Portrait of General Xiahou Dun

After doing so much 3D I found it really relaxing to paint my own things again.

I put a LOT of love into this one.... but there's probably still a billion things wrong with it, so crits are very welcome.

New renders of all three 3D projects

Environment:


Vehicle:


Self-portrait:

Character project - creative writing (and image)

So for our 2D character project, we are to do a bit of creative writing based on a character. I went out, drew several people in the streets and eventually found one person who I thought was rather interesting. Like what I was told, I let my writing take control, so here it is:

"His constant swaying of his body, his inhaling of his cigarette one after one and his continuous coughing were what directed my eyes onto this solitary old man. I did not particularly want to look at him at first, but his movements that repeated in a cycle almost forced me to stand there and study him. He was a bespectacled middle-aged man of small statue, with dark hair and a bushy moustache. While he sat alone on the bench, he looked as though he was very uncomfortable, yet he kept on smoking, coughing and swaying his body back and forth. It made me wonder.

Was he trying to quit smoking, but failed yet again this time? The agonizing expression on his face and his unusual fast inhaling seemed as though the smokey hands of the cigarette had gripped him firmly, refusing him to give it up. I wondered how it all began.

Or maybe he had just heard some bad news and had to take a cigarette to keep calm, and the constant swaying was a relaxing motion for him. I do wonder.

Whatever it was, I soon came to realize that he looked a bit like Randy Marsh from South Park!"

But with glasses:

Renders and wireframe of self-portrait model

I almost posted this accidentally into the Game Art speed blog, thankfully the tag previews alerted me ("LOL POKEMON").

Well here are some renders of my self-portrait model. I kind of like it and dislike it at the same time.

5,507 triangles.

A few attempts later...

NOW she looks more like me... I hope.

New self-portrait head

Redid most of my head model a few times to get the topology loops right. Thanks to Del and Alan for the crits.

One-week diary part 1: Thurs, Fri and Sat

Our tutor has told us to keep a one-week diary, so here are the first three days:

THURSDAY

After 11am -ish - Morning lecture over, went fruit shopping in Leicester market with Miles for an hour or so.

12.30pm - Came home to quickly make packed lunch, packed laptop up and brought lunch box and laptop to the labs so that I could eat and work. Learned more about zbrush, started unwrapping in the labs.

Left labs at about 5.45pm.

Got home, started cooking dinner, all housemates are out at this time, ate dinner while watched South Park in front of the TV.

Seeing as housemates still have not arrived home after finishing dinner at just after 7pm, used this chance to play my beloved Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires game on the Xbox 360. Conquered some lands in ancient China.

8.45pm-ish - Went upstairs to room and do more unwrapping on self-portrait model.

10pm - Obligatory webcam chat with other half.

12.30am - bedtime.

FRIDAY

Being a non-lectures day, I let myself sleep in. Woke up at 9.10am, and thought I’d close my eyes for just a minute. Ended up opening them again at 11.45am. Uh oh.

Ate breakfast quickly, finished at about 12.30pm (including getting dressed, washing, and various other necessary morning activities), then decided to have a lazy day and worked at home. Paranoia about my rubbish topology loops around the head kicked in, so badgered Alan on msn who was really helpful and continuously gave me crits as I sent him lots of work-in-progress screenshots.

4.30pm - showered.

5.30pm - went to the kitchen to clean up a bit and do some washing up.

6pm - Came back upstairs to do some more work.

7pm-ish - dinner.

Played The Sims 3 whilst eating dinner. I like this game! Especially when I create Dynasty Warriors characters in it, heh. Wife character of Xiahou Dun Sim is now pregnant with second child. Gonna call him Xiahou Mao, as historically that was the name of his second son.

9pm-ish. More 3D work.

10pm - obglitaroy webcam chat with other half.

12am - bedtime.

SATURDAY

Since parents are visiting me today, I got up early at 9am. While I waited for them arrive, I continued re-modelling my head model to get the topology loops right, and this morning I finally did it. Was so happy.

12.30pm - parents finally arrived. Dad brought over the 20-volume Chinese comic (manhua) book collection of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which I love dearly. I can only understand about 60% of the words, but it’s enough to get by and keep me interested in reading. Plus the art style is gorgeous.

2.30pm - went out in town for lunch and shopping with parents.

5pm - arrived home, parents left at about 5.30pm. Continued doing more work on my 3D self portrait model while having a long and deep conversation with Mitch on msn about life, the universe and everthing. The answer was not simply 42.

9pm - dinner. I don’t usually eat this late, but since we had lunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant at 3pm, I couldn’t eat earlier than this.

10pm - finished dinner, obligatory webcam chat with other half. Showed him my beautiful RotK comic book collection.

Bedtime - 12.30am.

The joys of Zbrush!

I started giving Zbrush a try last night - it was frustrating at the start (like with all new programs, heh), but this morning I got a little more used to it and now I'm quite enjoying it!

My face (or an attempt at it):


Quickly painted my hair onto it in Photoshop as I don't like being bald...hehehe:



I don't think it looks like me >_>. Lots more need to be done, like the cheekbones and forehead, and the features probably need more tweaking too.

Self-portrait project update

Thanks to all of those who voted and commented on my concept designs (Blogger, Facebook and my personal LJ); number one and two were the most popular designs so I've mixed them up a bit in my final design.

A few work-in-progress images of the model:

Topology is quite messed up, need to fix that...

6,615 tris so far.

Speedmodelling

Speedmodelling! 15 minutes each.

CHOOSE YOUR DYNASTY WARRIOR!

... I mean, choose the outfit design you like for my self-portrait in Mortal Engines theme (the items of clothing can be swapped around). Pilot of an airship, Eastern style:



Whoo, choosing to be a citizen of Shan Guo gives me an excuse to dress myself in a Hanfu-style outfit! Heh. I just love the fact that the name "Shan Guo" is a reference to Sanguo yanyi, aka "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" which I have been obsessed with for over a year now (the Dynasty Warriors games are based on this historical novel).

And my city is now complete!

Blitz lecture, uni and personal work so far

Yesterday we had a visitor from Blitz Games Studios to give us a lecture. I thoroughly enjoyed it, his words were very inspirational to me and have motivated me even more into becoming a better artist. I feel like I'm now filled up with energy and a strong urge to make 20 head models just to get that one good model. I made a head model after returning home from the labs yesterday - which turned out looking terrible as expected, but hey, I'm going to model another and another and another and another.

Here's an update on some of the university work I've been doing so far. I've chosen to create a Balloon Taxi in the city of Batmunk Gompa, from Philip Reeves' Mortal Engines novel. Though overall simple in design (being just a hot air balloon), it has some interesting details which I enjoyed modelling:

8,178 triangles.

2D final pieces:



And some personal work in its current work-in-progress stage. My little obsession with Hanfu kicked in a couple of weeks ago and I've been painting this on and off in between uni projects (critiques are highly welcome).

3D environment project - bottom of city

I've finally finished my 3D environment project. I had a lot of fun with this one and it's made me enjoy making environments more, but I'm glad to move onto the vehicle project so that I can create something on a smaller scale.

Wireframes:


Renders:19, 580 triangles.

First post of Second Year, and some final pieces

So here is my first post for Second Year at my Game Art course! Here are the finals that I’ve done so far, two from Abbey Park:


We’ve also been told by the tutors to study the masters and reproduce their works… for this, I chose Rembrandt and Turner. I really like Rembrandt’s portraits and enjoyed imitating Rembrandt’s portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert. I find that a lot of his paintings have very rich colours against a darker background, which are a pleasure to look at especially the light and shadows. Since I like drawing people very much, I find his art highly intriguing.

My reproduction of Rembrandt's portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert, 1633.


And reproduction of Turner's Chichester Canal, 1815.

Images from my Henry VIII summer project

Here are some quick renders of my Henry VIII dining hall! Almost done. I'd put a lot more chairs and various things on the table but I'm already very close to the tris limit.

Strip-modelling now.

So! This is my first experiment with strip-modelling the face. I love strip-modelling now. His lips look nice...

The sides and back of the head are really screwed up......................................... will fix that later.

2,090 triangles.

Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix renders

A couple of renders.

Almost done........

Here's an update on my Jean Grey/Dark Phoenix model. Doing Comicon just for fun. 4,942 triangles.