wow a blog post

Here's what I've been working on lately. It's for an art test. If you can guess which studio it's for, you win bonus nerd points.

And in case you missed my other update on my portfolio site, check this out:

Thanks for looking! Wish me luck on my art test, cuz I really need it!

zbrush head studies

This is potentially the first in a series of zBrush head studies that I'm planning on. I probably shouldn't have picked a person with such difficult hair on my first entry.

Andy Samberg

now in color!

Here's some of the reference I used, just for fun

this kind of research makes me feel like a stalker...

goblin update!

I've been adding my wip images to my previous post, but I think I've made enough progress to make a new post! Check it! Zbrush is super fun now that I've got some basics down. And I learned a bunch from working on my Darksiders hammer. Unfortunately, I didn't make the cut, but congrats to the super talented dudes who did!

This is how the retopologized low-poly looks with just the normal map applied. xNormal wasn't being the most cooperative, and ZBrush was acting weird and exporting the obj files at different scales and positions, so this stage took me a bit longer than I was planning on. Either way, I went from over 6 million points on the high-poly (after a hefty Decimation Master pass) to about 4,500 tris on the low-poly. Next stage will be the diffuse map with color and stuff.

Maya default viewport screen-grabs 

darksiders final image!

I've finished my Darksiders 2 Polycount weapon contest entry! Woo hoo!

If you wanted to see what else the Polycount community has been working on, here are the links to the submission pages:
Mace category, Axe category, Hammer category

darksiders 2 polycount competition!

Latest Update: Here's the link to my post with my Final Presentation image
http://ezralau.blogspot.com/2012/03/darksiders-final-image.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before I write anything, here's the contest details: Polycount: Darksiders II ‘Create a Weapon’ Contest. I'll be updating this post as I make progress.

And here's concept art for my "Angelic Hammer":

3d blocking

some other spike ideas... pulled the reference images from Google Image Search

scale/proportion test

redesign time

refined the redesign

figure sketchings

I went to a figure drawing session recently, and these are the pieces that are at least somewhat decent. I used Prismacolor pencil and markers for these.

goblin doodles

these goblins... they look so romantic, just like valentines day ads when you're single.

So remember that post where I was making some skyrim/mass effect armor? ya, turns out my hard-surface modeling skills are really terrible, so I'm putting that project on hold while I practice on stuff that's a bit closer to my skill level. My latest project idea was inspired by the great Tyson Murphy (it's basically a rip-off of this). But my goals are a bit more realistic, just one little goblin dude, minimal armor (helmet, loincloth [gotta cover up dem gens], maybe other bits and pieces), and a weapon. Simple, right?

UPDATES:

Proportion exploration

armor + warpaint

just armor

sketching with zspheres

refining the zsphere sketch

the base form sculpt

art tests = job? nope.

Final Composition

Rough Layout

Spaceship Concepts

Spacesuit Concepts

I have no idea how many art tests I'm going to have to do to get a job. Not. Even. The. Foggiest. The brief for this one was pretty good. Here's the assignment that I was given:

"In the time-frame of no more than 8 hours of contiguous work, create the following full-color illustration using the medium of your choice: A whimsical spaceship in the shape of a common household object (such as a teapot), complete with inhabitants, has crash-landed on an alien - yet familiar-looking - world. The characters should be engaged in either exploring the environment or repairing their ship. The Filament Games corporate logo should be prominently displayed on the side of the ship. Submit your rough sketches and concepts as well."

Yup, still looking for work. It's kind of interesting how this assignment was so much like the assignments I would get in Joe Olson's class. LOL FUNNY

what's this? another art test?

Over on the 2d side of things, an art test for a Facebook game studio. These are props designed to be cute and  to fit an Easter theme. My first time really doing vector art, so just more learning and stuff.

Here's another art test

I just noticed that I didn't post this character artist test from a while ago. This one was actually quite difficult because of the restrictions (500 tris, 128 diffuse map, 20 bones), because it was for a mobile game studio. Kinda fun, kinda not. More learning, I guess. This is probably the first time I modeled a character after a real life person.

Art tests are cool

Looking at this environment artist test now, it's actually quite bad, and I did a lot of things that REAL environment artists would NEVER do. But by going through this rather long/arduous process, I learned a LOT. One of those things I learned is that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when it comes to environment art (Texel Density, ya never really payed much attention to that...). So these models were provided by the game studio, but all the textures are mine.

Anyways, even though I did a bunch of pointless work and didn't get the job, what I took away from the experience was knowledge and... power? (knowledge = power, right?) Art tests are SO COOL