Araiel "LevelUp" Sketchbook 2016
Hello everyone,
with the beginning of new year I decided to change something in my life. By „something” I mean – that I’d like to develop my art skills, change my style of life (to more healthy), get rid of depression and get once again fun from making art . In the long term I also would like to be able to change my job – now I’m an office worker in city department with small salary (480 Euro per month). So maybe it’s more than only „something”.
Last year I spend 500 hours of my free time after my full time job on learning and personal projects. Wanted more but I’ve failed so there was only 500 hours. During that time I did:
· some tutorials,
· one big project connected with photo shoot,
· one smaller fan art project,
· two photo shoots (three if count this for further digital art project),
· one video.
Not too
much but I’ve tried my best to learn as much as I could. Below are results of 2015
year learning ('ll make another post with that).
This year goals are:
· 3-6 photo shoots for further digital art projects. I chose theme for each of them:
o Lovecraft/Cthulhu,
o Ancient Greek/Delphi Oracle,
o Boris Vallejo/Julie Bell style,
o Sci-fi (android) – this one is not finished from last year (done),
o Poison Ivy,
· game level in CryEngine (this one would be redesign version of Irenicus Dungeon from Baldur’s Gate 2),
· game level in Unreal Enigne (I would like to make some levels of Black Mesa Lab from Half-Life),
· make some photo shoots with models and product photography for better understanding of light control,
· learn Substance Designer/Painter, CryEngine, U4, Marvelous Designer,
· improve Quixel Suite skills,
· improve traditional drawing skills (that means starting from fundamentals… ),
· every day workout (I had some health problems, currently mainly with back pain in lower parts so if I’d like to spend more time on learning I must be in good health condition).
I will try
to make weekly reports of what I’ve done – with some wips or final images (if
there will be any :P ). So keep your fingers crossed for me 
Replies
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BakKTI8OVe4
Here is 3 week breakdown of my learning:
Here is a first project of 2016. The whole project is a mix of 3d (because the whole scene was made in 3d), digital painting, photobashing and photography (model - Ashi Monster https://www.facebook.com/AshiMonster ).
One thing maybe, your learning is pretty broad. If you want to develop as an overall creative person (which is awesome) that's good, but if your main goal is to get a certain job, maybe you should focus on being really good at the one thing needed for the job. Depends on what you want to achieve.
Oh, and your last project is pretty cool, I really like it.
Damn, now I fell inspired.
I really like Maciej Kuciara's works - and as I saw he uses a lot of different techniques (painting, photobash, 3d). Would be great to be able to do something similar. So it's some kind of all-in-one illustration technique
And of course, I'm really happy that you like the last work. At the moment I'm talking with another model to do this Lovecraft and Ancient Greek theme photo shoot
I've started learning Substance Painter - here is first tutorial base project:
I made first test of my new photo studio equipment (sotfboxes and Yongnuo flashlights) in my new room. I had no real model so I used mannequin's head :P
Below is the blockout of the game level from the Baldur's Gate 2. I also made an image with selected different objects in area which I want to make at the beginning
And I made another blockout. This time for next photo - digital art ptoject with Ancient Greek / Oracle theme. I would like to make something similar to these frames:
Here is week 4 and week 5:
I'm still here - so I haven't given up
I still do a lot of tutorials (recently I did mainly Painter and Designer ones) and also I've started making my own projects/textures. So below are weeks 6, 7 and 8:
Substance Designer/Painter/Zbrush textures
Substance Painter tutorials (my own versions of textures - models not mine):
(WIP) Environment which will be used as a background for photo session in Ancient Greek theme:
Product Photography - studio lightning tests with my new equipment (softboxes and Yongnuo flashlights):
Weeks 6/7/8:
Some new stuff I've made recently - all C&C are welcome. Also if you have some questions, feel free to ask.
1. Digital art - photography project which theme was a redesign of Princess Leia from the Star Wars movie. Hallway, R2-D2, blaster and belt are my own 3d models which I made in the beginning. Then I took photos with a model - Cristina Romanyk - in my home "photo studio". Make-up artist was Anna Parol. Next step was to retouch photos and to compose them with previous made 3d renders.
Final images
One "before" photo so you can see how it looks without the whole 3d scene and post production:
3d models from this project (3ds max, xnormal, quixel, vray):
2. I've come back to my greek temple/oracle enviro which also will be a part of photo-digital art project. So here is a column made in 3ds max, zbrush, xnormal and quixel:
3. I've also joined to the Baldur's Gate modding group and started to make some isometric maps. Here is some wip of one of them: