WIP

Haven't posted for a while. Here's a short shot from a promo I'm working on.

I remembered I have a blog!

Quick test render of a new project.

Blocking

If anyone actually follows this blog, there should be a more complete update on this model either Thursday or Saturday. With Valentines day and President's day it has been a busy week at the restaurant, and I haven't had much time to really work because I've been at "work".

I have everything blocked out in this one. It's just a matter of getting a few things on the base mesh worked out, and working it in Mudbox now. Depending on my work schedule, I can probably be texturing and tweaking by Sunday.

All together I've already worked about 20 hours on this character (the Maya/Mudbox workflow is still new to me). The initial design worked on paper, but not in 3D space for me, so I redesigned the legs. The Idea is a bug-like character that has natural camo to blend in with a cave environment. It's legs would be able to arrange themselves to look like a stalactite. I'm still a little worried about the silhouette of the redesign, but at this time I'll wait for comments before another big redesign. If you are still reading I'm glad you care about what I'm doing enough to pay attention. Thanks, and keep watching!

WIP part 2

Here's some further work on the Mantis character. The normal maps are still incomplete, but I'm going to move on the the abdomen section of the character before going back and finishing all the normal maps. This way I can make sure they all work together and fit the design.

Character WIP

I needed a little break after graduation, but I'm back working. I've been learning a Maya/Mudbox workflow, and I'm ready to start a new character. I don't have a scanner right now, so I won't post the concept sketches (you're not missing much, they are pretty simple), but I've decided to post a WIP thread to show my process and progress.

I'm working on this character in stages since it is a segmented character. Here's the head. I'm still working on the Normal map, and I'll probably smooth out the chin some more, but I'm trying to keep the poly count pretty low and rely on the normal map for details.The body will be posted soon.

Oh yeah, Right now I'm calling this character Mantis...get it... MAN-tis...HA!

Done with school

I have finally graduated! Oh crap. That means I need to find a job now. Tucson is too small of a place. I've grown up here, but when the only good job to be found is a new branch of
Sony Online, that is probably looking for someone with more experience than I have right now it sucks.

Time to turn my pet projects into gold and actually finish a short! I have two projects in the works right now that I hope will turn out the type of work that will get me a job. One is the flash short I've talked about in past posts. The 2 min. mark wasn't met in the class time, partly because it was an experimental class for the school, and partly because I didn't push myself hard enough to actually finish it. I did take the time to develop the story to the point where I feel like I need to finish it. The gags are mostly there, I know I'm still missing some opportunities, but if I don't do it I can't learn from it now. I also think I've found a cool art direction style for it that combines my two computer animation loves, Flash and Maya. It is written, so it must be done.

The other is a group project I'm starting with Mike Munoz and Briget Alese aka FishEisley.
It may involve more people in the future, but it's just getting off the ground right now. I'm pretty optimistic about this one right now. Even if it doesn't see the light of day, it will generate some good creative work, but as long as we keep it up it's gonna be cool. I don't know how often it will post on this blog, but it will keep me busy!

Flatbook

I just realized I had never posted anything from my flatbook. Well here it is. I'll be graduating in 2 weeks! That also means I will be relentlessly creating new content, so before this version gets scraped I figured I'd share it. I'm pretty happy with the overall design, but crits and comments are always appreciated. Let me know what you like and don't like about it. I can take it. Really. I want then next one to be better so rip it apart!

Oh Yeah...the phone number on the bottom of the cover is not mine anymore, so I really don't care if you crank call it.