3D Modeling for Bonsai

January 27, 2017 in ZBrush, Bonsai

So over the summer all my little jade plants decided that they wanted to go super saiyan and form a forest. I got a cool tray from Bonsai West and started to think about the placement of the little guys into a Yose-Uye (forest). Well, being a 3D artist I put ZBrush to work to help me visualize the grouping. I knew I wanted to go for a 7-tree or 9-tree planting and because I wouldn't be removing the plants from their little pots before arranging them, turning and placing them in a virtual environment would be much easier. I didn't go and model the plants completely, just the major trunks and branches to speed up the process. I came up with about 3 arrangement and settled on the one pictured.

This is what it looked like a few days afters planting was completed. The balance wasn't quite right so I added the rock to get a better triangular shape to the whole scene.

It grew quite a bit over the summer and even when brought inside for the winter it didn't seem to slow down. So much so that I had to trim it back some. I thought the transplanting would have caused it to slow down, but I guess it liked it's new arrangement. It was fully rooted so I even removed the wires holding the trunks in place. I also removed the shoots near the bottom to show off the trunks more. Here are the results after reshaping and some wiring. The moss is also surviving nicely and should fill in come mid-summer.

Front View Dec. 21st, 2016 — Front View Dec. 21st, 2016

Playing with some balls

August 12, 2016 in 3D, Props, ZBrush, Textures

Just messin' around with Keyshot and ZBrush. Wanted to practice with ZModeler Brush and ended up making some textures in Keyshot.

I made the Foot of Arkus for Skylanders Superchargers!

January 04, 2016 in 3D, Props, ZBrush

Guess what... I made a prop that was used in the new Skylanders Superchargers game. It was used in a cinematic! Here's what it looks like in game and rendered in Marmoset.

If you want to see it in the actual cutscene, check out this video on YouTube.

Almost got the Robotoball in there too, but I think it was cut out because of the pacing of the scene. Or maybe it just didn't read well.

Continuing Ed.

August 26, 2014 in 3D, ZBrush, Environment

So excited about the class I'm taking through UArtsy. It's an Environment Creation class with a focus on modular design and implementation into UE4 taught by David Lesperance. I even got access to David's other environment class! Here's what I'm made so far.

Muscles of the Face

July 01, 2014 in 3D, Characters, ZBrush

Finished up learning/sculpting the facial muscles. Did everything but the hyoid bone and the muscles of the throat. Those will come later, probably sometime in September.

Human Skull Sculpt

May 19, 2014 in 3D, ZBrush, Characters, Props

Decided I needed to bone up on my knowledge of the human skull. Pun intended, ha ha ha. Found a few tutorials that talked about the major landmarks and also read through the cranium section of Gray's Anatomy. There were lots of little bones that I didn't quite know of before like the ethmoid bone and vomer in the nose area. And some that I knew but didn't fully understand where all the nooks and crannies were located.

I managed to get my hand on a real skull from my doctor to so I could use it as reference and boy did it help. I took lots of measurements and some of the bones like the sphenoid really started to make sense once I could see them in situ.

Here's the result from various angles.... Next up is placing some tissue depth guides and building the musculature while learning all the names, origins and insertions.

Home Stretch!

March 14, 2014 in ZBrush, 3D

Almost done with the high poly and nearing the retop phase. Luckily some of the armor pieces are already low poly in Max and the rest shouldn't be too hard to get into the 7500 tri budget.

Here's some more renders but this time with the bump viewer material.