Sketchbook: Kate Blackshear

kateblacks · Jul 2020

Hiya everyone! I wanted to go ahead and start journaling my progress with art more, so I could see where I grow and where I need to grow more. Critique is always welcome, but the main purpose of this is more for documentation and reflection. I'm also new here and would love to meet more people through this

. I love working in handpainting and stylized 3D. Thanks for checking my stuff out here.

kateblacks · Jul 2020

I'd love to get better at sculpting. I usually used it at work when I needed something lo-poly but organic, I'd sculpt something out and then decimate it to hell. I've been sinking my teeth into handpainting but I'd also love to be a better sculptor for stylization. I think that could go a long way. Tonight I spent a bit of time on just a regular old box. It's realllly painfully basic but I'm proud of it! The OBJ orientation was all funky in ZBrush, didn't realize how it affected my sculpting until after I just brought it into Marmoset for a basic render, next time I'll watch out for that!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/l0/qjufgybeyzw5.jpg

I hope to do small sketch sculpts each day, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to stick to it religiously. We'll see

kateblacks · Jul 2020

Oh lord, this thing took me some time and I still hate looking at it. I like the top of the broom, and that's about it. I realized how little I know about layering and masking and how that really fucked me on this. It's really intimidating to not understand those things but I know I need to pull up my britches and learn. My brain feels fried. I wish I understood just how much of the sculpt transferred over into a renderer. Sometimes I feel I spend too much time on little details that end up not showing up in the final thing, because the material I decided to use in ZBrush shows more than whatever I use in Marmoset.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/gl/t1mrpka5sjra.jpg

I look forward to learning more about layering, because I feel there are some nice parts of this, but overall it's just a dumpster fire XD. Oh well, onto the next one.

kateblacks · Jul 2020

I um...I have no idea how I was able to do this one!! My friend Courtney forwarded me a series of videos covering masking/extruding as well as IMMs, painting, and separate meshes! I still have a lot to learn but I had SO much fun with this piece. It makes me reconsider what I want to do because I've always loved drawing people but I never was taught formally. A mediocre animation class and very very subpar character class when I didn't know much about 3D. I remember loving the first project in the character class but my model was a mess looking back, and the teacher was very much over teaching.

At one point my program crashed and I lost the hair mesh, had to resculpt it so I put it in a braid and loosened up with it. I'm so happy that this came out so good for me being such a noob!! Am I going to leave Environment Art for Characters? I dunno, it was so relaxing to problem solve a character instead of a prop. But rigging is so intimidating!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/5z/lyd4ziumgpg0.png

See you guys later for other updates

Maybe another bust soon to see how I feel about sculpting more characters. Maybe it'll be a side hobby.

kateblacks · Jul 2020

I'm burnt out from yesterday's sculpt. I was excited to sit down and sculpt but I'm just tired after trying to learn how to make shapes happen. sigh.
I studied Rose Benjamin's beautiful "Glimmer" piece, here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/e0k2EY

I've been working away at this for more than I'd like to tonight and I'm exhausted, I can't bring myself to work on it more so I just wrapped it up and am setting it aside. Tomorrow I'll tackle something more simple for sure.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/bu/06uzmvkljwz6.jpg

kateblacks · Jul 2020

Wanted to do something hard surface and more simplistic today. Just fuddled around in ZBrush from a base mesh. This dagger reminds me of thorns/brambles.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/84/y5sqk4ri4b7d.jpg

kateblacks · Jul 2020

I've been working on another handpainted piece, so I haven't gotten much time to sculpt, but I was inspired by some WoW tiling textures and wanted to give it another go, so, here's my progress tonight for a tiling texture, x1 and x2 tiling respectively.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/k0/4de5j0qqu4jd.jpg

kateblacks · Jul 2020

apologies if this takes a little to load! made some progress, but the seams are still visible and it only looks good in one direction. also some shading is popping out more than other areas. and clearly some stones are just blocks of color

but that's a problem for future meeee, time to rest

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/v7/cyo3rccyy845.png

kateblacks · Jul 2020

Here are my final screenshots for this texture! The bottom one is the normal ALB with a hint of SPEC, and the top has an emissive plugged in. I wanted to keep with the grey but I couldn't get it in a place I was happy with after I pumped up the contrast. I wanted the "normal" albedo to be a good color, because you could always plug in a multiply or emissive to change the hue a lot more drastically. I feel like I learned a lot from this exercise and I would love to get this into an environment, or have a few more to make a full portfolio piece! I hope you all like it

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/xl/aucxwn9pucav.png

P.S. I wanted to add that I took a lot of inspiration from these two! Check them out!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/82Qx6
https://www.artstation.com/antonioneves

kateblacks · Jul 2020

Started on trying to do a tiled sculpt last night! I'll have to paint over some things once I connect it and hopefully can distort it a bit more, but happy with my progress for now

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/tq/pe060vlpgekg.jpg

kateblacks · Jul 2020

a snap shot of some wood I finished up after sculpting wood. I decided to paint in some things on the right lighter ones. I would love to touch up the darker ones a bit but I'm happy for now!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/2f/1exfqze0i3bc.jpeg

kateblacks · Aug 2020

small little icon i made of myself for a discord thing. cut all my hair off so i needed to paint it

kateblacks · Aug 2020

baby's first rock

kateblacks · Aug 2020

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/w7/thz62jda4tw7.png

smol doodle from watching too much Inuyasha!

kateblacks · Aug 2020

I haven't been updating for a bit, because I've been working on the Travel Challenge for Sketchfab

. Here are some of my updates.

Blockout:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/9p/ziuyak3z2puf.png

Sculpting!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/e7/r3vg06igjc3f.png

Initial Painting!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/md/xjo09msv4168.png

It's due by the end of the month, so I'll keep working on that. Also I had some fun experimenting with materials today. They're inspired by Overwatch

I'm still a huge noob with Substance.

Substance:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/pw/rvf6kyra9gw6.png

Marmoset playing around:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/29/8kwqtm501f4m.png

kateblacks · Aug 2020

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/9n/6w5wvn5ni0ar.png

added some straps, removed other meshes in favor for other things. about 7k polys so far, a bit high. I need to finish texturing and then I can optimize it a bit more.

kateblacks · Sep 2020

Finally finished up my suitcase project! Also was picked up for work at another studio so it's time for me to learn Maya

Here's how the suitcase came out! https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5XdwJ1

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/a4/5rux1wveiky7.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/s3/pe2i9wc05m98.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

Been kinda away because of work keeping me busy! I wanted to catalogue the Club discord's rock challenge that I'm participating in. One rock a day, sculpted for about an hour!
First day:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/mh/6q2hnraac6gp.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day two! this one was tough! i kept thinking more crystalline instead of other types of rock formations. posted this on twitter as well.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/bp/ybkkdc8rl0bh.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day three

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/x2/qhdgab72ja13.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

anxiety is killlinnn meeee today, day 4! w/ close ups!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/e7/gprmlgltxu58.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fz/bbp3nxauy7d0.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/9p/j5b2lxy26p1w.jpg

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/5l/v42gd2x1y39u.jpg

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day five! trying to get away from using the edge flatten orb brush and get more interesting shapes now that i seem to have sharp edges down.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/hx/gu7soad9q5zi.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day six! it's been a rough day for the US, i finished this while everyone's asleep.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/m7/ek7y4te1c7n8.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

better rock of yesterday!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/qv/xylyf0cn6exb.jpg

day 7! it was flat mostly so i tilted it up and did mostly one side.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/i5/df41i5nnc2bc.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day 8! i can't tell if i'm getting any better tbh

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fu/rjny9jk8aph5.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day 9 render!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/hv/1bngbkanxncm.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

Hung out with a few friends while sculpting for day 10

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/tc/d6urg65ulrju.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day 11 & 12! kinda sped through these out of exhaustion lol.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/iw/q4j4py3z6sma.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/rv/28eknftuknuc.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day 13! practicing cracks.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/kd/pgdlmiihm2yz.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

im proud of my day 14 and 15 rocks! i had to do both today due to my wrist being strained but I can still see a lot of improvement! eeee!!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/fh/3el7zedwphqw.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/he/zbdssf5ksiqu.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

day 16!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/n6/vboz6f635xrc.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

wasnt feel particularly inspired today but im happy with how they came out! day 17!

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5021068/uploads/editor/8b/xuyaaspx4799.png

kateblacks · Jan 2021

looked over Michael Orb Vicente's rendering guide and got my day 18 render! im pretty happy with it, but it's going to not be easy to go back and render all my other rocks. finding a good angle is 90% of the battle!