Work in progress

sweet man - ... everything looks to be in order! [:D]

nice polyflow too... dang!!!

Man I hate fighting these things. Here's a link to the concept in version 3.5 (Not sure which version Pants used) for those who don't know what it is...

http://wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG223b.jpg

Might be a useful site if people are looking for some ideas to model. Look forward to seeing it textured!

Is dungeons and dragons a game for PC or what? I hear a lot about it, might buy it.

Anyway pants that looks great. Look forward to seein the texture

its actually a pen and paper rpg. you sit around with mates(usually[:p]) and roll dice and stuff. Games like BG1&2 are based off of the pen an paper game. Also Never winter nights, Planescape:Torment, Pools of radience.. um theres a heap of really old games as well, I'm sure theres a heap I've skipped here. Just browse around the Wizards site, they make it easy to get in and play, ie give them your money![:D]

By the way Pants, are you gonna make him all chipped and dinged and stuff? I cant wait to see the texture, I know nothing about polys and 3d but I knew straight away without looking what guy it was meant to be!

Pants, what is it with you and sky blue polys ;)

Looking pretty good Pants.

I'd maybe reorganise some of your poly distribution, for example if you look at the detail of the upper torso and the pectoral muscles compared to the shoulder guards the pecs look alot smoother even though they are both meant to be quite smooth.

I'd actually try use some of the polys for details like the toes and hands and also for lower torso and hip joints which look like a pretty detailed feature on the concept.

Also maybe make where the hips join the legs could be more interesting model wise, I'm guessing you mean to texture the hole but if you used a few polys to bevel the edge inwards instead of ending with just a flat plane it would just make it pop more.

I like the flow your getting in this model, glad to see you using edit poly, [:P] I knew you'd turn sooner or later. boo ha ha.

Can't wait to see it textured and....animated?!

HazarD and Barry: Thanks, its funny when you make something like this as it reveals who has the books tucked away somewhere. The concept was that picture but from 3.0.

Bullet21: Thanks, matias answered your question, so I wont repeat it.

matias: Thanks, I?m glad its obvious what he is supposed to be, and yeah I?m going to make him all chipped dinged and stuff, at least that is the intention.

Wizenedoldman: Ill have you know its powder blue :) . Actually its just because it?s a colour that I find comfortable on the eyes when im working and it doesn?t obscure the edge lines.

Malus: Thanks for the feedback, I am looking at redistributing the polys as per you advice, over the next few days. Then texture and some animation practice.

Pantmonger

Nice work Pantmonger, like the style.

Just one niggling thing though, the fingers. I could see them being alot bigger, especially if it is going to wield an object, it needs fingers to hold onto it :)

Love the pins in the knees. I could see it as a boss on a level and its weak point was the pins to be knocked out .... then it would crawl around like a gorilla without its lower legs :)

As a general note I would say not to.

The test that company gives you is there own and may or may not want other companies to see exactly what they are asking prospective empolyees to do.

yeah i thought as much - thanks jacana :D

Just to add to what Jac's said, this type of practice is quite common on larger sites such as cgtalk and polycount forums -- I know of at least 3 seperate occurances where the poster has gotten into trouble from the company from releasing material without consent, one which was quite serious.

Apart from these instances it's also generally percieved as bad form, with company employees seeing this posted on a forum it says to them "I need help with my work" and therefore reflects badly on you. The school of thought opposing this is that you would normally have the rest of the art dept. to bounce things off of and recieve feedback which makes it ok, but I've never yet heard of an instance where this has been the case.

thanks J.I i had thought as much - wasnt intending to post it for help tho just to make sure, as ive already submitted [:D]

Well, I'm a bad boy, I posted a pic that was for a job application, but it was after I submitted the work. Won't tell you what it was, just in case they're watching.

Looks good. Im not a modeller so I cant crit the mesh that well, but it looks well built. Your still under budget but there doesnt seem to be anywhere to put those polies, which is good as it means you have used them effiecently.
Were you aiming for a realistic character? If so some the propertions such as his small waist and long legs can be tweaked. But if you were going for a stylezed look then I think you nailed it and should leave the way he is, as it looks fine.

Lookin pretty good man, tis a good effort.

crits.

* Firstly for 4600 tri's it looks very under detailed - in my oppinion alot of the tris on the hair could have been used elsewhere. i havent seen the concept so i cant compare how youve spent your tri's in relation to whats been given to you in concept.

* the distance from his knees to the bottom of his feet is way to long IMO.

* his legs look really spindly compared to that massive upper body ( his knee joint looks about as big as his bicep ) he could just be built like that, but IMO if hes to be a fighter / hero character - he should be more well rounded - but not necessarily bulky.

* from the back shot - his cheekbones look a tad to large.

* from the front shot, his nose looks really huge.. and if you cover the top half of his face then look at the lower half - it looks like it would be from a different head, and imo the top half of his head ( if you drew a line around his head where the eyes run ) is slightly large for the bottom half - might want to beef up the jaw and chin.

* if i had an extra 600 tri's to play with, id use some of them in the pants to create a bit more
detail - they look really unbalanced to other areas such as the arm bands and chest area.

Comments

your poly flow is pretty good - should have any problems with deformation, with a good rig.
go back to the concept and see if theres something else that could use up some of those uncounted for tri's ... if your given a limit... ABUSE it! [:D]

id need to see textures on him to comment any more.

Tip.

put a diffuse black material on him in max - set up a 360 rotation camera and turn the wires on - if theres any areas you think contain too many tri's for the detail thats there.. ie the tri's dont actually do anything to the silhouette, then its probably safe to loose em.

in saying this tho 5000 tri's is a lot for such a basic character - try not to get to the stage where your just putting them in cos you got some spare [;)]

Nice, I think some of the details you added could be done in texture, like the strap on the wrist guard thing, and the little raised sections on the boots. But nice.

Oh and you cant directly link to Deviantart, its part of their terms and conditions, if they catch you trying they ban you.

Pantmonger

Did you also put that model on 3dbuzz

Makk & HazarD: the proportions were taken right of the concept, and i'll ask Megan about letting me post the concept up here next time i see her.

HazarD & Pantmonger: "abuse it!" - i try to live by that motto when modeling, though in this case the limit seemed to much, i just couldnt find anywhere else to add detail. i actually added the arm straps and a few other tiny bits that could have been done in texture just 'cos i had the tris. guess that's not good practice though....
Also he was made for a group assessment project at Qantm, and someone else is doing the texture (and they're talking about cell shadding him unfortunatly) but i want to do up my own texture before i put him in a folio.

Pantmonger: thanks for the warning, i didnt know that (who reads terms and conditions anyway?). i linked to there though cos i dont know of any decent (and free) web hosting service (i tryed geocities for a while but that was more trouble than it was worth).

bullet21: sure did. problem with 3dbuzz is that some many of the people that post there are only learning, and i never know if its a professional or anature critiquing my work.

livewire : take it up with your concept artist ;) give megan the lowdown, and tell her im still waiting on her weapon concepts

The guy has NO ARSE!

my 2c

no arse? hmm, you could be right, bit hard to tell from that pic but basically his belt falls off to the side and covers half of it. and he does have a crack at least. though it's probably not shapped right, or its too high, or something.

ok, i've gotta stop looking at his arse now...

Ok, here's a copy of the concept by Megan, or DoomCookie as she would be known.

[url]http://www.deviantart.com/view/6360559/[/url]

Definately megans style - good job at replicating it man :) although i still think the pants are a bit slimmer than the concept - especially the knee area.

And im no concept specialist but IMO the legs are WAY out of proportion.

it was intentional though

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/starwarztheifjed2.jpg[/IMG]

still rough but taking some more shape-

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/Clericsmall.jpg[/img]

a colour for Aerythes over at conceptart.org

wow........satanic, I like it

Thats very cool.
It's nice to see one of your pieces taken to such a polished level.

cheers

its a pretty cool pic, unfortunatly it dosent reveal much, inface if there wasnt a pair of eyes in there then you wouldnt even know there was a figure. Text could use something more, seems a bit to freshly typed if that makes any sense. Youve done much better stuff in that nightmare creatures thread.

Its pretty neat btw, dont get me wrong, just i know u can do heaps better

dude id seroiusly change that font... if your going for a gothic sort of thing,.. try something a bit easier to read than - god damn i worked with fonts for 5 years, now i just cant think of even one to suggest... also id either add some styles to the type small outer glow or something like that.

But seriously man - a a goth comic with your style of art could really go good with a storyline.

looking good- text is a weak point though.

Outer glow would look a bit 'Buffy' or 'Xfiles', not really what you work seems to be about. I thing some dirty+razor blade scratchy&cut texture on the type face would be the go. Treat it like you do the rest of the image. Visually I would suggest trying to push the text back and pull the skeletal figure out as the focus. (Some marketing folk would disagree with me and say the title should be dominant and VERY easy to read for point of sale recognition purposes.)

yeah the font is a little to much of an afterthougt, I'd to see some of that texture in the grey robes(?) brought into the font like JohnN said, search around the net, theres quite a few gothic fonts that are simpler, ummm one is called just 'Black' I think....
it seriously reminds me of some spawn comics I have seen, a new spin off that has that style throughout.

pencils done by a freind over at [url]http://www.jahannam.org/forum/[/url] i laid down the colour -

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/spawn.jpg[/img]

your really getting the hang of this marker thing arent you :D

exellent job, great design

btw, could you show me a pic of the markers your using, either youve got bleeding under controll very well or ive just been using cruddy markers

Yeah, you got a wow out of me. I even read that you were going for a wow, and deactivated my wow unit.

Looks sweet. I love his front leg and its immediate surrounds, nice contrast on the muscles. And the pose is really good, really menacing.

cheers

looking great John! It's fantastic to see you progressing and improving like this [:)]

The design is working well, this is the type of thing I'd be glad to recieve from a concept artist to model and texture - the only real crit I can give on design here is the plating. My first impression is it seems to be a kind of chitinous plated cover, but it's simply sitting there - as a viewer, I'm confused of the function of the plating and how it's sitting there, which makes me wonder what it could be since I don't have anything to base it on. Is it metal armour, is it chitinous plating, is it organic hard folded cartledge/bone etc

This really isn't too big of a crit, it's quite small really - people get away with this exact thing all the time. Having said that however, it is something which should be considered and thought of.

to me the plating looks like a sort of protection + bludgeon. With a flexible long neck like that the creature could make swipes with his head in a mace like fashion or even charge something, forehead first :)

as for the other plates... i suppose they dont serve any major purpose, besides armour ofcourse, but if you give a reason atleast for the head/neck plates i think they matter less (as in need a reason less).

hey John I love the strong highlights of it's muscles with the lightness of the overall shadow that the markers give you, I am agree its awesome to see you picking up these markers and going for it like a pro! Pretty sure you soon will be [:D]

Thats insane man - i really like the position, and the predator type physique. your coming along really well :)

chitinous plated cover was the intent. Not that I plan a redo in this case, but I agree about this detail. Origionally I was thinking of having hair around the edge of some of the plating to intergrate it better. If I were to redo I would remove some of the ornate-ness (is that a word) and show some edges 'growing' out of the skin, sort of like finger nails.

the markers are bleeding some on the paper (using copy paper) Im going to get some marker paper sometime to see if it is better. I try not to let the markers 'pause' on the paper at all to minimise spots. personally I like a bit of the unevenness, gives the pic a lively hand sketch feel.

Using Letraset markers, each marker has 3 different tips- handy for differnt size areas/line weights. Letraset markers use Pantone ink too (Pantone are colour specialists) = good.

It looks really sweet John. I like the armour plating, but it feels too area specific. It looks like it should cover a few more areas of it's body. It's pose looks inredibly cool :D

Woahhh! that's cool, i love the pose as well and the muscliness and everything else. Good work sir.

lol, i like the spinning teddy bear thing :D

hobonation, you have a certain uniqueness to your work. I myself, love it. Love the style. Keep it up! [:D]

btw...thats a Mole! not a bear!

check out Newgrounds for hobo's Funny Mole Cartoon Flash movies...

*asks hobo for money for advertising* [:D]

yeah, you definately throw a lot of character and style into your work - something that is equally - if not more important than technique and execution.

I really like the first one, except that he's drinking a vb.. Damn medicine beer.... Though I guess it suits the character.. He reminds me of a friend of mine (boxers hanging out, different colors in his hair)

Cool stuff!

Btw, watched your cartoons on newgrounds, bizarre shit!

For mine just draw what comes out a dogs rear end!

Just kidding! I like the idea but i dont want to be the poor person dealing with the images of themselves [:p].

if people really want to go ahead with this id be happy to donate a shot or two of my mug, as its allready been abused in PS by inglis in a general chatter thread :P so what have i got to loose hey :D

lol good o, I'd love to exagerate your negativge features in a hateful sketch!

and it was a damn good abuse too :)

awesome head you got there alti. you really have a free flow kind og style to your work :)

not too sure about the body though, cant really make much of it :S

updated it with some different textures with a mad new brush set :)

i think it looks better now-

now with gps and cruise controll-
[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/warchick.jpg[/IMG]

oooooooh now thats a good one, love the monochrome and grunge effects.

you should do illustrations for a weird alternate reality comic book - youd art would really suit that.

oooh sexy colours in the second one

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/hit.jpg[/IMG]

thanks for the comments
HazarD > that sounds interesting, might look into it.
MoonUnit> yeah the grungy brushes are cool to use :)
Sorceror Bob > cheers

I love your style. Makes me wish I could draw.

Scott.

you artwork is like gallery art... have you ever done anything like that ? also im assuming you paint on other traditional mediums - honestly man you shoudl think about putting together a whole bunch of canvases and going pro - not saying i have an eye for that kinda thing, but it looks to me to fit right in with gallery style of art. you can make shitloads of money like that, a good friend of mine, sells his pic's for $700 + each, in december he sold 2 paintings - one was 8k and the other was 4k - not bad for a couple days work.

Id say if you got exposure for yourself youd do alright man, cos 1 your style is really unique - which im told by robin ( my friend ) alot of people look for, and 2 your art creates wonder. which i believe is quite hard to find in alot of gallery art, yours is the sort of art you can stare at for a while.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/blooooop3.jpg[/IMG]
photoshop 7

thanks HazarD- right now i'm concentrating on getting my style fine tuned so i can handle more details, something my work lacks- the atmosphere is there i jsut need more defined things,

Your style is very unique. Your pictuers also contain good atmosphere that's very related. EG: on you Nightmarish creatures the dark colours look great and the fact we can't see his body very well leaves it very mysterious.

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/sketchinh.jpg[/IMG]

is there anything puffier than a cloud ?

"if there is i don't want to know about it"

that picture on the left is like something of a concept peice, yet you still keep the abstract/fine art form. very interesting, good stuff.

Interesting, i love the grunge added too it!

You really should paint gallery like HazarD said, nice art! [:p]

alrighty then, no-one minds if I dont wait for the comp to finish?

Go for it man! :D - ill be starting soon too :)

ok heres sort of an idea were I'm going I thinkin of making it alot more finished than my dwarf, just to practice cleaner artwork. Its early so I wanted get any major ideas for change, anyways here it is.

[img]http://home.austarnet.com.au/esjakku/link%20art/orc%20engineers%20copy…]

now that's an orc. I find it quite funny, the differance between blizzards orcs and peter jacksons orcs.

lol thats awesome, love the armour (zug zug, strap plates to self) :D

whilst the armour is pretty cool it is slightly messy, maybe a few larger plates and less random cubes would make it look even better. Theres some nice additions like the toolbelt (i was gonna do that!! ok... like everyone is :P ) and armband etc.

yeah, I was looking at him and agree that he at least needs a proper breast plate, and I think I want strap a heap more tools on him, orcs never do things in halves[:D]. I grew up playing warcraft 2's orcs so they're still my sort of base idea of orcs. (plus I'd say they were Tolkien's orcs bullet [:p]. Its funny how leaving something and watching tv then coming back and seeing a heap of thing you should do!

Most excellent matias - im loving it ALOT.. if you do clean up the armour (less plates etc) - try to retain some of that randomness i think it really suits the engineer - kinda like a gnomish inventor would be...

thats a really cool concept man :D~~~~~~~~

Love the randomness of the hat, maybe just because I can't figure out what that thing on the front does though...

(Is it just me or are his arms creepy long?)

yeah his arms are really long but orcs are supposed to be apish...
Don't worry hazard, an engineer is never one to buy armour, grrr no he can do betterer..er.er.... in a manner of speaking.

Sweeeet.

Although, i think his "helmet" takes away from the effect. Makes him look funny :D

cheers

yeah I was thinking about making him humourus(?) in a sort of zug zug way, maybe took it to far, I mean while orcs can be funny ha-ha, they are also blood thirsty scourges of the universe with killing and the maiming >GLAAAAVIN<
ok so heres my sort of pencil doodles I did first, sort of a cross roads as to were I took the character, tell me people if I took the wrong turn, it's not too late! Never too late! well...
[img]http://home.austarnet.com.au/esjakku/link%20art/orcengineersheads.jpg[/…]

matias: "in a sort of zug zug way" heh heh

interesting helmet ideas, i dunno but orks seem to be a bit more simplistic then these helmet designs youve got there, something like a metal bowl with a strap and viking style horns usually suits.

http://us.games-workshop.com/games/40k/orks/catalog/default.htm

warhammer 40k ork catalouge, great research point :D

Thats insane man - im liking your art heapssssss... VERY VERY fantasy game art style,...

as for comments - i like the left drawing better, cos the helmet on the second one looks as though his neck would have to be massive to hold the bastard up. prolly weighs like 150kg judgin by the thickness of the metal and im guessing its metal ;)
Also orcs MUST have piercings.... and youve got those in there ;) also like the one the left more cos the right one has more of a pirate look to him ;)

insane man...... keep going.....

Some sweet stuff coming along here, and some critiquing going on which is good though I must admit I find it a bit funny when people say thing like ?your orc needs x? when I thought part of the point of this activity was to see the different way people portrayed the topic, rather then bring them in line with an expectation.

I?ll probably be posting mine tonight, ink work is done just got to add the colour, but first I must go vote.

Pantmonger

goodo, I just voted go greenslopes I had only like 3 people in front of me to line up, I swear I saw a tumble weed roll out of the hall!

I'm looking forward to you orc Pantmonger, I think I'll keep my helmet as is now you make the point[:p]

yeahgood point pants :P guess just carried away by the usual of seeing someones concept!!!!

and commenting / criting personal preferences etc...

yeah thats actually an interesting point pants. i suppose im just too used to the whole crit thing :P

expect mine if not tonight then tommorow. If i havent done it then, come over here and slap me

[img]http://www.pantmonger.com/sketch/sk07_Orc.gif[/img]

Can't find time for the colour at the moment so I'll just throw in the line art, I may or may not add colour later if I can find the time.

Pantmonger

That's nice, the head looks more like Tolkiens orc than Blizzards a very welcome change. Nice Work.

thats awesome pants, and your lineworks so clean :o :P

to me thats a bit of a "baby face" (im sure you know the term). which is a new thing on a orc for me, not sure if its really a plus or a minus...

oh and is that scarring, or does he need to shave his belly button :P ;)

woahhhhh pants thats insane man, i love how youve managed to capture the inocent PEON type of look whilst retaining the bulkiness of a well muscled orc, also with that cheeky expression on his face - it looks really cool. kinda makes you wonder, hes happy..... but for the love of god dont make him mad.... especially while hes weilding that hammer. :P

sweet pantmonger man, you really do have clean work man! I do love his hammer/pick thingy! I think its a really convincing mix between all orc styles, it does have a less cartoony orc face but does capture the orcish peon.

By the way, a very modest package he toting![:p]

Thanks for the comments, Im glad people liked it. The ink is done with a small pot of India ink and a paint brush just in case anyone was wondering. Moonunit, its belly fur :)
Again thanks,
Pantmonger

Matias: the helmet on the left would suit better I think. the Right hand one looks 'egyptian regal' in style to me. Your getting as bad a HazarD with you package comments!

Nice detail on the hammer Pant. For some reason I find it eyecatching! Line weights are just right or something

was playing around and studying a few things and had this thread topic in my head so ended up "accidently" doing an orc engineer... anyways, here's the result - not too fond of the overall balance, but it was fun and learnt a bit from it.

[img]http://server5.uploadit.org/files/jistyles-orc_engineer.jpg[/img]

woah dude... thats some seriously good painting. your lighting is insane.... i really like the DUhhhhhhhhh HUH ? look on his face.... and an interesting weapon / staff.

heh heh heh i think he drunk too much, hes got quite the rudolph nose :D

this is a new thing on me, an orc with a more human stance/propotion then gorrila. Oh and nice staff thing :)

you said slap you if you didnt post your concept last night [;)]

im safe i said i wouldnt post mine till after the modelling comp :D

hehehe, I think I did it a little too subtle - it's a half "uggs-stick-of-hitting" and half primitive spanner... since he's an engineer and all.

Awesome JI! Man thats some sweet work, its really painterly, which I love! it reminds me of some of Justin Sweets work, which I think is one of the highest compliments I can give!
I would say with the red hands and the massive spanner of smiting hes like 'uhhh I did-a baaad ting!'
mmm it also has a hint of frazetta too....
good stuff![:D]

sweet, JohnN! my only niggle would be with his feet, of course I'm not sure what ogre feet look like so I'm not sure what sort of effect your going for, maybe if the rear pic had his foot drawn it would cement the idea your portraying. Crazy-sweet axe! sorry I cant give you an industry POV. [:(]

Hey JohnN - as matias, i cant give you an industry POV, but i can tell you that your making a good start with the concept thing - simple lines / outlines are always good for translation from concept to model sheet type drawing. Have to agree with the feet tho they do look a bit odd, what ive always found when concepting is to imagine you were drawing a picture for someone else to model ( which will be the case mostly in the industry if your a concept artist ) and put as much detail into the drawings as your prepared to get across to the modeller. Ie the feet comment matias made - if the modeller saw that - and couldnt quite see whats going on in the foot area - they would probably go ahead and build feet like they think it should be - whereas you might have a completely different idea, yet failed to show it clearly in the concept.

So if there are areas in your concepts like that - add a couple of orthagraphis, or another couple of closeups to get your idea across that wee bit stronger [:)] sweet start tho - i wouldnt mind modelling that guy ;)

looks awesome and a nice simple concept

concept crit: yeh the feet look a bit odd

creative crit: he looks a bit like a bulky human, perhaps some more grotesque facial features (well what you can, cosidering most of it is behind a mask, pointy teeth or something) or something to make him more fantastical

But once again, awesome concept

ive also just noticed something else thats rather picky but i thought id mentoin it - the brace things joining the ropes together on the back image it looks as thpough he only has 2 per side - yet from the front i would imagine youd be able to see the 3rd brace thingee under HIS left arm.

im assuming there are 4 braces per side [:)]

First off, good start for something that will be used for a modeler as reference. Now for the crits: Left shoulder in the front pic looks too large for me, I would bring that back in towards his torso more. I think it could benefit greatly from some gritty, dirty texturing for his skin, really mottled and scaly. Maybe try a different colour for his midriff braces than the colour for his helmet? As it is now it suggests they're made from the same material.

Other than that, yeah, I think it would great fun to model this dude.

Okay so the feet arn't popular. I was thinking 'suitable for stomping!' they are going into the bottom draw, Might use them next time i draw something mammoth like.

other notes: 3 straps per side (could have placed them a little more accurately)
helmet is leather with metal trim- so Wiz's assumption was right :)

I have had a redo with the above comments in mind and also purchaced a couple of markers (new toys [:D])to try a different technique.

still looking for industry POV too...

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/258_creature_ogre_2L.jpg[/img]

Very nice JohnN that looks a shiteload more improoved than the original. i really like the forarm addition the extra rear TOE too ;) yes the feet look heaps better :)

Have you seen the Blizzard concept art book for warcraft ? have a look at that for reference of how concept art should be in the industry - i believe as a concept artist you create the vision. and you have your own style of creating that vision - if a company needs what you have they will hire you.

hey John, great to see you trying out new things, it's very commendable so big thumbs up there.

I'm absolutely loving that clothing design! especially the back view - the chains and sort of "gimp" look just work so damn well with him [:)]

with the first set of images my major crits where with the feet and hands - feet mostly because it didn't look too naturally feasible (ie, something that would grow for the purpose of walking and holding that big up as well as the stated stomping). Hands because of the size in relation to the rest of the body and a somewhat feminine nature to them. You've given both attention with this new one which is looking good - I'd suggest trying some larger hands. Perhaps just thicker fingers.

The claw things on his arms confuse me a bit - I can't see where they would develop from and how they work (how are they held up? is that a thin membrane of skin in the center? does it sprout from a bone in the lower arm?). This is getting rather picky on design, but it is something that you should keep at the back of your mind - are the elements you're designing feasible? it can be absolute pure fantasy, but still needs to be based in reality to gain that elusive suspension of disbelief from the viewer.

anyways, it's late and I'm starting to ramble [:)]
Great job, keep it up!

The second one's feet do look a lot better, nice work. The axe looks great as well.

Just one question, what's the thing on the back of the axe for.

thats a real improvement there, youve managed to present something which to me says so much more that this is a big nasty beast. Great design.

brw I also dont quite get the forearm things but i still love the overall design

Okay so Dr Who style 'monster add-ons' arn't the go. As you can see I have updated the image: new forearms & hands, and yes, entirely re-done marker work! better presentation too :)

Ornamentation added to the front hand guard on the axe- because tools of death should look pretty.

JI: don't be afraid of being too critical. Your comments of plausable anatomy were spot on. Glad (but concerned) you love the gimp outfit too! Maybe i should have named the creature 'Dungeon Gimp' [;)] Can you comment about weather this is going along the right lines of what employers are looking for style/technique/theme wise?

can i be crude and say something about his gonad pouch... id make it a tad bigger, but thats just personal preference. ( god that couldnt sound any more wrong )

Nice work John I've always liked the marker look, I got a couple in Uni but haven't spent much time with them and found it hard to get into the swing of it, so I have to say nice work, have you used them before?
On the forearm spikes, they really do look better pointing backwards.
and to the last comment, answer; no...[:D]

Really cool john, I'm impressed with the amount of thought that you have put in this guy - everything there for a reason, not just eye candy. It's very well executed too.

A small gripe - though it could be something you have intended, but he appears to be fairly lightweight/floaty. Why do I say this? - There is nothing I can criticise on the top half of the body, but I think steps could be taken around the knees/legs. The knees 'feel' a little weak, the manacles are cutting detaching them from the rest of the leg - and kinda make them look like my nerdy legs :)

I had a quick think of what reference would be useful, and then I realised what he reminded me of - Sumos!!
http://static.userland.com/images/anand/SumoWrestlers.jpg
http://cro.zone.ne.jp/nannka/sumo.jpg

Also, for the manacles, they traditionally are clipped to ankles (and wrists), this will also reinforce the weight, by directing the eye downwards.

Another handy trick, is to apply a darker tone on the feet, or maybe a shadow on the floor.. This effectively grounds your character, which is useful to stop him from floating away.

Anyhow this is my favourite kind of concept - lotsa detail yet kept simple.. Great stuff.. Oh, and yeah, wheres his pubes eh.. Or does he trim :)

Good job on refining the arm claws - much more easily readable now.

I agree with matt about the weighting -- the leg manicles and knee area looks to be too thin to support this guys bulk - the manicles seem to cut in incredibly sharply. Trace the profile of his body (without the fur and manicles) and you'll see what I mean.

I still think the original back view is the absolute coolest - something about the pose, and clothing, and form just gives off an aura of coolness [:)]
His weighting in that view was really well balanced - the heavier bulk through the thighs down into the feet helped to balance that well ( just the feet design was very hard to get your head around).

keep it up John, it's going great!

aAAARRRRRGHahahaha (if you don't laugh, you cry) more changes! Now it has been pointed out, the knees are way too fine boned. I will redo the legs today, being the case I will see about bigger *Ahems* just for HazarD [:p] might skip the pubes, I think they will interupt the nice clean crotchline... errr did I just say that? At some stage I will do the back view in a Marker technique for the folio too- in some ways it is more interesting than the front!

Matias: this is my first project with markers, I did the character 3 time, twice at A4 and once at A5. I photocopied the pen drawing several times so there was no pressure of ruining an original.

Stay tuned for my next creature concept, I think i have refined the technique a little further- Just gotta change a leg on that one too before i post.

------------------------------------

Okay changes made... hopefully the last for this one!

I love the work you've done so far JohnN. [:D]

A few comments:
1. Love the spikes up the outer arms, very nice touch.
2. The feet are much better than the original sketch. I'd make his feet a little bigger though (unless it's just because of the perspective of the picture), to fit the proportion of the body.
3. More hair. I could see this ugly fellow with hair on his belly, upper chest and thighs. I think that would bring out the nastiness alittle more. It's my opinion, so you don't have to listen to me [:)]

Overall, very cool. Love the axe too. [:p]

Heh heh, interesting @:-) Few quibbles like the bone dissapearing and reappearing, and dog's ears and tail starting black and being coloured intermittedly for the rest, but I reckon it's a tops lil animation. Some sound, even just a fitting music track, would add that lil something. The hole he is digging could be shaded too, as initally it looks like a puddle of water. But otherwise, yes *thumbs up* I liken it to a Don Hertzfeld animation.

Poor lil doggy.

Thanks dude.... yeah I hear the problems your talking about.. i think that was more a reflection on my lazyiness and time constraints.. I'd like to re-visit it one of these days.. and finish off the complete narrative.. which will give indication of a field of holes that eat doggies! Cheers to all who have checked it out! and heres some encouragement for others to post some of their 2-d works! c'mon People!! get it out there!

um your low band link is broke or somthing [:(]

but u can look one of mine from a few years ago!
if u like.. it has a dog in it [;)]

http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~pigsnogl/images/abc_08.html

adie that was odd..... but imensly cool

Yo aide.... interesting animation dude.. good fun to see.. kinda disturbing at the same time...
those links I've posted do work.. the server I have them on plays up from time to time
cheers

What to say - its rendered with illustrate and it looks to be just that - would fit perfectly in the world of tin-tin.

as for the concept - quite a funky idea - check out bouncy-roo's sheep / goat man high poly thing that shes been working on.

Does he have human feet and sheepy hooves for hands ?? id like to see what the guy looks like with no cloths on,... err..... that sounds rather odd but you know [:D] id like to see how his chest is,.. whether its centaurish or just like a normal human chest...

freaky... both a sheep-man and HazarD wanting ro see him naked[:p] I kinda like it though very surreal!

LOL Matias - come on now - just cos i like sheep doesnt mean i wanna see this character nekkid,.. its simply a request,.. for educational purposes,.. yeah thats it [;)]

yeah, 'educational purposes' ...can you say that with a NZ accent?

I love the sheep man (in a platonic way, not in the same was as HazarD.) Makes me think of 'Wind in the Willows' and stuff like that.

As for comments- looks ready to animate to me. If you want to work on it more maybe the eyes are a little understated (others might disagree?) the reason I say this is for the practical reason of showing human emotion on the sheep face.

Conceptually, I have assumed that the character is male, because of the clothing and general body shape, but aren't sheep girls?

edit: something is astray with the neck line- head seems to overlap infront of the shirt and jacket!

Thanks for the feedback guys:

Hazard: Original concept was not my own, but was altered by me. I imagine the physique of 'sheepman' going something like this, sheep head, human body, legs, and feet, and sheep hands.

JohnN: Sheepman has already been animated, but was rendered out with GI, not illustrate. Just did a simple walk cycle trying to accentuate his sheepish personality (pun intended). I know what you mean about the eyes, I think I did them too realistically, would probably have been better with cartoon style eyes, oh well.

Heya Rod, good to see you posting some stuff up!

I like this little guy - cutesy and simplistic but really appealing; I always enjoy this style of short animation, just something about conveying an idea and story in its basic forms along the lines of the animations 50% gray, white space etc.

One thing you may want to try out is making the flat enviro more continuous with a smooth horizon gradient - perhaps try a curved surface on the horizon by extruding the edges upwards and outwards smoothly, or maybe try a radial gradient in the opacity of it (doing a matte/shadow blend would probably be the way to go there).

anyways, good stuff, keep us posted on its development - I want to see it now! [:)]

That is awesome. I have no more to say. I love the style and shading. Keep it up.

thats really great, youve certainly got a very good theme in your shading/rendering happening there.

Some more renders.
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/47_Impus_slide_souriL.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/47_Impus_wave_souriL.jpg[/img]

YES! That is one of the best characters ive seen in a while. I may have a sad life....But i think they r awesome. Did you say u were making an animation? I'll have to see it. Good Work!

that's cool, i luv glowy things :)

Thanks for the kind replies guys! :)

quote:Did you say u were making an animation? I'll have to see it. Good Work!

Yep animation in the works.. very close only a few days now.

woo! I count the minutes!

yeh, be sure to publish this one the web in a nice crisp codec for our viewing, it looks perfect for animation, hes so full of character

Hey all,

I'm going to post the anim probably tonight (depends on the render) but for now here's a quick teaser:
[IMG]http://www.rodgreen.com/forum/jump_samp.gif[/IMG]

nice - did you write your own maxscript for the stretchy spine / limbs ?

Well sort of I wrote my own MEL script for it. In the soon-to-be-posted animation you'll see that I have pretty good control over then too. I can control 'stretch' (so that they bow in the middle) and influence general shape (like an up vector constraint).

Thats very cool :) ive dabbled in a bit of custom rigging before - and seeing that stretchy stuff going on reminded me of a little cartoon doctor model i rigged up. and had the same sort of stretchyness to him :)

That is sweet, like i said b4 i love glowy things, it's even better when they move :)

Hi all!

Here's the animation I've been working on for the last few weeks "Exit Stage Right".
I hope you like.
I'm still tweaking a few points and going to do a cleaner render too. So if anyone has any crits they're welcome to share.

[URL="http://www.rodgreen.com/impulse.html"]http://www.rodgreen.com/impulse.html
[IMG]http://www.rodgreen.com/images/exitstageright.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

downloading, cant wait :D will post comments afterwards

EDIT: amazing, so much expression and character, a really great peice. Love the little hand rejoining thing aswell.

yeah made me laugh. nice work rod.

Just goes to show how far you can take a relatively simple concept.

*applauds rod*

Awesome Rod. The new soft horizon looks great. Looking forward to seeing more :)

neat! very cute :)

The hand rejoinging bit WAS cool, nice work.

haha, thats very cool! Excellent work.

cheers

so much expression yet he has almost no features to express them with... in that way he/she reminds me of vivi a charcater who is a custom line 'brought to life' rag doll from final fantasy 9... really well done man - its hard to pull of an animation that shows so much emotion and feeling with a character so simple...

Hi all,

The final version of the animation is now uploaded:

[URL="http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_xvid.avi"]http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_xvid.avi[/URL] (Xvid 3.3 Megs)

[URL="http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_divx.avi"]http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_divx.avi[/URL] (Divx 4.0 megs)

[URL="http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_indeo.avi"]http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_indeo.avi[/URL] (Indeo 6.4 megs)

[URL="http://www.rodgreen.com/impulse.html"]http://www.rodgreen.com/impulse.html[/URL]

Please tell me what you guys think!

I like it! awesome example of character animation dude! nice to see simple character being brought to life! cool interaction with the door as well.

Great stuff, I enjoyed that! Very nice fluid and exaggerated yet very believable animation - great secondary motion, and feel for weight and momentum.

Good stuff, keep it up! (and don't forget to bug your sound dept. to give you some background elevator music, thump sounds, and character squeeks [;)] )

yeah woulda been nice with some sort of ambient noise atleast, but your work wouldnt have changed ofcourse (the actual modeling and animation) and thats still great.

hahahaha - that is awsome!

get some sound in there man for sure!

Hey again all,

By popular demand the new version now has sound, hope you like!
http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_snd_divx.avi
http://www.rodgreen.com/avi/ESR_snd_xvid.avi
http://www.rodgreen.com/impulse.html

hey rod, that's a nice addition. Nice, minimal sound work, me likes [:)]

Some ambient noise as someone else mentioned could really work to fill in the silent parts... (soft jazz?) The noise sample you're using could use in some variation in pitch to match the dynamics of the animation. A high/low pass filter could work well, not sure which software you're using though.. but i think it could use something other than volume ramping. When I was watching it in silence I actually thought more of a classic laser sound when his optical arms were reaching out for the hands.

Also one of the largest movements (when he flies erm.. stage left) could use a noise turbulence sort of thing.

Ah I'm not sound guy but i do enjoy it. Gone are my days of tracking [:)]

Very nice work man :) any chance of a wire ??

Nice work man, just a few things I see but I'm not a 3d guy. I really like the face and hands but I just think that the bottom of his pecs could be reduced a bit, they're almost a bit man-boobish. Also just his feet-hooves, they are a touch awkward, goat feet a super hard to draw, so I can only imagine how hard they'd be to model! Those are just small things and I think the overall effect is really cool!

i fricken love this guy! the weird, psycho glazed-looking colours look fricken awesome! frick![:D]

That is awesome. The only thing i can see, but it might just be me....is that his hands look a little too big in the first picture. maybe its the angle, or I have preoblems...but overall its wicked, o and I love the little glowing robot at the exit sign! Post more of him!

i think the large hands look great on that character, the sort of orange yellow glow/tone you have is a really nice effect aswell. If anything, it looks like the area below the muscles just below the knees (yes they have a name, ive just forgotten it :P) and the hooves is a bit short and the leg has to widen in diameter really quickly before coming to the hooves. But thats just me being picky mc picket, its a awesome model, heaps of character to it :D

I quite like your character modelling skill just three things
1. Can we see a wire?
2. Do you have a website where i can see more?
3. Where do you work?

Very nice, I love the underlighting in the texture, great stuff.

Pantmonger

Thanks again for the kind words guys!

quote:any chance of a wire ??

Yep but do you want the proxy or the smooth mesh? Smooth mesh doesn't really help anyone so I'll probably just post the proxy.

quote:2. Do you have a website where i can see more?

try http://www.polycount.com/cottages/impus/index.html
It's still being put together and the website is about to change so hold on..! :)

quote:3. Where do you work?

Atari Melbourne House.

Rod Green
---------
3D character abuser

yay, that;s where i wanna work[8D]

Very cool :)

yeah i am pretty cool aren't I :)

ooooooohhhhhh i see you were talking bout the models :(

Hey all,

Here's the wires.

The source mesh (polysmooth proxy) needs some cleaning.

[img]http://www.rodgreen.com/forum/Demon_WireBody.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.rodgreen.com/forum/Demon_WireHead.jpg[/img]

woah i knew it was a decent polycount - but didnt think it was THAT high, looks pretty dense :)

looks cool anyways :D

Hey again all..

Here's a quick update, just cleaning up some of the edge loops so the model flows better.
[img]http://www.rodgreen.com/forum/demon_edgeloops.jpg[/img]

Hazard: That's the final polysmoothed version. I work with a proxy mesh which in turn was created as a polysmooth from a much much simpler mesh. I'm cleaning up the current proxy so that the final polysmooth has good 'detail' (not so smoothed out) and sillouettes. Check above for the proxy.

Just a quick note - i noticed that most of the model looks nice and smooth but there are a couple of areas where the meshsmooth iteration count didnt smooth enough as other parts, and at a second glance they stick out.... ( this is refering to the render at the top of the page )

the areas are on the bicep and the shoulder - im presuming that first render was a proxy render tho :) but still it looks alot smoother on some areas than others... and as a result - if you look on the smoothed final mesh - you can see these areas still have the slightest jagged look to them, compared to an area such as the pronounced iliac crest.

Pretty nitpicky, but hope that helps some :) way cool tho man, very aladdin like :)

(ok i give up, ill speak from a fine artists perspective) Thats great, youve managed to create something that looks like a photoshoped photo, which is quite a feat really. Great facial features

abstract - his head looks as though he has no rear cranium, and the forhead looks heaps too long if its supposed to be a human, also the distance betweeb the nose and top lip is almost the same as the distance from the bottom lip to the bottom of his chin - which looks kinda odd.

As far as the painting goes - thats insane - your painting style is so unique - but like i said before i think you would be a great promotional artist.

Well, being a cleric, I'd expect him to be covered in religious insignias.

Othat than that, I can't really think of anything I would add, really nice job on this guy.. I think with a few more touches, he'll be ready for modelling.

Solid work, but there's nothing that tells me he's a cleric, he could be just another dwarf skull crusher for all I know...

Really nice artwork. Interesting to have a Dwarf as a Cleric as well.

Like Barry and Bob have said though, he doesn't look like much of a Cleric. He looks like a really cool gruff rogue though :)

Nice drawing man, for adding some religousness, try perhaps a pole/staff with a banner/sybol (like the crosses on poles) strapped to his back or perhaps hand held. That just one idea, im sure you have many more

Its a damn fine drawing, reminds me of some blizzard concept work ive seen.

sweeeet.

Dude that rocks man!!!!!!!!

Tis a tad messy on the final sketch - i think it could be cleaned up a whole lot more before giving it to a modeller though - and as the others have said, he needs something more to say " OCH LADDY I BE A DWAAAARVAN CLEEARRRRIK! "

Honestly though - thats way better than i could do so keep practising and youll be workin for blizzard in no time :D

Ok, more insignia, I'm thinking about Morodin, the D&D drawven god, and yeah its a bit messy but I wanted to get him out there quickly, well, 2 1/2 hours, but still, faster than some of my stuff.
ok ok, I have alot on tommorow, but I'll make the changes ASAP, now I gotta wash my dishes and go to bed, as sweet, sweet bed! Man, it's not even late, I need a life!

I would like to see something like him holding a holy symbol on a chain in his hand, if you want to make him like DND type clerics where the symbol is used for turning etc.

And er, in the front on view his belt is much higher, the side view has it better position IMO.

Hokay folks, take a gander, maybe could have made the changes a bit more obvious, but I agree with Barry's holy symbol a'la soap ona rope and chucked that in, sortof prayer beads style, but with the hammer of Moridin on it. I also moved the belt down a touch, gave him a shawly cloth thingy of blue and a tome, I was gonna do sort of decroations, like it was an illuminated manuscriptyish thing but thought bugger it! hah

[img]http://home.austarnet.com.au/esjakku/link%20art/DCC_Fin3.jpg[/img]

damn i hate u.....that is awesome. It looks like it came fresh out of the age of mythology concept art sketch book.

mate u have talent, don't let no one tell u differantly. Nice to see you have taken the advice and given him a chain in his hand as well.

man thats insane - i would draw one vastly different - you know what maybe we could setup something like this on sumea ??? where we pick a character style and we all give our own renditions of the paticular class ?? not a competition as such - more of a skill enhancing / idea swap type thing happening... how would people feel about something like that ?

a 2d comp would be fun, u should take that up with souri or something

that is absolutely awesome mate well done, the little of book and beads help. Youve created a great proportion setup for this character and given him a very lifelike look, well done.

thanks guys, man that would be sweet, maybe set it up as a quick activity or something. I mean its cool to think of something to draw but its better when its comes from another source!

yeah i reckon we shoud set something up like that for the quick activities section - maybe have like a monthly or weekly challenge or something - always have something there to take part in,.. no prizes or anything - if a few people enter then maybe souri might be able to set up a comp.

reall depends on the amount of interest - i reckon it would be sweet, sepcially cos everyones drawing style seems to be really unique, but what makes it even cooler is that if you had a set guideline like DWARVEN CLERIC - i mean even tho the guidelines are pretty strict in that he has to be dwarven and a holy man of some sort - i mean nearly everyone would depict the dwarven cleric in their own way, resulting in a whole bunch of cool dwarven cleric guys - some with massive long beards and robes,.. others like matias's cool one up the page..

i reckon thats a sweet idea... ill mention it to souri.. how many people would be interested tho, cos i doubt souri will take it up if only 2 or 3 people are going to be keen.

we could keep it going for ages,.. D&D monster manual anyone ?? [:D]

Im interested, Im always interested in drawing.

Pantmonger

Heck I might even give it a go when I get a bit more organised. Would be interesting to see how everyone interprets the subject, a dwarven cleric could be shown so many different ways.

Looking great BTW, only thing I maybe would add is the hammer symbol embossed on his left shoulder or something.

yeah I'm about to do a D&D style character sketch for my folio- so if I had some predefined direction that would be good :)

maybe predefine a race and class, produce 3-4 (12?!)quick concepts and one final that would include 3/4 front and 3/4 rear views?

Matias: the colour on the last one is much better in my eyes. Breaks-up the forms more clearly. the only thing I would add is a handle, 'cause it is uncouth to throw dwarfs by their legs [;)]

Hahah, oh very PC, yeah, I like the colour in there too, if thats not too arrogant, I was gonna give him like a red beard but thought grey makes him look like he knows what he doing... sortof

Looks good, sounds like fun a well.
You would have to explain somethings to me as I dont know anything about D&D characters and stuff!!

wuts d&D[:(]

congratulations bullet, you ain't a geek! haha, its a pen and paper rpg, I was never good at it because I was too busy drawing my character[:)] go to wizards.com and check out the art gallery, awesome stuff I visit regularly(?), ignore all the other crap, check out the art! They have absolute shirtloads of fantasy interior illustrations!!

D&D stands for Dungeouns & Dragons [:D] < is proud to know > and it fucken rocks!!!!!!!!!!

< has all oldschool SSI D&D games for pc >

Yeah! 'Pools of Radiance' and that. They were spawned from D&D. I think it was like the second ever RPG (in a commercial sense... 'Doctors & Nurses' was never marketed commercially [;)]), and I have been lead to believe was based on 'Trolls and Tunnels'.

Yeah pools of radiance was pretty cool - my favouriet would have to be Champions of Krynn - i dunno how many times i played that game - got the dragonlance and started stabbing everything i could.

those were the days.... PC speaker and Tandy graphics [;)] they made a whole bunch of new ones with 256 colours i was like [8)] i think someone needs to make something along the lines of those oldschool games again - super addictive - super fun [:)]

is it a game for PC?[:(]

No, though there are many games based off it. It's a pen and paper game, roleplaying without computers, try to imagine it...

Honestly it is a heck of alot of fun if you get a good group to play with.

And dice! don't for get the dice!!!!

Basic run down. Before RPGs were really popular on computers and consoles, you used to have to play them with pen, paper, dice (a lot of them) and some source books. There are pen and paper RPGs spawned from nearly any franchise you can imagine (various D&D, Buffy, Farscape, Warcraft, Vampire: The Masquerade, Marvel comics and even Robotech). You sit around with your friends and you have a person whop is the Dungeon Master/Game Master (DM/GM). You create characters and roll die to make your stats. You then have the DM tell a story and say what monsters will appear in the story. You roll die and fight them. As you can guess, this is very nerdy and takes a lot of time. It isn't just something that you do on an odd occasion. D&D is still the most popular RPG with the most well known rules. It is just based off Tolkien's worlds, but has been extended quite a bit. There are also variations to the D&D rules (AD&D, d20, and more). They are fairly similar with slight differences.

If you want to play some D&D games but don't want all the nerdiness attached to them, then check out some PC versions (Baldurs Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale 1&2, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment). Neverwinter Nights is probably the best place to start as the rules are fairly simple, it is AD&D v3 rules, so you have heaps of character options. It is also 3D, so many people find it to be the most attractive :)

I hope I covered most things. Please correct me if I messed anything up :)

I really find it interesting that you decided to make the Cleric a Dwarf. Such a flaw :)

Dwarves need spiritual guidance too!!

I like the nice simple layout, quick to download and easy to navigate.
Some good work there, your 3d work is your strength and I think thats what you should focus your portfolio on. Your sketches are good, but are they portfolio good? ARe they something that you are really proud of and want to show to potential employers?
I would get rid of them and put more shots of your 3d models, at the moment I dont think there is enough angles of them to really show them off.
Of course this is just my 2 cents.

another Idea would be with your animations (on that loading screen) just put down how big the files acualty are. Its human nature to just give up when they have no idea how long its going to take because hey! we all have other stuff to be doing [:D]

Makk_I think its important to show traditional skills aswell as digital. I know they arent exactly feng Zhu quality HEHE, but in the near future I hope to have that section updated with some higher quality sketches.

USF_Yes good idea! your totally right about the knowing how long you have to wait thing, haha so true. Im thinking i will research flash a little more and try to get a bytes loaded/ total size metre working, atleast that way people will know where they're at. But im no actionscript guru so that will have to wait until i get some spare time :)

Thanks Guys

heh heh a lot of ctrl C me thinks :P

neat pic man, gw :D

Classic!! i went into macgills bookstore today and found in the art section a good 250-300 page thick book of just pixel art pics, not sure what the book was teaching - it was more like a showcase of some geezers pixel art - some of which was very cool :P not unlike your castle there !!

woooh, complex! wait, do those guys off the side have a battering ram? hehe poor suckers on the door are always the first to go! I guess the guys with with the battering ram are from the Olympic committee coming to get back the torch [:D]
Nice work man!

holy crap...[xx(]

it looks cool, but its all ctrl + C........ im adding details now

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/impmachiene.jpg[/IMG]
just some more.

spend more than 10mins on a sketch and polish these up.
its like youve painted the base shape and stopped, go on and put in some detail fine lines, then shade etc.

if you handed me these to model I wouldnt know whats what-

e.g. http://69.44.60.9/artbyfeng.com/tut_00.html
http://69.44.60.9/artbyfeng.com/vehi_08.html

im not saying copy his style but put some more detail like these into your own work.

keep it up :)

Yeh i have to agree with inglis they have a very abstract/unfinished look. It would be ok if they were hanging in an abstract art gallery next to paintings of dots in the middle of a white canvas, and the veiwers are meant to figure out what is happening in the peice. But this is a game art forum people have to know what it is they are modelling. Dont get me wrong though, it think your forms have great potential, just try to concentrate more on quality rather than quantity.

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/builder.jpg[/img]

dude i dont know what that is, looks kind of like a sail boat :)

Very loose ideas. I've heard of illustrators submitting initial line drawings that resemble a bowl of spaggetti! nothing wrong with that.

I would like to see a progression of a few of the sketches (ultimately ending up with one well resolved design.

...Maybe beyond the intent of this particular post I suspect?

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/trooper.jpg[/img]

i like the trooper, you should develop him more. he could look pretty cool

[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/prac/facesprac4.jpg[/IMG]

a bit more colour in there this time :)

tryed for a smoke reaper
[IMG]http://members.optusnet.com.au/drummonds/reaperton.jpg[/IMG]

thats some awesome artwork man but this being a games forum, like everyone keeps saying, its far far far too messy and unfinished for a concept peice, if thats what your trying to acheive.

you know what man ? youd make a brilliant money shot artist,.. your skills are insane - but like moony said up there - not for concept. but definatetly for selling a game ,.. or even some ingame 2d art for like a monster sheet or stat sheets for creatures or something,.. insane man :)

That last one is really cool.
You have a great imagination coming up with some really creative characters :)

I love how you've put visages of skulls in the smoke, very stylish work.

thanks for all the positive feedback so far.

HazarD > i hope i can be a money shot artist too, I hope concept art leads me to it :)

looking good, I'd say maybe play around with the lip colour and its gradient in from the lower lip line. Also, toy with adding pinker/redder tones to areas such as the lower nose, and ears, as well as any thin place

woah thats really nice makk!

Below the nose and around the chin area looks a whole bunch more yellow than anywhere else tho, but thats getting pretty picky [;)]

Sweet job man.

I actually thought it was just a very feminine male at first. The texture is looking really good at the moment.

It is difficult to tell with such uniform lighting, but her specularity map looks very even. Her nose, forehead, cheeks and chin should be slightly more specular.

It also looks like the outer sides of her bottom eyelids should have more of a crease. It starts off nicely on the inner side, and then just becomes flat.

Other than that, it looks really nice. I really love the small blemish/pimple on her right cheek :)

Thanks for the comments guys :)

Styles: Yeah the lip colour is abit half assed, I could probably put more into it. I wanted the red areas to be subtle, so I didnt put awhole lot of colour anywhere else.

Hazard: Thanks man. It probably is a bit too yellowish above the mouth.

Aven: I never really thought about making the spec uneven, it makes sense though. I didnt want a whole lot of creases as she is supposed to look fairly young. Heh, that little blemish on the cheek is one of my fav bits too! :)

I rendered this in MAX 4 with the defualt light setup. Also I changed the shader for the materials from Blinn to Anisotropic, that made a pretty big difference in the way it rendered the spec.
Anyway, I dunno if I'll do any more to her.
I'd love to texture an elderly person, since they have more wrinkles, etc. but probably wont find a free model with mapping.

*applies fanboyish praise*

nice one makk!!

That's cool, looks like one of those crazy concept cars at the motorshow.

Looks awsome man, nice imagination and creativity you have, keep it up, who knows, you might be designer cars when you are older.

you seem to have talent accross quite a broad range of subjects, ive seen architecture, cars and even mechs from you, great stuff! :D

When I'm older !!?!?! Man, how old do you have to be to get a job doing illustration? I might use that as my official reason for not being gainfully employed at the moment though... I wonder if centrelink will buy that one ;)

Thanks MoonUnit. In some ways I don't find much technical difference drawing the varied subjects. Despite this it seems that 3D skills are now mandatory to get a job in the gaming industry :(

quote:Originally posted by JohnN

Despite this it seems that 3D skills are now mandatory to get a job in the gaming industry :(

I know what you mean :(
Anyway, these look really cool. The bonnet(sp?) of the first one looks abit flat, but its alright.
Yeah, you seem to be able to draw alot of different subjects. I guess its a matter of applying certian rules of perspective, etc
..oh, and skill as well :)

John, nice work but just a couple of practicality issues... the exhausts do look cool where you've placed them but can you imagine the heat they'd generate so close to the drivers head, and those open front wheels on the second image would have to be covered over.
You might like to check out the new Aussie built Elfin cars launched at the recent Melbourne motor show, very nice (and along the same lines as yours) http://www.elfin.com.au/ms8.htm

I saw a Streamliner pic the day after I did my first pic! Initially I was peeved that there was an actual car so close in concept to the lines I was thinking along. Then I decided that it was an indication the general concept was good so continued. Thanks for the link, I will absorb the photos for further inspiration (2 super cool cars!)

As for exhaust- it would be unpleasent esp. whilst stationery... a heat guard wrapping over the exhaust would be a potentially very nice detail to add (*makes mental note).

wheel guards- wheel shmards I say ;) (not a public road going car in its current form I agree)

3rd of my roadster concepts

Red 5- hope you notice the heat guard along the cockpit area and includion of wheel arches.

Image was created in photoshop with 'photo theft' mag wheels. All crits (or Q's) welcome as usual :)

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/258_vehicle_car_3L.jpg[/img]

Hi John, NICE WORK! im no expert on perspective drawing but the only crit i can give you is that the curvature of the grill seems like its twisted slightly.

jumping frog toads batman thats good! nice PS work man. Were u using a tablet for any of that?

Thanks Idaho- I revisited the perspective after your comments, and did some tweeking. I will look at posting the altered version soon (maybe replace the above image if I can figure out how to.)

I'm yet to invest in a tablet (is on my 'toys to buy' list though) So all done with mouse.

Edit (18 March): Image above has been changed! Idaho's comments hopefully no longer apply :)

The last one looks really sweet. 80s American Muscle all the way :D

It may just be the shadow, but the front wheel looks very crooked. The peak at the top and bottom of the back wheel line up perfectly on a vertical line, but the fron one doesn't seem to. My eyes could just be a little off though :)

Thanks Aven, I have tinkered further with front wheel. Hope that it is looking better now. I think the stolen wheels weren't helping either as they were not at quite the right angle. I'm not sure about weather the top&bottom peaks should line up! Currently i am working on the 'widest section is perpendicular to the axle' rule. (I can post a sample if this confuses anyone.)

Oh yeah! I took it to the paint shop too :)

Keep the crit comming- I want to get this pic A1 for the lead pic in my illustration portfolio. (I'm also looking for feed back on that- see the 'Job and Work Experience discussion' section for more details)

Hey John, that is looking killer :)
You might wnat to remove the grey background and put in a road or something. It would also give you the chance to play with reflections a bit more.
Check out thw work of Scott Robertson, he does some really awesome car renderings http://www.drawthrough.com/sketches/index.html

looking very polished (like literally aswell :P ), the new wheels could use something more then a flat hubcap type area but i think it still tops the inserted wheels.

nice work