Sketchbook: Grykus

Grykus_762

Hello!

So I joined Polycount a few years back with the intention of leveling up my artwork. I wanted to participate in the art challenges and getting in the habit of posting my art online while also taking critiques and feedback.

Lo and behold, shortly after creating my account I ended up moving for my work and put my personal goals and development on the back burner.

I’ve been taking art classes online for a little under a year, and until recently it was hard to gauge my progress until I managed to find some older files with my first attempts at 3D modeling and digital sculpting.

I’d like to use this space for a few things:

1. Documenting my personal development as well as my progress both in and outside of class
   
2. As a space to share and explore ideas on my personal projects.
   
3. Lastly and most importantly, getting over my  apprehension for sharing and posting projects online.
   

I’ve been thinking about creating a post like this for some time, and decided that if I really want to take my development seriously I need to overcome my nervousness (especially for point 3).

My portfolio is available here with some of my older works. 

Grykus_762

So for one of my first modeling classes we had to select a concept from a set of references. Over a period of six weeks we spent time modeling and refining our model. The last week was spent on learning some material and texturing basics in Substance painter so we could showcase our model.

The concept art is by Maeve Broadbin. I did the modeling and did some (very basic) texturing in Maya.

I might revisit the concept between classes and remodel and texture everything. I had fun with the class, but left thinking that I could easily spend another 6 weeks making the model match closer to the reference. The class definitely pushed my boundaries beyond what I was comfortable with at the time. It was greatly appreciated, but I know I was definitely struggling to keep up with the pace.

Concept Art Courtesy of Maeve Broadbin (Her Portfolio here)


My attempt at the 3D model

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More Images:

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I also took a Zbrush Concept and Iteration course. It also served as a solid introduction to Zbrush as a whole, but the focus was on being able to concept sculpt in Zbrush. 

I started off with an idea of a crocodilian creature and did three iterations during the first week that I submitted. During Week 2 I ended up refining a couple of the ideas and got hooked on a more insect-like iteration.

I did a few refinement passes with some feedback for Weeks 3 and 4. I ended up sculpting something different for Week 5. A hard surface sculpt for some of the techniques the instructor showed (no images), and Week 6 was a texture and color pass (also no images shown).

I think it was at this point that I really fell in love with Zbrush. It seemed so much more intuitive to me over Maya and it ultimately led me to the decision to focus more on character sculpting and taking my current anatomy course.

Week 1 Iterations

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Week 2 Updates
Here I resculpted the head to a concept that I found of an aggressive fish-like creature. I also started following the idea of the third-sculpt a lot closer. An aggressive insectoid like creature. 

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Week 3 - Refined Concept

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Week 4 - Detail pass and Further Concept Refinement

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So, I haven't been keeping up as I said I would and need to rectify it! So here's an art dump of the last sculpts that I've done for the 3rd/4th quarter of 2021. I'm especially happy with seeing my development between the old skull sculpt I did in 2019 to the one I did in December. It made me really happy to see that yes, I am improving even if I may not see it in each sculpt.

Cheetah skull for my Creature Anatomy course:

And here's another one that I'm really proud of. I saw a concept art image from Viktor Titov that I really liked. So a while back (a few months? before my Zbrush Anatomy class for sure), I made an initial attempt. It was terrible, but at the time it was by far the best head I have sculpted. So as of Saturday, January 15, 2022, I decided to redo the sculpt from scratch and again see if I made some improvement. Oh man is the result night and day. I still have a long way to go, there are still things that aren't right and quality wise it's not where I want to end up. But in terms of progress I think I can confidently say that it blew the original head sculpt out of the water.

Here's the link to the reference for...well reference.

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Global Game Jam Art dump!

I was working as the 3d artist for our game jam group. It pushed me a bunch outside my comfort zone and I had to very quickly learn how to do texturing, rigging, and animating. I haven't worked in blender in a little over a year, so my poly modeling was also pretty well stretched. Either way it was very fun and I'm glad I was able to participate and complete a game in my first jam.

I also was working on a Dwarf sculpt just prior to the game jam. It's not complete, but it's at a comfortable level for now that I'd be happy considering it done for now. I may revisit it down the road and either resculpt from scratch or add some texturing and detailing

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Spent some time last week working on a skull study! I'm really happy with how it came out, although looking at it now I see a lot of areas where I can improve. Overall though I'm excited especially considering some of my earlier sculpts. I decided to try texturing it too and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. I kept it simple and sculpted only with polypaint inside Zbrush. I then exported it and did a few image renders in Marmoset Toolbag 3.