Sketchbook: BrendtheCow

BrendtheCow

So, it's been brought to my attention that military simulation work =/= game studio experience. It has also come to my attention that I am in need of a new portfolio. So, feedback is appreciated for this thread. I'm going to redo my portfolio from the ground up in 2014, and could use some solid criticisms.

Random current work thrown in, so this isn't just a boring text post:

M2A2:


Sculpture based off of a friend's painting (The Art of Bianca Roman-Stumpff on Facebook):


Starting the fur on the above sculpture:

BrendtheCow

I haven't been doing much art over the last few years, what with increased work hours and me being refocused as a tech artist from a 3D artist. In an effort to force myself to do more art, I enrolled in CGMA. I'll be posting here, so any feedback is welcome.

Splotchy sci-fi room block-in render from the production modelling course (week 2):

BrendtheCow

Got serious about doing more art in my free time this year. A friend of mine helped me with some tips/critique on my first hand-painted texture (thanks Crystel!), and then pointed me at brushforge.com when they were firing up their first mentorship program. I was lucky enough to get into that, and the scythe below is my second hand-painted texture. Kelvin Tan and Rob Sevilla both make amazing teachers, so if you're looking to level up your art I strongly recommend checking out their site. :hurrah:

Scythe Artstation Link

model

Up next I'm pushing to get back into character art. Brushforge has a character art module coming up which I'll absolutely be doing, and beyond that I'm bothering messaging character artists I've looked up to over the years to see if any of them would be interested in getting paid to be a mentor. Fingers-crossed one of them has the time for it! 

BrendtheCow

[double post - removed]

BrendtheCow

Started working through Matt Thorup's Gumroad tutorial for cartoon busts yesterday about two hours after overtime finally ended (hopefully for a few months). Here are yesterday and today's progress (got right up to the curve tubes section of the block-in vid):

BrendtheCow

Last night's update!

BrendtheCow

WIP bust for brushforge.com mentorship.

BrendtheCow

I had to step away from this for a few weeks because of crunch time at work. That's all done for now, though, so here's today's update based on feedback from Dusty Nolting (my mentor via brushforge.com). I still have a couple places to tweak on the sculpt tomorrow morning, and then I can move into adding accessories, retopo, and texturing.

BrendtheCow

Fixed some face stuff, added the hair and eyebrows, and now I can start in on the accessories. 

BrendtheCow

Here's some hand-painted texture progress from a couple weeks ago. I'll be getting back to this this weekend once some other obligations are out of the way.

BrendtheCow

This is work based off of Chabe Escalante's Warrior 09 concept, done for Dylan Ekren's Creating Appealing Characters workshop. Done mostly in ZBrush, with a little bit of Maya for some accessories. Images in reverse order. This is still a work in progress.

Week 8

This is where things are currently, as handed in for week 8. It involved more posing, sculpting, and polypainting. This is getting finalized now that I've gotten week 8's feedback.

Close-up on the face and hair.

Week 7:

Started on the hair tubes.

Started posing, made more proportion/silhouette fixes.

Week 6:

Adding in the last major parts of clothing/accessories.

Some face fixes and polypaint.

Week 5:

All face parts are finally in there. Started adding clothes. More body fixes.

Week 4:


Week 3:


Week 2:

BrendtheCow

Week 9! I'm planning to use this mesh to learn rigging after the final sculpt submission, so I redid the topology for the face. I got some good recommendations for more forehead and ear loops, and this has the former but not the latter (yet).

BrendtheCow

Here's this past weekend's work. Lots of tweaking, and great feedback from a Discord group I'm in.

BrendtheCow

And here's a liquefy done in Photoshop over lunch for some new corrections:

BrendtheCow

I need to start remembering to update here, too, with my accountability posts.

4/30:


5/3 Leslie Van Den Broeck generously gave feedback, so I made fixes based on his paintover:


5/7 More great critiques from Dylan, which led to more steps in the right direction:


5/7 Jean Pascal and Dylan recommend simplifying the hair, then adding strands back in. This is the beginning of the simplification:


And it's been a busy month, between work and playing too much Overwatch to get those sweet, sweet skins. Back to work finishing this this weekend!