Week 7: Pack everything up!

Week 7: Pack it all up!

Howdy guys

This was week 7 into my final major project and I’m starting to feel the pressure of the project length sinking in a lot more now. The illusion that I have a lot of time is certainly beginning to wear off and there further I get with my project the more I fear that I won’t finish.

As seen in last week’s post, the eagle warrior’s design has been complete so this week I wanted to finish retopologzing and unwrapping my character.

I started the week by reviewing my project time plan, I had to make some alterations especially as I did not meet one of my targets for one week. In addition I wanted to maximise my production time got into the routine of working from 8am to 8pm.

Afterwards, I tested baked a feather sculpt onto a plain in order to test whether the method worked. I took my high poly feather sculpt from zbrush, and baked it’s normal, ambient occlusion and vertex colour detail onto this plane.

There are a few smoothing issues, but fortunately it did and this will help me in the coming days when I begin texturing the Eagle Warrior. When this was complete, I made alternative feathers in zbrush that will be adorned on the Eagle Warrior’s headdress and clothes.

Following this success, I began bringing all the assets that would be in ‘texture sheet one’: the more detailed objects, together in 3ds max and began unwrapping them and re-topologizing them.

At this point I was still undecided about the design of the ball that goes on top of his head. I was aiming to follow my reference, however it did not translate as well when in my attempts. In addition I was able to create a few more assets in order to enhance the design of the Eagle warrior.

So I asked my mentor Del and he was able to give me some helpful advice in order to decide. Furthermore, Del was able to suggest that I should aim for a 30k triangle count for my characters as this would show that I can optimize my characters for video game standards. This is very helpful and will certainly help me for the next 2 characters.

When I had finished unwrapping the texture sheet, I began working on art director Kevin Mcdowell’s feedback to alter the design for the skirt, as the current length of the skirt would be very hard to rig. I used Marvellous designer to create a new skirt design, and I must admit it did take a lot longer than planned. However, in the end I was able to create a pretty interesting design for the loin cloth based on this concept.

Afterwards, I was speaking to my tutor Mike Piction about my project idea and he told me it was a cool idea and that I should make sure the conquistador’s armour is dirty, worn and effected by its environment in order to add an extra element of believability to my character. This is some very insightful advice and I will make sure that I follow it through.

In the meantime I acknowledged that it was about time that I started applying for character art jobs in the video games industry. I had been apprehensive in the past weeks, especially as I felt that the work that I produced was no way near the quality of work that they look for in junior artsists. Nonetheless, I figured that it is better to try and fail than not try at all.

I found a model designer position at the Games workshop, who created my favourite Miniatures, the ‘Space Marines’. I figured the idea of working for this company would be great, and would provide me with an opportunity to hone my character development skills even further.

I rigged my Greek hoplite character using mixamo and afterwards I posed him in 3ds max. When this was complete, I imported him in Marmoset toolbag 2 and voila, my helmeted character.

I’m glad with the final outcome of this character; It looks so much better now that he is posed. Although there are a number of issues with the character, I’m glad that he is starting to show that

I can create next generation video game characters.

In addition to getting these characters ready for the application, I also begin writing my covering letter for the companies that I want to apply to. I’m doing pretty well to be honest.

Next on my things to do was complete the 2nd texture sheet of my character. I had to retopologize a number of assets in order to start unwrapping them, the hardest being the bird skull. I had a number of difficulties when unwrapping, especially with inverted vertices, however the biggest issue wasn’t the technical obstacles, but the amount of work that I needed to complete in order to get the assets unwrapped and packed in order to meet my deadline.

In time, my efforts paid off in the end, and I was able to finish my 2nd texture sheet in time. I still need to make some minor tweaks to it, but for the most part, I am very glad with the final outcome of this project.

Next on my things to do, was to create the sacrificial dagger. Here I took a lot of inspiration from the Aztec ornaments that I saw during my visit to the British Museum, during the Christmas break. I particularly liked the ‘double-headed Serpent’.

Once modelled, I then imported the mesh into zbrush to begin the detail pass. To create the mosaic effect on the dagger I created a brush alpha from one of the work’s Spanish artist ‘Guadi’. It did not take long to finish the dagger, and I was glad that I could use the skills that I learned during the behind the door project.

After looked through my sources of inspiration for my project and finding new ones, I was thinking of new designs for my next 2 characters, the priestess and the conquistador.

For the priestess, I discovered there was an Aztec Crocadile god called ‘Cipactli’ and perhaps it would be an interesting idea to create a shaman character based around this god.

I did some research and was able to enhance my enthusiasm for this idea by finding out about Warhammer Amazonian miniatures, epsicially this one ‘Occepa’.

Next I was thinking that it would be an interesting idea to play on the idea of the Conquistador, especially after finding this image.

I entertained the idea that he could be a dwarf, especially as in many famous novels including the lord of the rings franchise; dwarfs are characterized with a hunger for gold. This would match the same intentions of the conquistador, but more importantly I could add an element of fantasy and creatively to my project.

I’m currently looking at these references for inspiration, but I would also like to partially stylize my character in order to demonstrate that I can create a broad range of character styles. I am currently thinking about making this character semi-stylized, as I think It would be fascinateing to experiment with and also it will be a break from realism! I've been looking at the art of John Gotch and Ryan Bullock, I really like the texturing of Gotch and the stylized shapes of Bullock's work.

I was able to complete the unwrapping and retopologizing for this character, which means that for once I actually hit my weekly target, hoorah!

We had life-drawing this week, and it was good to be back in the studio after 2 weeks. This session I used a red Carbothello pencil and attempted many different drawing techniques. From this session I know that I need to work on my getstural drawings and proportions, so my target for next week is to practice capturing the full gesture of the character before I add any detail.

This week, I have noticed that I have been developing a negative habit of comparing my work with my peers’. Even though competition can lead to improvement I don’t think this is healthy for me, especially as I am not seeing my successes. My goal for next week is to make sure that with every target I meet I will reward myself, in hope of getting out of the negative competition that is really affecting me.

In addition, I will make sure that I stick to an 8am-7:30pm work schedule; this will give me enough hours to work during the day and enough down time to recover.

So there you have it my busy week. I am a lot more positive about the future than last week, especially now that I’ve got very cool ideas for my next 2 characters, I am still nervous about time, but I know that if I plan well and make clear achievable goals for myself I can achieve a lot.

Bring on the future!

Thanks for reading

Bye for now