Thesis stuff is still coming along. Changing gears tomorrow and cranking out some freelance and some sculpting for another thesis character to keep my mind agile and so I don’t get completely stuck on one aspect of my project.

I did a render the other day of the second faction I made for Sword & Board. It appears my time working for them is just about at an end. They are changing gears and it means they might not need anything from me at all. Possibly they will need sculptures in August but who knows! That’s ages away. The render came out great, and it represents my time spent working for them. I’m twice as fast and three times as knowledgeable about 3D printing and miniatures in general after working for them. Thanks for the experience guys!

I’m trying to focus on my thesis for a week or two and really hammer out this first character. Iv’e learned so much in this process already and almost completely redone this character once already. I decided it’s time to press forward and get his game model done because I still have so much to do and getting caught at the last minute is not an option.

Without decals and extra wear/tear below is a textured version of my character’s torso. His normals came out great, I redid a few things in his topology to give his silhouette more detail. Things I added were his straps on the chest, buttons on his collar pad, and a bit more information around his belt buckle so from a 3/4th view you can see it protruding out.

Right now I’m working on his leg topology and it’s pretty rough going. He has a huge knee pad that I’m torn about how I want to handle. I really don’t want more polygon pieces hanging around than absolutely necessary but if today’s tests don’t look good I’m going to be separating his kneepad from his leg and possibly his boot (I would truly hate to remove the boot, it feels like a defeat)

my test is below, I’m going to burn some occlusion,colors, and do a bit of processing using DDO, NDO, and some textures I have laying around and see how the low poly looks with some maps on it besides normals.

Big things are happening right now, my thesis is coming along great (but slowly because I seem to erase as much as I sculpt) I have my first client who’s actually making video games and I’m building lots of models that aren’t going to be 3D printed for once in a long time. It’s overwhelming but great, and is feeling more natural finally.

Here’s a shot from my thesis last week, I’m beginning to simplify my character’s silhouette so that remetoplogizing won’t be the worst thing int he world. I’m trying to add in some different materials close to the body and interesting stitching with fabric changes to add realism and style to my guy.

His mask will be removed on the next update, I got smashed about that because I’m hiding his face and I shouldn’t. Stuff like that happens when you are just scribbling in ZBrush looking for a solution to a problem. Big updates will be coming soon, I’m finishing up his weapon, going to modify his pistol and add another melee weapon to his other leg. That’ll be bad ass enough I think. Lets hope so!

I need to contact a few clients to see if I can post up some work on my website because I’m really loving what I’m doing on some projects but I’m under some NDA’s right now 🙁 That’s the name of the game though I suppose!