hand a day, aiming to do several.

    hand_rotate.gif

    Screen%252520shot%2525202011-07-03%252520at%25252012.55.05%252520AM.jpg

    Screen%252520shot%2525202011-07-03%252520at%25252012.55.17%252520AM.jpg

    Screen%252520shot%2525202011-07-03%252520at%25252012.55.47%252520AM.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Todays work on the hand. Put in more than 4 hours today on account of it being a weekend.

    A turntable: http://vimeo.com/25957291


    hand01.jpg

    hand02.jpg
  • FinalDragon
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    FinalDragon polycounter lvl 8
    Whew, I'm always blown away by hand studies. Such a beautiful part of the human body, I don't know what I'd do without mine.

    I'm no expert on hands, but might you be exaggerating the pronunciation of the hypothenar eminence? It seems like it should be a bit more level with the in the references I've seen, at least towards the digits.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Indeed, good catch. It is too round and bulges too much, it's very visible in the strong plane change to the wrist. My boss also pointed out that the fingers are a bit too skinny in proportion to the wrist. It's tricky to work from your own body as it's so familiar you kinda become blind to details.

    Leaving the other hand alone for now, my computer is too shitty to do fine details like the knuckles and wrinkles. I may revisit it later to fix the small issues, but I think I may be better off just doing new ones. Repetition is in my experience the best way to learn.

    Here is the rough start on a second hand.

    Screen+shot+2011-07-06+at+1.00.49+AM.jpg

    And my super shitty basemesh. I see people do sketches from rough box meshes like this so I wanted to try it. Seems to work pretty well so far, but I miss Slide Edge Tool and Insert Edge Loop. :(

    Screen+shot+2011-07-06+at+1.01.26+AM.jpg
  • Av7xrocker97
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    All righto. Doing an Organic Modeling class this semester so time for some daily zBrush sketchiness.

    blocky.jpg

    Some ugly ladies done in order to push myself out of my comfort zone, which is the heads of old fat men. This shit hurts, but it's a good hurt.

    walky.jpg

    walky2.jpg

    crouchy_front.jpg

    crouchy_back.jpg

    And here's some stuff I did over the winter break.

    goon1.jpg

    brazier.jpg

    bracelet.JPG

    skull01.jpg
  • allmighty_thunder
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    allmighty_thunder polycounter lvl 13
    love your stuff keep it up
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Awww thank you. :3

    This was supposed to only be a quick mouth sketch because I have other homework due for tomorrow, but I got carried away and did a pigman. God damnit.

    About 3 hours of work.

    BPR_Render.jpg

    gray_render.jpg

    I also recorded a video of the whole process, it really helps to go back and look at your process to spot areas where you slow down or screw up.

    http://vimeo.com/36329873
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Anatomy study.

    mohawk1.jpg

    mohawk2.jpg

    But now I'm considering putting some clothes on him. I've been thinking about doing Sandor Clegane aka The Hound from the Song of Ice and Fire series for a while so I think I'll take him in that direction. Learn some hard surface techniques in zBrush.

    And speaking of which I was watching the Eat3D Hard Surface 2 DVD and I got inspired to dick round a bit with the workflow he was demonstrating. Discovered that activating Polish on Dynamesh can give some pretty interesting effects combined with an inverted dam_standard.

    armor2.jpg

    Dramatic lighting for good measure.
    armor.jpg
  • xk0be
    holy balls this is all awesome
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    So... yeah. This has been a pretty unproductive week. My other classes threw me a big pile of homework and there's been some other stuff...

    My roommate Jacob asked me if he could rig the anatomy study dude I did, so I retopo'd him and put him in a tpose. He wants to do a muscle rig so he requested that I try to have the topology comform to the muscles. I have never done that before but I tried my best, not sure how well it worked out but time will show.

    I also gave Marmoset a try. I understand why people use this tool a lot. It makes it ridiculously easy to get nice looking results.

    tpose_beauty.JPG
    tpose_wires.JPG
    tpose_wires_backJPG.JPG
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Trying out hard surface modeling in zBrush. My conclusion: good for conceptual hard surface, but if you work from reference and need precision use a root program.

    knife_render1.jpg
  • Blaisoid
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    Blaisoid polycounter lvl 7
    neck and hands of the anatomy study look a bit weird. hard surface stuff looks really solid though.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Going to try out some hard surface techniques in zBrush. Here is a preliminary concept sketch thingy.

    1.jpg
  • MissModeler
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    MissModeler polycounter lvl 6
    May I ask what class you're taking where you get to make these models everyday? I'm an AAU online student, and haven't taken it yet, but want to! Massive Black is like my dream company haha. Great modeling by the way.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    It's GAM 403: Organic Modeling: High Resolution Game Assets with Duylinh Nguyen. I don't know if he teaches it online though, and in my experience the curriculum for online classes are very different from the on campus ones. By the way Linh is not the Massive Black dude. He moved to Seattle to work at 343, but Linh is just as great.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    All right, update to the armor. Still figuring out the ins and outs of the workflow. Using 3DCoat instead of the built in Topology tools in zBrush so that complicates things a tiny bit.

    3.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    No armor today. Decided to experiment a bit based on a question asked in the Technical Talk section. Essentially I tried to see how well NoiseMaker plays with UV'd meshes. Apparently not too well...

    blah.jpg

    blah2.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Here is a big messy dump of what I have been doing lately.

    I finished the armor guy. I'd like to do some detailing in the future, but I ended up spending so much time on him I figured I should move on.
    8.jpg

    I did a cloth study.
    cloth_front.jpg
    cloth_back.jpg

    Started doing a cartoony fat pirate dude.
    3.jpg
    4.jpg

    And gave him a big nasty scar.
    6.jpg

    Did a nasty head using only the Clay Buildup brush, and replacing the Smooth brush with Rake, gave a nice clay feel to it.
    1.jpg

    And started working on an ecorche. Still on the skeleton so far. Muscles will commence the coming weekend.
    1.jpg
    2.jpg
    7.jpgOh and I completely forgot, here are my finals from the Hard Surface class most of the stuff in my first post was from.

    full.jpg
    detail.jpg
    3.jpg
    4.jpg

    And a character I made together with my friend Sueann Williams.
    mini3d_thespy_fingus.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Tonight's work on the skeleton. The wrist is a bitch...

    8.jpg
    9.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Ribcage done, wahoo.

    10.jpg
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Skeleton almost done.

    CharacterStrip.jpg

    Did a Jafar bust in class.

    CharacterStrip.jpg

    And a quick shitty arm study today.

    CharacterStrip.jpg
  • njc6425
    some trully inspirational stuff here, great job... realised i should spend more time studying anatomy
  • ClamJam
    you have helped me re-think how hard i should work :D
    incredibly good work.
  • Stoop_Kid
    Awesome stuff, I love the armor parts and how much time you put into the skeleton, it really pays off.

    Lovely work, keep it up! :D
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Awww thank you guys. :D
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Just tried out some texturing techniques, as well as some zBrush alpha flimflammery.

    1.jpg

    wall.JPG

    And I recorded a video of the process. Gonna start doing this for my sketches from now on.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK2qILHhabw"]Brickwall texturing experiment - YouTube[/ame]
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Just a speedsculpt practicing some tertiary detailing.

    CharacterStrip.jpg

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKF7cBRA9Gs"]Nasty pacman face thingy - YouTube[/ame]
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Experimenting with drawing zSketch on polygon meshes, and having fun with radial symmetry. I think I've found a great way to make jewelry.

    1.jpg
    2.jpg

    Forgot to record a video this time though. :<
  • Fingus
  • Fingus
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    When I learned that Sculptris has a GoZ function I decided to try out a workflow where I do my base scultping in Sculptris and then send it over to zBrush for detailing.

    Here is what I got out of Sculptris.

    Capture2.JPG

    Here is the zBrush pass.

    Capture1.JPG

    And a closeup of the details.

    ZBrush%2520Document.jpg

    Oh and here are two sketches I forgot to post earlier.

    1.jpg

    pic.jpg
  • Zeldrak
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    Zeldrak polycounter lvl 8
    the last one is cool, love the spidey legs, looking very detailed. Really love the way you add those small details everywhere, really brings out some character.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    Thank you very much. The trick is to not use the same alpha all over but rather grab high resolution photos of people and grab the section of the face that you are going to detail and save that as a grayscale psd. I had about 12 different alphas for that guy. It might seem obvious, but it really helped me out when my teacher showed me that approach.

    Here is today's sketch. It's Uranina, the muse of astronomy and philosophy. So far just the base body. I plan on giving her a toga and hair using zSketch. The sphere is a placeholder for a globe, and I realize now it looks like she's about to do a volleyball serve.

    1.jpg
  • RKHansen
    A lot of great stuff in here :)
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    CharacterStrip.jpg

    The hair and dress was done with zSketch that I later ClayPolished and went over with Clay and DamStandard.

    zsketch1.jpg

    urania_render_web.jpg
  • bigphun
    Wow that last model is great, I never thought to use z spheres for cloth.
  • Fingus
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    Fingus polycounter lvl 11
    A lot of zBrush's tools can be extremely useful if you use it for things other than what they were advertised for. zSketch was generally promoted as a way of doing muscles and anatomy, but it's very powerful for ornamentation and cloth. Also, ShadowBox is generally promoted as a tool for making mechanical parts, but for my ecorche right now I'm using it to make muscles.
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