Jon's Blog

A little bit of cinematography

2011-05-17T02:08:00.000-07:00

Ok my portfolio has been updated *all cheer*

I have also been looking to learn a bit of cinematography as I think it will help me to produce better composition in my scenes and it covers colour theory which I think I need to have a better understanding of.

Here's a good link with a break down of the colour theory in Black Hawk Down, one of my favourtite films:

http://www.outside-hollywood.com/2009/03/color-theory-for-cinematographers/

Submit...

2011-05-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick picture of the final scene for the Brawl contest. Sounds cliche but I really did learn a lot from this project (which was the intention). Including some stuff like modular buildings, foliage, vertex blending and particle systems. I will be breaking the pieces down and updating my portfolio with the different assets soon.

BRAWL

2011-04-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

I have recently begun a competition over at Polycount with my friend James, our brief is to create a re-imagined scene from a fighting game.

We have however entered it a little late (half way through) but that just means we need to work fast, no pressure then...

Ok so after deciding the stage we wanted to base our scene on and a style we wanted to go down I got to work with a paint over to give a rough idea. I have also been testing the new DX11 features in UDK to see how we can use them in our scene to hopefully make our scene look even better.

Below is the original stage with my paint over and a truck im currently working on thats in roughly in the position I want for the final result, and I will continue to update both my blog and the thread with my progress.

Our thread can be found here: polycount

PEACE!

2011-02-24T17:41:00.000-08:00

A little update of what I have been working on. These are just a couple of the props I have been creating for this apartment scene, and I have to say that so far it has been filled with a fair share of problems and a lot of frustration... but you just gotta work through it, and it is slowly getting there.

The couch (or the bain of my existance, as I like to call it) is pretty much there, it's my first model that has a soft surface so I learnt a lot from scultping it and I can use what I learnt to improve with my next one. But that's in-engine now, I just need to play with the diffuse and generate a specular map. Oh and I have to thank Cris White for helping me solve a issue with the generated maps, he's a legend!

And the TV is pretty much done as well, although the cubemap used for the reflection will be replaced by one generated when its all together, but yeah.. more updates soon... but for now, sleep!

Small Update

2010-12-15T17:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure about you but I get a little freaked out when I answer my door and a small group of overly happy people start singing at me. It's definitely one of those awkward situations where it's rude to leave but at the same time you don't want to stay. I didn't know what to do so I just stood there looking slightly bemused and slowly nodded as if to say... yes, you can sing. Finally they finished and left, albeit a lot less jolly than when they arrived, perhaps the score card was a bad idea!?

Anyway, thought I would update the blog with something quick so here's a shelf that I had just finished modelling in ZBrush, still needs a few tweaks but turned out ok.

Bobby Chiu course

2010-12-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted in a while so I thought I would post some images from Bobby Chiu's Digital Painting course that I have been doing. I'm only about a third of the way through but I have already learnt so much, bring on the rest of the assignments!

Sketchoholic comp

2010-11-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

Here's my entry for the James Robertson's interview and contest on Sketchoholic that has just gone by, I didnt get any votes sadly, (damn these other contestants with their 'talent') it came out ok but it is still very cartoony... but ah well, Im still learning.

Artiste Appartement

2010-10-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I posted so here are some screenshots from an artist's apartment scene im working on. There's clearly still a while to go but it's getting there.

The reason I chose this sene was because most of my stuff in my portfolio is kinda grungy and old and I wanted to break away from that with something bright and fresh. I have also been wanting to try something a little new, maybe a style that hasnt really been seen in games before.

I was later reading an interview with Sharon Calahan and she explained when approaching Ratatouille she wanted to create something that felt like a best memory, 'For instance your memory of what bread looks like is different from actually looking at a photo of bread. Your mental image is simplified and reduced to it's essential elements and stylized a bit. You want to remember it as being a little more golden than maybe what it actually is.' so I have decided to create this my scene in this style, everything from models to lighting will be slightly exagerated, it's been pretty fun so far but here are some quick renders of my progress.

Here are a few of the images I will be using as reference to light and texture the scene..

To get this looking exactly how I want it I think it will take a little post-processing experimentation in UDK which im looking forward to playing around with, I will post some more progress soon...

The Paintings and Sketches and Sculpts oh my...

2010-09-26T17:17:00.000-07:00

After receiving some feedback for my Garden Cart I have updated it with Minor tweaks and improvements, there are also a few things that I will need to consider whilst making future models but all in all I learnt a lot from completing this model, especially since it's my first time using ZBrush.

Here are some more sketches I have managed to complete on various lunch breaks and train journeys over the last couple of weeks.
The first two are some more tasks set on Sketchoholic, not too sure where I was going with the mid-section of the Goblin but I wanted the ribs to almost be armour.

This next image are some sketches I did whilst watching the awesome movie 'Kick-Ass', a couple were almost caricatures or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

Here are some sketches I did from images of Disney's Tarzan, I was trying to study how muscular form can be achieved with simple lines and without any tones, plus his dynamic poses were really fun to draw.

These thumbnails are an idea I have about a Golem creature buried in the landscape, I want the creature to be discovered only when the viewer looks closer by noticing subtle engravings and form that will reveal this giant, half buried stone creature.

The other thing however is a erm... I'm going with a bear... I think...

This was another speed paint from sketchoholic, I think it just shows that I really need to do more light studies to really make my drawings look more realistic, well as realistic as a dog with a gun can be.

Retired Boots

2010-09-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

Here is my latest sculpt that I have been working on, the reason for choosing these boot's was because I knew they would challenge me and help me learn how to sculpt and texture asset's fully using only ZBrush.

There were certainly a lot of lessons learnt creating these boot's and a lot of time wishing I had decided to make something easier like slippers, but overall I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

I have also been doing more drawings and sketches which I will upload in the next few days.

"Action is the foundational key to all success" - Pablo Picasso

2010-08-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

I have been keeping busy this week and managed to get quite a bit done. I even found the time for a couple of live contest at Sketchoholic.com (go me). Each contest is an hour long which definitely flies, and is not that long to think of an idea and try and get it down but I'm sure I will improve in time.

I have also managed to wrestle ZBrush into submission and produce my first ZBrush model. I think it came out quite well but I will be looking for crits because I see making a model as 90% of the process, the next 10% comes from stepping back and taking crits to learn and improve on the next model I create.

I have also included some more lunchtime challenges that I did, I'm beginning to think I should take them into Photoshop after each week and do some shading on them to improve my understanding of lighting, anyway here they are...

Here's one of my hour challenge 'Witch Sci-fi'

Lunchtime Sketch: 'Ninja Bunny'

Lunchtime Sketch: 'Homeless Butler'

Garden Cart

Who needs sleep...

2010-08-25T16:56:00.000-07:00

Been crazy busy lately spending every spare second trying to improve my drawing, sketching and modelling, it's a lot to take on at the same time and I'm constantly tired but I love it.

I have also been introduced to the wonderful world of Sketchoholic and Bobby Chiu, who has without a doubt helped me to keep going and motivated me into the early hours of the morning. So a big thank you to the wonderful Annes for sharing that site with me.

In this spare time I have been mainly learning ZBrush, and it's turning out to be really enjoyable even though I have had to restart a model five times... *twitch* which isn't too bad because I'm learning from my mistakes, or so I keep telling myself.

I have also recently taken it upon myself to try a challenge from Sketchoholic in each free lunch break and it definitely gets the imagination going, here's my first attempt, the challenge was 'Demon Rodent'

Although it really doesn’t look very demonic, more de-caffeinated... I will try and stick more to the brief next time.

I will post more stuff soon and hopefully some nice high poly renders, not only for your viewing pleasure but also to keep track of my progress.

You missed a spot...

2010-08-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

I did quite a bit of work on my digital piece this weekend, and it's nearly there... plus I also managed a few sketches of my dad who did a bit of painting.

And no I don't keep him behind bars but perhaps it's time I bought myself an A5 sketchpad...

Speed painting… slowly

2010-08-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here’s the beginning’s of my first digital drawing.

So far so good, there’s still quite a bit to do but overall I don’t think it’s a bad start. Let’s just hope I don’t ruin it…

Here’s the background,

Every young boy want’s to be a super hero at some point, except this, slightly plump, boy think’s he IS a super hero and takes it upon himself to help those in need of a hero. Unfortunatly, sometimes his luck does not match his enthusiasm…

Learning to draw…

2010-08-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months I have started drawing, it’s something I have wanted to do for a while now but I have been concentrating all of my efforts on 3D art. So I made the decision to go for it, I bought myself a brand new pad and pencils and got scribbling away.

I’m getting so much help and motivation from the people around me at work and I have found myself developing a deeper appreciation for art, don’t get me wrong I have always appreciated art but now I have started to really enjoy looking at people’s art blogs online and on occasion found myself staring gormlessly at the concept art in the stair way and around the office.

Anyway, I'm just blabbering now so here’s a few pages from my sketchbook. To be honest I found it quite overwhelming to start, there’s alot more to learn than I first realised and it turns out anatomy is pretty complex… who knew! But it’s been pretty fun and interesting so far.

Genesis

2010-08-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to my new blog!