Sketchbook: Drea

ladyxbug

Time to dump ALL THE THINGS! My art has transformed over the years, and it's good to see the transition and overall improvement. Now I have a new base to stem from.

Edit: Yep I will live with that major typo. Typo Fairy strikes again.

March 2014

July 2014


September 2014



Ongoing:


Yep I have a lot of work to do. Feel free to critique. At times it's hard to see the flaws when you're up close for so long, because I now can see spots I want to tweak on the older ones.

premium

Please don't use black.
Nice stuff. Keep practicing.

Joel Gafford

I think what premium means is that in most paintings, pure black is rarely used due to a few reasons. Firstly, that in reality, when the eye focuses on a shadow, the pupil dilates, letting in more light so that the shadow is not purely black. Secondly, in most painting digital or otherwise, if the light temperature is warm, the shadows are painted with cool colors, and if the light temperature is cool, the shadows are painted with warm colors.

But if you like using pure blacks and intend to make this your artistic style, I won't discourage you from doing so. Just keep the conventions in mind so that you know the best way to conform to them or break apart from them.

I hope this helps!

ladyxbug

Most of what's present was practicing/playing/experimenting with dramatic lighting. Generally I try to avoid using pure black, but creep close to it with dark blues and/or dark purples. With me pushing and pulling colors to get the contrast, black may get thrown in there just for that purpose.

ladyxbug

It was transformation Thursday. Increased the resolution and started the tweaking. I wish I had less drama to utilize time for art including my 3D models,
but at least I got something out of my system.

ladyxbug

It's the Noob Challenge this month. I know I won't be able to present
it in the thread, since I don't have Unreal or any of that sorts. Still it's
a good exercise. I may gander at previous ones to push with.

ladyxbug

It's been a while; it's time to update!

I always wanted to model a classic Spyro or at least in honor of classic Spyro.
I'm tempted to do a line of Nostalgia with Crash Bandicoot and Coco with Pura,
but that would push me to work with fur. I barely understand Maya's Hair System. As for Spyro, I wanted to work up scales in his bump map, so Tada.




Based off the Disney Villains Perfume Bottle by Ruby Sparks.

For Ursula, I experimented with lighting and chose a scheme from the
"Poor Unfortunate Souls" sequence. Although lighting glasses in Maya
was problematic, I was able to make it "work" for the silhouette isn't lost.
I wanted to do more with it like have water be the surface plane, since I
thought about the Kraken Rum commercial with this. Alas I can only work with
what I know. If anyone knows how to control Ocean attributes in maya, feel free to comment.




I wanted to do Mother Gothel next, but it blindsided me how lighting
and glass would be an issue all over again. I do have different things in
mind for a beauty shot, but it's constant juggling to make it look "good"
even if it's not correct, since Maya doesn't refract light with mia materials.
Using blinn doesn't look or feel right either.

ladyxbug

Uuuugh looking at those paintings grind my gears. They've been nipped/tucked/color corrected/all the things. I worked them up in anticipation for an art show, an Artsy Maid Cafe to be precise. Unfortunately the kickstarter for it failed.

ladyxbug

Talk about 5ever.  I don't even know where to start in explaining a 2-year absence. Maybe I'll piggy-back ride it on the artistic soul searching. I've gotten accustomed to being alone on my artistic expedition especially out of school. After being in an indie production for a year and more, I realized how starved I was for that interaction and stimulation from fellow artists. So here goes to returning and just doing the damn thing.   

So Dre, what have you been working on? Aside from production work, I've been taking Lynda courses to push my cg models. I assessed what I've gathered from one tutorial and applied to a bust as a baby step. I'm working up a full-body on his concept of Meganium to tie it all together.

 

ladyxbug

 
Current work in progress.

ladyxbug

 
Trying to get a feel for speed sculpting and which tools are beneficial. I started with elderly people since I'm going to be working with wrinkled skin for Meganium. It's odd how still need to show the muscle tone, but it have an overall subtle appeal when the loose skin stretches over it. I need to develop a process.

ladyxbug

  
This was a fun "success" of a speed sculpt. Sa'More is a tsundere persona at a local maid cafe.  

ladyxbug

 
I'm playing with hairy systems. I doubt I'll use fur. Aesthetically I foresee it looking odd. I may cheat the eyes with the texture. I'm not sure if Maya supports targa sequence for textures if I wanted the eyes to be "animated". Hmmm