Hardsurface and Organic Renders

Here are the renders I have up to this point.

Tech Vignettes

Some of the concept art I've been working on is "tech vignettes".  These are small bits of technology design that I could slap onto the character design to enhance visual interest in key areas.

Topogun for Hardsurface Modeling

I've been using topogun as part of my hard surface modeling arsenel.  When I want a piece to fit snugly against another but have a different edgeflow, I take the first piece into topogun and draw the desired edgeflow on it.  this has been useful for the dress and boots of my character.

Artifacts with xNormal Normal Maps

I'm having trouble with xNormal creating artifacts in the normal maps it's generating.  The artifacts seem to appear in areas of high cavity / ambient occlusion such as between the fingers.  Not sure how to solve this.

High Poly Hardsurface Work

Here is the most detailed hardsurface work I've done so far: the boot for my character.

ZBrush Work

I thought I would get time to refine the character ZBrush basemesh a bit more than I have, but here it is up to this point.

Additional Anatomy Drawings (Part 1)

I'm continuing to work in ZBrush and anatomy drawings in parallel.  I've tried doing a few three quarter full-body views to tighten up the anatomy on my model and this is helping out.  Here is the three quarter back drawing:

I'm still working on the three quarter front drawing.  It will be posted soon as well as ZBrush rough renders.

Head and Hand Detail Drawings

I got into ZBrush and realized I wanted to really push the detail of the head and the hands.  The reason is because they are the main organic pieces of the witch character not hidden by the costume.  So I gathered a few references and tried to synthesize them into these more detailed drawings.

Here is the head:

...and here is the hand:

Character Head Design

I've been working out more details for my character's head and "headdress".  Here is an early grayscale digital painting:

I just grabbed the head from the female isometric digital painting I did for the deformation diagram and started altering it.  Then I started adding color and aging her at the same time, again, to get more of that "wicked stepmother" look.

I feel like it's really important for me to know what the face will look like before I start sculpting it in ZBrush.  And if I can't do a good job with it in Photoshop, there's no way I'll be able to pull it off when I'm sculpting.  Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with how the face is coming along.  The headdress is going to need significant work however.

Deformation Diagram

One of the tools I'm exploring using in my design process is a graphic I call a "deformation diagram".  This has been inspired by my knowledge of character rigging and animation as well as observations of other hardsurface ZBrush sculpts which seem to ignore where character forms should be rigid versus flexible.

Because my character design is going to be fairly complex, I hope that the deformation diagram will allow me to avoid making any design mistakes like that.  My philosophy is that where a hardsurface area meets a deformable/flexible area, there should probably be a form change as well as a material change - or at least some sort of aesthetic suggestion of a joint being present.

One area of uncertainty for me is the forearm area.  In reality, this area has rotation flexibility so there should be more red in this area.  But my current design as well as many other costumes have forearm armor, heavy wristguards, etc.  I'm still decidng what to do here.

Body Base Mesh

Here is the base mesh for the basic female body form.  I have tried to make the quads fairly regular to facilitate easy sculpting in ZBrush.  The geometry of the hands is just a bit convoluted but was necessary to avoid vertex poles with six edges between the fingers.  In hindsight, it may not have been necessary to extrude more geometry into the ears like I did, but I thought it would make development of the ear easier.

Character Modeling Process

This image sequence represents part of the modeling process I will be using for my character.
(1)  This is the concept image I start with.
(2)  Here is an initial attempt on a base character body model.
(3)  The main problem with the model is that the head doesn't have the interesting form of the concept drawing.
(4)  To remedy this problem, I do a sculptural digital painting and plan out an edgeflow to model the form cuts and plane breaks I want in the new bust model.
(5)  I then model a base shape in Maya.
(6)  This base shape is imported into ZBrush and a rough head sculpt is massed out.
(7)  The head sculpt is imported into Topogun and retopologized to follow the desired edgeflow from the drawing in (4).
(8)  The retopoed version is imported back into Maya from Topogun.
(9)  This is the smoothed version of the new model.

More Detailed Character Notes and Ideas

Cyber-Witch Project - More Detailed Story Notes and Ideas
James O. Ross
Monday, 27 Sept. 2010

Introduction:

I wrote out some of my ideas here to give a more thorough description of the character I'm trying to create in 3D.

Overview:

The basic idea of this project is to create a fighting game character that will eventually be rigged and used to create a few test animation cycles.  The theme of the character is a cyber-witch who uses a combination of technology and magic to do battle with.

Art Direction Aesthetics: 

I want to draw on a number of established genres / aesthetics / subcultures to create this character.  These include: (1) scifi / hardware look of speculative fiction novel illustrators, (2) goth subculture, (3) Victorian era elaborate dress and costume, (4) "Wicked stepmother" aesthetic from classic fairytales.

Character Look Challenges:

The main art direction challenge of this project is to somehow communicate that the character is using a combination of magic and technology to fight.

Setting:

One idea for a setting I had is a world of magic that has been invaded by a high-technology colonist / scouting force.  As the battle continues, the magic users slowly begin to learn the technological secrets of the invaders.
This happens as they reverse-engineer the technology found on dead soldiers.

Types of Magic Used:

In order to make things more interesting, I envision a number of different types of magical acts the character is able to perform.  She might worship a pantheon of different witch gods from which her power is derived.  In addition to this worship, she may also possess one or more magical relics.  These might be the mummified / preserved bones or fragments of a demigod or witchgod prophet.  The third source of power would be old alchemical or herbal lore passed down from older generations.  So some possibilities for magical acts are as follows: (a) Summon a demon familiar from the realm of the witchgods to fight for her, (b) Create potions to enhance her strength or give her some ability, (c) Create potions to harm her enemy in some way, (d) Channel the power of a relic for use in an energy attack, (e) Cast a spell / conduct a ritual to gain increased power, (f) Cast a spell / conduct a ritual to harm opponent in some way.

Character Costume:

I imagine that actual magic - spellcasting, creating potions and conducting of rituals - would be a lengthy and time-consuming process.  It would also probably require a number of potion ingredients, cooking equipment (cauldron, etc.), artifacts (ceremonial altar, ritual dagger, chalice), and take up a lot of space (to draw ceremonial circle), and so forth.  Therefore, in order for a fighting witch character to actually exist, everything on her costume should serve three purposes: (1) portability of magical paraphernalia, (2) spatial compression of magical acts, and (3) speeding up of time required to comit magical acts.

Costume Onboard Technology:

Various ideas for costume technology include the following:
- Lab on a chip
- "Porta-cauldron"
- Magical relic with wire tubes and leads running from it to various components of the costume.  These leads act as an energy transmission system feeding power from the relic to other costume areas and onboard magical weapons.
- Programmable LCD readouts capable of displaying various combinations of magical runes and symbols.
- Headset microphone to record spells cast and load them into the "ritual computer".
- A number of vials, beakers and test tubes to hold magical potion ingredients.
- Digital spellbook
- "Junk-tech"

Other Miscellaneous Notes:

The whole idea of magic is to use ones mind to effect the  external environment or circumstances in a desired way.  It often involves some form of spirituality / occult practice as well as mind alteration.  So this triad of will, physical manipulation and mind alteration should be explicitly shown and conveyed by the costume design.

Initial Drawings for Character Pitch 1

Here are a few of the drawings I did for one of my character pitches.  The pitch is to create a 3D character model of a cybernetic witch / sorceress character.  The main goal of the project would be to develop a workflow that allows me to combine the advantages of both ZBrush organic modeling and Maya hardsurface modeling into a single character mesh.

Here are the general design drawings so far:

Here are some drawings of facial expressions that could be used to inform corrective blendshape / morph target or rotation-only joint-based facial rig design.  This character is designed to be for a fighting game, so not a lot of variety yet:

Introduction

Hi everyone, my name is James Ross.  I'm a senior at SCAD focusing on organic modeling, and concept art / production illustration.  I hope to be a character artist or concept artist (or do both) in the 3D game industry.  Art school has been great so far and very enjoyable, but I constantly feel like I'm fighting two battles: (1) the battle to become a better traditional artist, and (2) the battle to learn all the digital tools.  It seems very hard to master both.

I'm looking forward to taking this class for multiple reasons.  I think it will give me a chance to synthesize a lot of what I've learned into a strong portfolio project.  I'm also really excited to meet the level designers in the class.  If you are a level designer and might be in need of a custom character / enemy for a UDK project, then perhaps we could collaborate in the future.  I'm expecially interested in projects with genre themes (scifi, fantasy, horror) but trying to push stories and visual styles outside the boundaries of what has already been done.

Test Post 1

This is a test post for my new game art blog.