i second the "whew, finally" sentiment. is it wrong to feel... i dunno, kinda "funny down there" at the prospect of a second (clearly victorious) round of the Dominance War?
am i revealing too much here?
i've been looking over your portfolio and i'm surprised you haven't gotten a thumbnail or two up yet. i really dig the energy of the first couple of humanoid sketches in your sketch section, especially the amount of expressiveness you give the torso. i think that sort of semi-exaggerated style (with bigger hands and the like) is definitely worth looking into for this contest; furthermore, i think it could be a good chance to translate some of energy i see in your sketches more directly into your 3D work.
mind you, your 3D work isn't bad, but it doesn't quite yet have the punch that some of your sketches show. just a thought.
so please, while there are many polycounters that aren't too handy with a sketch, you're not one of them. take the time to develop some different ideas... let's see some thumbnails! really push yourself to explore some wildly different silhouettes, and don't get hung up on detail. keep the thumbnails small and mostly loose, and refine as you iterate. hup to it, soldier
oh my good sir there is absolutely nothing wrong with a little tingly down below for the dominance war!
first off thanks for the compliment on my portfolio stuff! like most artist im shy bout showing my stuff so i dont pimp my site too much.
and finnaly, here is some sketches i did yesterday and today. i never work with thumbnails, i suck at them to be honest, i just jump in there and go at it. i think alot before i sit down to draw something, so i dont waist too much time behind a pencil.
pardon the crudeness, i dont own a scanner =( go go bein broke!
im going for the hand to hand combat guy. the name of the game with this guy is fukin crazy! i want mindless canibal. a man so torn and fuked up that he just takes orders and is likely to eat the person that gives the orders too! i figure hunched over, large back, tricepts, forearms and hands. i also want energy weapons for his fist and a gnarly mace to pumel people with like a crazed ape.
whats this guy like, and what is the liquid u keep injecting him with?? is that some kinda steroids or PCP type a thing like McBane uses to get him pumped up?
2nd thing homie
i agree with what gauss is sayin, i like the idea you have with the serum he has attached to his body n stuff, try to go with more sketches though, other ideas and quick rough thumbnails of the silhouttes. look up some more ref too
Hey there good buddy. I'm also working on some stuff and will start my posts tonight.
The thumbnails look good. Thats all it's about is roughing out quick shapes and forms. Nothing too detailed. Like most of my environment thumbs they are small, quick and not very detailed.
Start finding a shape / silohette that you like and go with it and then into the detail stage.
awsome brother im glade u got a little extra free time to join us! this is gonna be alot of fun
so im starting to get ahang of this thumbnail thing. Its actually alot of fun, i just feel like im not very creative with my shapes. mayb that comes in time? anywho here is a new batch, which is much better than the first i believe. I got my fav picked out, lend me your thoughts and help me out!
my favourite is the little guy yelling "noooo!" he has great potential!
jokes aside, he's the best...
lol, srry... too much coca cola in my systeeeem!
--
okay, i like the second guy's (top centre) weapon the most, but i prefer the body structure and shape of the 4th guy (bottom left). u should try blending them...
phil, I think your concepts are coming along really well. try doing some fatter squatier characters more though, alot of your folio pieces are really skinny tall characters so I think it would help out for your portfolio to do some extreme different proportioned characters.. im really liking the siloutes though, they are lookin good. keep it up.
thanks guys, i really appreciate the input! I know darcy, i always do tall and skinny b/c i can just use myself for reff hehe. Im doing one more set of humanoids then im gonna venture to some creature thumbs and see which i would like to explore more. Ive never done a creature so i might do that just for the sake of pushing my limits.
hey man! good to see so many thumbnails up. might seem like drudgework at first, but it helps out more than you think
i realize i should qualify some of my indiscriminate advice about thumbnailing, however. just remember that thumbnails are just physically small (inch or two) drawings, presumably done quickly. that's all. you dont necessarily have to do just the silhouettes. check back to my thread in a little while, i think i'll probably end up posting a little on the subject of thumbnailing.
and on the subject of silhouettes, try to avoid just drawing a guy and then drawing spikey things coming out of it. don't feel bad though, this is apparently what most people end up doing when they drawn only silhouettes
so draw small, and draw fast. i can see you're hitting a wall with only drawing silhouettes, so you've been compensating by giving yourself detail to doodle in on the edge of the character. this is missing the point to some degree, but i think the silhouette-only stuff is just distracting you. so try doing some more drawings, this time giving yourself very strict limits. keep them small, and loose, and to ensure them being loose, use a watch or timer and give yourself only a minute on each drawing. then move to the next one.
so again, focus on interesting shapes and silhouette variations--this doesnt mean to make them spikey or jagged outer edge. give up on the kind of preconceptions you have for what the character's going to be, at this point--man, woman, alien, dog-beast from Zkydpytyyc 13, you don't know yet. give that pencil a workout and then start thinking about characters. the character and background stuff doesn't mean a thing if you don't have some interesting visuals to hang them on.
...well there's some blather for you! do some more thumbnailing as i've outlined above and i think you'll be hitting some interesting material soon.
the top far left and right are my favorite...I like the top middle right one too, but its to similar to gav's so I would stay away from that...the one on the left is very cutsy haha but cool. while the right one looks more like somthing to fear, but the left is cooler haha. and the other 2 that I havnt talked about are to damn emo phil! im going to come over there and slit your wrists for you if you dont stop your damn emo crap=p
huh uh, mine has four arms and four legs, that one has two arms and four legs... completly different. I would say it looks more like rasdasa's entry for the massive black scholorship last year, it was my favorite.
hehe no way, those arnt emo, those all scream bad ass!
anywho, i been frustrated of late with my lack of ideas for this and my inability to settle on an idea. And to top it off people are flyin past me to the modeling phase!
So here is where im at. I did some line sketches to try and solidify some ideas, but i wasnt to happy with the results so i printed out my shilloete (sp) at a really low opacity and started to doodle over them in a random fashion. from there im just connecting patterns that my brain sees. Hopefully I will have this concept thing set in stone with in the next few days and i can get onto the areas im halfway decent at
I like your silhouette work. I should do that when I get started up on this contest. Your latest ones working off the silhouette look amazing. Looks incredibly evil. Interested in seeing some color choices.
personally i am all about the "tossing ideas out" sketch guy (love the helmet!), combined with the leggings in the "more what im looking for" guy. i think you've got more than enough to nail down in the broad strokes, so as to let you focus on refining smaller details and consider color palette and smaller surfacing sort of details. gogogo!
thanks for the love guys. I too liked the helment idea, just wasnt sure if it would imbalance the design to have so much going on in the head area. I explored a few ideas, let me know what yall think....
Bottom left skull is cool looking... The body position of th silhouttes look akward? Not tuff or evil... Hopefully you are developing the silhouettes by drawing inside the character as well... so you are thinking overall, and not just silhoutte...
Hey folks. I need a bit of advice from the smart mudbox users out there
Im sculpting and all that and i realize my UV's are not so hot in a few areas. Is there a way to update my uv's with out loosing any of my sculpting? or should i just re uv and start again?
if you export a level from mud into max, you can move verts about and import it back using 'import as layer', which lets you use the new positions. Now I havent tried it with uvs, but thats your best bet
you're in the thick of it now, where things get tricky and resolving certain details and issues gets a little less fun, but don't slow down. i think the character is turning out quite well. the hooks in the mouth are just gruesome, like an evil pcounter war character ought to be keep updating!
Rooster: Thanks so much man. I found out i could kick a high poly OBJ to zbrush and reconstruct its levels, and ive been using its zmapper to make my normal maps now. as well as zbrush is easier to tweak my uvs and not loose anything
gauss: right when i was down on my project u pop in with that much needed encouragement! thanks bro...
here is the recent, ill b up all night workin on it
cheers, crits and all that jazz are wanted! so leave some!
looking good buddy. i think you should randomize the the strength of the scars a little and maybe the placement not so uniform. usually stuff like this is random on the body and wouldn't be so neatly placed.
i really like the arm and upper torso, i'm not so sure about those scars, keep working on those, it does make it more characteristic. (i like the ones above the nabel)
Replies
am i revealing too much here?
i've been looking over your portfolio and i'm surprised you haven't gotten a thumbnail or two up yet. i really dig the energy of the first couple of humanoid sketches in your sketch section, especially the amount of expressiveness you give the torso. i think that sort of semi-exaggerated style (with bigger hands and the like) is definitely worth looking into for this contest; furthermore, i think it could be a good chance to translate some of energy i see in your sketches more directly into your 3D work.
mind you, your 3D work isn't bad, but it doesn't quite yet have the punch that some of your sketches show. just a thought.
so please, while there are many polycounters that aren't too handy with a sketch, you're not one of them. take the time to develop some different ideas... let's see some thumbnails! really push yourself to explore some wildly different silhouettes, and don't get hung up on detail. keep the thumbnails small and mostly loose, and refine as you iterate. hup to it, soldier
first off thanks for the compliment on my portfolio stuff! like most artist im shy bout showing my stuff
and finnaly, here is some sketches i did yesterday and today. i never work with thumbnails, i suck at them to be honest, i just jump in there and go at it. i think alot before i sit down to draw something, so i dont waist too much time behind a pencil.
pardon the crudeness, i dont own a scanner =( go go bein broke!
im going for the hand to hand combat guy. the name of the game with this guy is fukin crazy! i want mindless canibal. a man so torn and fuked up that he just takes orders and is likely to eat the person that gives the orders too! i figure hunched over, large back, tricepts, forearms and hands. i also want energy weapons for his fist and a gnarly mace to pumel people with like a crazed ape.
This should get fun...
gnight never never polycount!
i agree with what gauss is sayin, i like the idea you have with the serum he has attached to his body n stuff, try to go with more sketches though, other ideas and quick rough thumbnails of the silhouttes. look up some more ref too
Looks interesting so far, Stimpack.
and i descided to give this "thumbnail" thing another shot. not sure what im doin, but im havin fun scribling on my page
The thumbnails look good. Thats all it's about is roughing out quick shapes and forms. Nothing too detailed. Like most of my environment thumbs they are small, quick and not very detailed.
Start finding a shape / silohette that you like and go with it and then into the detail stage.
so im starting to get ahang of this thumbnail thing. Its actually alot of fun, i just feel like im not very creative with my shapes. mayb that comes in time? anywho here is a new batch, which is much better than the first i believe. I got my fav picked out, lend me your thoughts and help me out!
jokes aside, he's the best...
lol, srry... too much coca cola in my systeeeem!
--
okay, i like the second guy's (top centre) weapon the most, but i prefer the body structure and shape of the 4th guy (bottom left). u should try blending them...
ill update again tonight.
As for joining ya. I am on the 3dtotal team. You know me. I love robots and sci fi.
i realize i should qualify some of my indiscriminate advice about thumbnailing, however. just remember that thumbnails are just physically small (inch or two) drawings, presumably done quickly. that's all. you dont necessarily have to do just the silhouettes. check back to my thread in a little while, i think i'll probably end up posting a little on the subject of thumbnailing.
and on the subject of silhouettes, try to avoid just drawing a guy and then drawing spikey things coming out of it. don't feel bad though, this is apparently what most people end up doing when they drawn only silhouettes
so draw small, and draw fast. i can see you're hitting a wall with only drawing silhouettes, so you've been compensating by giving yourself detail to doodle in on the edge of the character. this is missing the point to some degree, but i think the silhouette-only stuff is just distracting you. so try doing some more drawings, this time giving yourself very strict limits. keep them small, and loose, and to ensure them being loose, use a watch or timer and give yourself only a minute on each drawing. then move to the next one.
so again, focus on interesting shapes and silhouette variations--this doesnt mean to make them spikey or jagged outer edge. give up on the kind of preconceptions you have for what the character's going to be, at this point--man, woman, alien, dog-beast from Zkydpytyyc 13, you don't know yet. give that pencil a workout and then start thinking about characters. the character and background stuff doesn't mean a thing if you don't have some interesting visuals to hang them on.
...well there's some blather for you!
here are a few more i did last night (before reading this post) so they are wrong but i like them =P
pardon a few repeats, i wanted to finish off the page
and my feeble attempt at creatures
with love...
pick something and start running already
anywho, i been frustrated of late with my lack of ideas for this and my inability to settle on an idea. And to top it off people are flyin past me to the modeling phase!
So here is where im at. I did some line sketches to try and solidify some ideas, but i wasnt to happy with the results so i printed out my shilloete (sp) at a really low opacity and started to doodle over them in a random fashion. from there im just connecting patterns that my brain sees. Hopefully I will have this concept thing set in stone with in the next few days and i can get onto the areas im halfway decent at
cheers!
tossing ideas out:
more what im looking for:
randomnessage:
i guess this next week is the torso, and by the time this thing ends we will have a full sketch.
love
and yes, i got bored and sculpted nasty teeth =D wait till you see them textured OHH!
almost ready for some high poly lovin!
Im sculpting and all that and i realize my UV's are not so hot in a few areas. Is there a way to update my uv's with out loosing any of my sculpting? or should i just re uv and start again?
Thanks in advance!
ps. still need a lil advice on changing uv's mid sculpt please!
ok, thats the last post of the night. im burnt...
gauss: right when i was down on my project u pop in with that much needed encouragement! thanks bro...
here is the recent, ill b up all night workin on it
cheers, crits and all that jazz are wanted! so leave some!
otherwise good work