Some upper torso studies

So I'm trying to get the hang of that entire sculpting and stuff...

I don't really know how to control (what are those?) brush(?) strokes(?) so it's messy AF.

I think that since the end of April I was producing like 1 sculpture (sculpture with retopologized mesh and normal maps) for every 2 days.

Some of them... most of them are terrible so you'll see them on monthly scraps or something. The better ones I'll be uploading right after finishing.

Sorry for potato head - wasn't the focus 'tho.

BTW rendering that GIF frame after frame with all unnecessary render options disabled, sampling at 128, and resolution 720x1080 (yeah that weird ratio),6 second in 60 FPS (360 frames) took me 3 hours.  I'm glad there's something like sleep.

That's it,

So long

Female head model - part 3

I retopoligized it!

It's not the best topology but it's not that bad for a first head retopo...

That's high resolution model.

That's low resolution model. I changed the ear and skull a little bit before retopo. Sorry 'bout that. I forgot to render the proper before and after.

The fact I rendered both, the low and high res mesh at once doesn't help neither. It gave me that weird patch on her clavicle area. Sorry 'bout that too. I didn't noticed that the render visibility for high res was still on.

And that's low poli mesh with UV layout as a texture. It's pretty dense mesh but the entire model has like 6 pairs of poles (vertices that are connected to more than 4 edges) and none of them connects to 6 or more edges. It doesn't have any triangular faces too so it's not that bad for first head I've ever did.

I also started texturing but as I moved to normal maps I realized that I'll have to do that again... 

so that's just temporary texture (WIP to add to that...) 

TO DO LIST:

-fixing what has to be fixed;

-recreating eyeballs;

-retopo and  UV unwrapping;

-texturing (in progress);

-creating some normal , ambient occlusion and specularity maps (in progress);

-exporting to Unreal Engine 4;

-MAYBE rigging, animating and putting some hair on.

That's it.

So long

Female head model - part 2

current verison*

old version*

I fixed the eyelids and jaw, remodelled eye from a scratch, and switch to Cycles render engine.

That way I was finally able to give her more skinny colour. Nothing fancy yet though. Just a simple diffuse + glossy shader.

No fresnel, no reflectivity. 

I already started the retopo process.

TO DO LIST:

-fixing what has to be fixed;

-recreating eyeballs;

-retopo and  UV unwrapping;

-texturing;

-creating some normal , ambient occlusion and specularity maps;

-exporting to Unreal Engine 4;

-MAYBE rigging, animating and putting some hair on.

That's it.

So long

Female head model - part 1

I'm waiting for a critique of my day #8 of 14 days challenge so I got some spare time.

That very time I decided to spend on learning some 3D. 

All the basics I covered (frankly I just liked few helpful tutorials...) in the last post, so if you're interested feel free to check it out.

Today I sculpted THAT thingy.

Yeah, I know - the presentation couldn't be better :D

That's basic sculpt have like 180k tris or so. I have to fix few things like eyelids, jaw, smooth cranium out and recreate eyeballs from a scratch, because I accidentally switched to sculpt mode with the eye selected and now something that should have 100 circa 100 tris have 20k...

I rendered that with Blender Internal rendering engine and since I was using only Cycles I'm not quite familiar with it. All I could do now was applying diffuse colour of sculpt to red and click render.

What I plan to to with this is:

-fixing what has to be fixed;

-recreating eyeballs;

-retopo and  UV unwrapping;

-texturing;

-creating some normal , ambient occlusion and specularity maps;

-exporting to Unreal Engine 4;

-MAYBE rigging, animating and putting some hair on.

We'll see when I get bored and decide to trash it.

I'll keep you updated,

So long

Sculpting the skull in digital clay

I was out of my place for a week and I didn't have my tablet with me, so I decided to try something else.

I sucked the Blender on my machine and with a small help of the internet I started sculpting process.

After 2 hours of toying with sculpting plugin and its dynamic topology function I came up with high resolution model of the skull.

Most of the time I worked on clay-like material but for the sake of presentation I changed it to what you see.

You can always change it in the panel that shows after pressing 'N' key in 3D viewport as long as you're using the Cycles Render engine.

It doesn't affect the render and is visible only with solid shading option ticked.

Any ways after I sclupted that beauty (right...) I retopologized it - meaning I created brand new model but using like milion less vertices. 

Then I baked normal map and applied it to my low poli model.

For some reason (I'll get why sooner or later) blender switched green and red channel so the teeth looked like the were concave.

The easy fix to that was to switch them like that

   --->   

I have to learn a lot about rendering, presentation, camera and stuff like that but first I want to learn how to texture stuff. 

Not like PBR stuff but more like handpained textures with custom reflectivity masks.

If you want to try that entire 3D thingy I put some links that helped me a lot. Non-profit.

- AgenZasBrothers - Introduction: Sculpting in Blender (Tutorial EN) 

- Zacharias Reinhardt (one of Agen Zas Brothers) - How to set up Retopology in Blender (Tutorial EN) 

- Darrin Lile - Blender Character: Baking Normal Maps 

And the last one is Blender: how to retopo a head in few minutes with bsurfaces by Jose Antonio Molinero Reina which I haven't used yet. Seems like it could help me big time with entire retopo process.

That's it.

So long

14 Day challenge - Day 14 and summary

I wasn't updating you for a while... Well - I'm lazy ass. That's why.

I finished my 14 days challenge for female faces.

It went pretty good. I've learned a lot.

I don't feel like recapping all the comments and tips I got.

I encourage you to check it by yourself on my G+ - the icon is somewhere on right side I think. At least on PC.

If you don't care what I did and you're here just to check the results I'm uploading here full resolution pics for every day.

The moment I write this I'm on my day #5 of my male faces 14DC so you can expect recap like this somewhen in mid April.

If you're considering participating in 14DC yourself then stop considering and participate...

There's no drawbacks and no one will give a single flying... Yeah... Basically you can post or twice a week and you'll still be able to progress really fast.

That's it.

So long

Monthly scraps - February 2017

So yeah...

When it comes to unfinished stuff that month was dry.

I started the 14DC so I have less time for fucking around and even 'tho I've somehow menaged to produce some crap.

I don't know if I'll finish any of them at all.
I mean I've already saved like 10GB of not so big *.png-s. 

I like quite few of them as the ideas but I'll be able to pull them out as I see them in my mind maybe in 1-2 years from now.

 I'll make 14DC summary after graduation or something. 

 If you want to see all the images I made for that challenge my Google+ profile is linked somewhere on the right side. Just scroll until you find it. 

 Also if you're curious what the 14DC is you can check it HERE. << won't hurt you but may help.

 That's it,

 So long

14 day challenge - DAY 4

Day #4 change-log:

-head is even wider;

-shadow on the sides of the head is gradually lighter toward the top of the skull;

-eyebrows are lighter on the outer side;

-lips are shaded more gradually;

-added more prominent shadow under the lower lip;

Day #5 was total brainfart but you'll see that tomorrow by yourself.

So long 

14 day challenge - DAY 3

Day #3

-Shorter head;

-shadows are lighter on top of the head;

-bottom edges of the irises are more visible;

-the water line of  the eye is brightest in the middle;

-lips are more soft and change to skin gradually;

-head looks rounder and more like a ball or egg;

-eyebrows are darker the closer they get to the nose bridge;

-got rid of that disturbing specular highlight on eyes.

Oh, and the point of that entire challenge is to paint a face from a scratch to get faster and more accurate with every painting.

Those changes are changes in my workflow and habits, not simple tweaks done within one painting.

So long

14 day challenge - DAY 2

I'm currently working on my day #4 but for you I got just a day #2 painting.

I must admit - number #1 and #2 look derpy as f***.

Those are one of the worst faces I recently painted.

Following advice of fellow artists I :

-lightened up the background to make the face pop-out;

-widened the septum of the nose;

-made the lower eyelid more pointy at the outer ends;

-made eyes bigger;

-tried to make head shorter and wider but it came out roughly the same size as day #1 (yeah... brainfarts are real);

Day #3 is much better but we'll get to that tomorrow.

So long

14 day challenge - DAY 1

I'm participating in Istebrak's 14 day challenge. 

I struggle a lot with faces, so I decided to fix that. 

I mean I can draw a face but whether or not it will be appealing is almost totally random.

I mentioned in the very first post I want to be more consistent so that may be good decision. 

That's day #1 

More to come,

So long

Monthly scraps - January 2017

Another first day of the month - another monthly scraps post.

That I want to finish, but it's hard :(

That I like less and less with every brush stroke I put. I was playing Mass Effect 2 and Illium happened. It's soooo moody place. I was like "imma paint it" but lost interest.

Don't like that piece. My anatomy is not good enough yet. 

And that I did for Jazza's COTM. I was struggling with legs, so I drew them separately.

I started to think more about making my process a bit easier lately.

I made that one sided brush (hard on one side, totally soft on the other) to make hard edges much quicker.

It allows me to focus more on real practice instead of messing up with edges. Of course I still have to refine them but it doesn't take as much time as painting them from scratch.

Now I can just zoom out and paint hints of form in quick and easy way :3 

It's not a biggie, but definitely helps a lot.

So yeah... some brush tests

That creeps me out :D

Some form studies

And an environment thumbnail sketch...

That's all for now,

So long