Japan Panorama Photobook Update

My friend and I have been working hard on the Japan Panorama Photobook. The text is now past its first draft and we're slowly going over it, correcting and making alterations to it as needed. The photos are being selected as we come to each day, but we hope it won't take too long!

We also have a general book design and colour-scheme idea too. So as we move along, we'll incorporate these ideas into the pages.

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.

Japan Panorama Photobook

If you're wondering where I've been, lately I have been developing a new photobook to display the times my friend and I had on our last journey: Japan!

The book is going well, and I hope to have it finished by the end of next month at the latest! 

We will be returning to Tokyo, Japan at the end of November to see the autumn colours too!

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...

Soma Yakihira - Low Resolution Model

While I'm still finishing Lord Beritra, I have decided to start what I want to be another fast project. This time, I will create a low resolution model of 'Soma Yakihira' from the popular anime and manga, 'Food-Wars'. 

This project has a few goals that I wish to address:

• Low poly

• No normal maps or specular maps, all just hand-painted colour on a single texture

• Easily animatable (such low-res that it skins easily and moves well)

• Possibly paint directly to texture map in ZBrush, instead of Polypainting?

This is the progress so far. The hands are not yet sewn onto the arms and the shoes have not yet been fully modelled. The arms also need some work while I try to get them in the right position. His face has no detail; all the facial features will be drawn on in the texture, with the idea that it could be animated using a sequence of 2D frames. Also of course parts of his model are not made at all here either, which is the next step of progress.

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. :)

Lord Beritra - AION 4.0: Dark Betrayal

So naturally while I'm supposed to be working on this months art challenge set by Polycount forums, I decided to veer off track today with a strange urge to create a model of 'Lord Beritra', the 'Forth Dragon Lord' from the MMORPG, Aion. Probably because I was listening to the games' soundtrack. 

Considering I started it today, I have gotten quite far with it. It already has most of its normal maps from ZBrush as a first-pass. They haven't been detailed or cleaned up at all yet. I actually built the model over Xiahou Ba's body, retopologising the hands and face once the rest of the body was built to match the lower polycount.

Here is my progress so far. This render is done in Marmoset Toolbag 2, as this is my goal for this project I think.

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.