Update

久しぶりですね。

Working at AO.com in Manchester has been a great step forward for me, and some of the best days of my life so far. I'm independent from my family now, living with my best friend in Manchester, and doing what I love: 3D graphics!

I've had little free time to truly undertake my usual projects, though its not stopped me drawing as of late. I have picked at my Bell 407 helicopter project in 3Ds Max every now and then, but haven't made any serious progress as of yet. I do however plan to change this in the near future!

Here are some 2D bits I have been working on:

Suga - BTS

Photoshop CC

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Photoshop CC

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Photoshop CC

Not so happy with this piece, so it never really reached completion.

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Photoshop CC

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Corel Painter 2017, Photoshop CC

桜田通 - Sakurada Dori-san Cat Outfit Complete

Finally got around to finishing this piece of Sakurada Dori-san! His shirt design was inspired by his own during 'Sakura da Festa'. 

And if a cat outfit isn't your thing, but you're still a fan of Dori-san, then here's a cat-less one.

Cat Sakurada Dori-san Update 「猫ー桜田通」

I've continued work on the drawing of Sakurada Dori-san with cat ears and a cat tail. quirky, no? Somehow I think it kind of suits him though. I guess that't why I'm drawing it.

The lighting is in its first stages still. From here, I will go in to blending the tones more, and adding other things like reflective light and sub surface scattering on his skin etc, etc.

桜田通 Cat Artwork Remake

So after ruining my last attempt at this, I finally decided to give it another shot (and save a backup).

Still needs some correcting before final inking > colouring, but the idea is down again. I actually also have another artwork of Dori-san on the go too but for now I will just see where they both go. I want to get back onto my 3D graphics work soon too. I've been learning far too much Japanese and obsessing about travel lately! Japan Panorama Photobook is still in progress too of course.

Random 2D Piece

Been learning Japanese a lot lately, but decided to do some artwork last night. Here is the result, and naturally after learning Japanese and watching looooads of Japanese dramas lately, its a Japanese dude.

Not completely happy with it, but I like the colours. After not drawing in months it was fun though. 

Soma Yukihira - Finished Model

So I managed to finish this model by the end of the weekend. Fixing the issues from the last post didn't take too long, and it fixed all the distortion I had on the characters face too, which was handy, so it was all related. 

The model is complete, along with a little kitchen knife that will be involved in his future posing. The next stage is to rig and pose him, just like I still need to do with my previous Lord Beritra project!

Soma Yukihira - 3D Model. Character: 3872 Tris. Kitchen Knife: 190 Tris. A single Diffuse texture map each.

Soma Yukihira - 3D Model Wireframe.

Soma Yukihira Model Progression & Issues

I've been hard at work trying to finished this little project this weekend, and all was going well, at least in ZBrush. Here is my current progress. It is more or less finished, but there are some serious problems when it came to exporting the polypaint textures for Maya...

The green parts are parts that share UV space with their opposite counterpart, and thus do not require texturing. I coloured them green to make sure that I remembered this when it came to exporting, in attempt to avoid unwanted artefacts.

So here is an example of an issue that I've found all over the model when exporting the textures:

Apron Mesh as seen on the front of the Soma Yukihira model above.

On the left, you can see the direct result of going through the usual paces to export the polypaint as a texture map. On the right is the result that I expected, where the texture fills the entire UV space provided for the mesh. This annoyed the hell out of me when it was happening, but I soon found out why.

The following image shows 2 meshes. The left one is the one that I had worked on, The right one was the new mesh created to fix the problem.

Morph UVs button

Apron Mesh inside ZBrush with Morph UVs applied.

Using the 'Morph UVs' button in ZBrush, this clearly showed me that the original mesh had had its UVs smoothed while subdividing the mesh; something that surely no one would want to have happen...

Evil Smooth UVs!

The check-box that caused all this mess is here in the Geometry tab, called 'Suv', for 'Smooth UVs'. Is must be disabled when adding subdivisions to the mesh. Now I must go back through my model, creating a new mesh above each current mesh, subdivide it with this button unchecked, and then project the original detail to them. It has to be done this way, as simply updating the mesh will automatically subdivide again with this option still checked...

Lord Beritra Progress

Still working on him. Still not managing to finish it in the few hours I have after work each night -.-

His textures are coming along, though still more work is needed. This is his final mesh at least now though.

Lord Beritra Update

Was hoping to get this model finished today, but not quite there yet. Some of his textures need work doing inside ZBrush to make sure things line up on the UV maps. I thought I had planned for this while unwrapping, but apparently I hadn't thought of everything. Thus, the paint-to-model approach will be needed!

Here is the progress so far. All done inside Marmoset Toolbag.

Yeah I know he probably doesn't have florescent blue eyes, but you never get to see them in-game, so I took some create liberties. If you move the camera to look at him straight-on, he has much the same appearance as he does in-game at least.... meaning you can't see his eyes at all behind his hood. :)

2D Artwork

I've been doing some random drawings since coming back from Japan and not having time to draw for a month. Here's two examples:

This first one is more of a finished product. Its very manga-esqu as you can see, but I have been reading manga a lot lately.

This second one is much more of a quickie, done using one of Photoshop's pencil-style brushes for a natural look.

Zaffina from Blade & Soul Artwork

Continuing on with the artwork of my characters in the up-coming MMORPG, Blade & Soul (in NA/EU), I have drawn my main character. She was originally from Aion, but has translated surprisingly easily to Blade & Soul with its detailed character creator.

This is the colour version of the image. All of these pieces have colour versions and were filtered using Reticulation in Photoshop CC to get this effect. The warmth the noise brings helps to blend the tones together more coherently, producing a more realistic feel.

Blade & Soul - Cao Rui

I did a different portrait first. This is or will be 'Cao Rui'. Again, he originated from Aion as a Gladiator class, and will be my Blade Master in Blade & Soul.

Blade & Soul BETA Artwork

So I tried out Blade & Soul, an MMO that has already been out for 3-odd years, but is only now making its way over to the west. The game was great, and I highly recommend it!

With it being in its BETA phase at the moment, I could really mess around with the character creator and not have to worry about buying plastic surgery tickets later on when I decide that my characters look wrong. I made a Force Master, taking on the name of my main avatar in Aion, 'Zaffina', and a Summoner, taking on the name of my Elyos Ranger from Aion, 'Zact'. 

This is my Summoner in-game:

I decided to draw a more realistic version of his character where I tried to bring out the role he plays as a character I originally created in Aion. He is a young man who is too naive for the world of war that he lives in.

Next I plan to do a similar portrait of 'Zaffina', bringing out her character colours. This is her in Blade & Soul:

My photobook of my travels through China over March > April is taking a while it seems. I'm adding a written journal in with the photos too, and its taking a long time to make sure there are no mistakes and that I'm not leaving things out. 

Currently I'm throwing together some tests for the printers to see the quality of the end book, and to guide myself with colours and contrast required in each photo. I plan to have this all done by the end of July, at the latest! I'm eager to get back onto sculpting!

I started a drawing in Photoshop the other day but I've not had time to progress with it any further yet. Once this book is done I can refocus my efforts to my next project, and get my portfolio site back up and running! 

In the mean time, here is an example of what I've been working on these past few months:

Caleb Landry Jones

Decided to do another 2D piece while working on my Xiahou Ba, so chose Caleb Landry Jones as a subject. I was listening to the 'Game of Thrones Season 4 Soundtrack', and a lot of the 'You Are No Son Of Mine' song in particular at the time, hence wanting to do something a bit more dark looking. I tried to get the tones and colours right all over the image but I'm still not 100% happy with it, although drawing attention to the eyes (particularly the left eye; our left) worked out well in the end I think. Created in Photoshop CC using my Intuos 4 Wacom Tablet as always.

The piece was originally done at 2000 x 1600. It reduced well but the noise added to the original looks a bit weird up-close I think....

Devon Bostick Artwork

Started watching 'The 100' the other day, and decided I wanted to draw Devon Bostick, who plays 'Jasper' in it. So using the same art style I've been using these past few months, here it is.

And here is his break-down into six stages of development for anyone interested. All drawn directly to the computer using Photoshop CC and an Intuos 4 Wacom Tablet.