My thesis is starting to drag on, I see so many amazing personal projects out there and I’m getting extremely jealous of other artists who have time to pursue them. I’m currently working on finalizing the sculpts of my 3 thesis characters and once they are finished this thing is going to take off like a rocket. Using new techniques I’ve developed mixed with the use of Ndo and Ddo I’m going to texture these characters extremely face and in a very fun stylized way.

Freelance is going as well as I expect it to, some days are extremely productive while others I’m sculpting myself into circles. I work on my off days and weekends and attempt to crank out work before I go to Palo Alto each morning. This weekend I was able to start and finish a miniature and it came out pretty well. Check out the Jaded Noble!

Hoping to finish up everyone’s projects in the coming month, sorry for any delays everyone! I’m unfortunately very bogged down at the moment.

This week I worked on Sarah Carver, I’m attempting to finish her sculpt before I move onto the other characters so they aren’t all hanging at 80% completion. I’m a bit stuck here right now so I need to push past it.

Below is a shot of her, there is so much to polish that it becomes intimidating. Every subtool needs polish and balance against the others.

Today’s focus is Freelance though, thesis work is such a Wednesday thinggggg lol. To work!

During the past few weeks of my thesis work  I’ve been focusing on the third character, Sarah Carver. I’ve changed a bit of her clothing around and in general I’m just building up her character over all instead of focusing on one thing and then moving on. I’m liking this organic feel to creating her, it’s leading me to build interesting shapes that flow throughout her character.

The first shot is of a progress shot of her hair sculpt. I’m building overlapping sections and on top of it I’ll add in strands of hair to increase it’s continuity. I’ve also been slowly detailing her face and modifying it.

This is a shot of her entire character so far, she’s still feeling bare in a few areas. over the coming weeks she’ll be flooded with small details including clothing tears, buttons… straps.. grime… things of that nature. She’s coming out well, just need to keep working on her.

Today I start at Artillery Games down in Palo Alto, I haven’t been posting much work lately or blog posts because I’ve been insanely busy trying to keep up with client work and new, strict deadlines for my thesis. Those are going to have to get pushed back a little bit because I need some breathing room and I’d much rather follow the money than a project that doesn’t guarantee anything career wise.

Midterms are this week so I’ll post a huge thesis update, I just can’t bring myself to post anything quite yet. I think the work is getting impressive but it’s just hard to make myself post on my site lately. So many other things I could be doing instead that are more productive. I’ll try to post more! And eventually someday… I’ll make the tutorials I’ve hinted about creating.

First thesis post in a while, been so busy lately! I’m redoing some aspects of Jack Sampson and I’m loving the direction he’s taking. Lots of sculpting to do on him to get him back to where he was. Basically details have been moved from his middle to his sides to help keep the eye moving. Loving the early results.

Sarah got a redesign, she isn’t a typical explorer anymore and is wearing baggy, worn down clothing. I wanted to do this because I have never liked how women were portrayed in games. Sarah is a vicious survivor who lives on her own in Utah. Can’t wait to finish her!

My life’s been basically 110% work and I can’t seem to catch up! We had a wedding in New York and right after I had no time to catch up before school and some visitors. This weekend is crunch time, I’m catching up finally and will hopefully be ahead of the game for once.

I promised about 6 months ago I was going to start tutorials and if all goes as planned I’d like to do my first one next week. I already have the first 10 planned out I just can’t bring myself to do it because there’s always some work to be done somewhere for someone.

Along with the tutorials I’ll be posing up some new and retouched up work and hopefully a new color zbrush composite or two. Back to the grind stone I go, but first I’m talking the short walk over to my Keurig for some “go” juice.

I started by making a timeline this week for this semesters thesis work as well as an abstract and project breakdown to help me keep focused. Some things will be changed or modified as seen fit by my professors after we talk more about timing for the semester but this is a pretty good general idea of how things will play out.

Beneath is my abstract I wrote, it’s 200 words and tells the who/what/when/where/why of my thesis. This was requested for my other thesis class but I think it’s good to show and to post up here so I see it all the time.

My thesis centers around 3 characters caught up in a battle for earth from an intergalactic threat in Hanksville, Utah: a remote town of 219 residents. Our first hero is Jack Sampson, failed 80’s action star who’s clinging onto the dream of becoming the next big action hero. Second is “Big” Bubba Hendricks, truck driver extraordinaire and brilliant mechanic.  Third is Sarah Carver, a talented survivalist and a dead eye with her long rifle. All characters 3 have big personalities and designs that match.

As a seasoned Zbrush artist, I work solely in this program during the design phase of the project, frequently adding or subtracting to the characters based on critiques/feedback.  Their final sculptures will be retopologized using Topogun into as many pieces as are required.

Headus UV layout will allow me to quickly and cleanly UV the characters into 3-4 maps per character. I’ll then extract as much detail from the sculpt as possible. Using Ddo and Substance I’ll create all necessary maps for their game assets. My final display of the game assets will be in Marmoset Toolbag 2 as well as rendered sculptures of each character in Keyshot or Vray.

 

Also this this week’s homework I’m painting over my thesis characters to plan out some details in a more accurate, well thought out way. James Bach mentioned using different rules to design my characters to help with composition so I’m going to use some of those ideas tonight.

Busy week, trying to finish a bunch of work I thought I would have finished already and prepped a plethora of models to send off to printers. Exodus Wars is coming out shortly and I made the final weapon for my infantry units which came out pretty well. Later on I’ll do a proper sheet for it. Uber low poly count because the units holding it range from 2-4k polys.

There’ll be a small thesis update later today with a new timeline as well. Oh, also new renders of miniatures! If I can find time to do it at least.

Tomorrow is the first thesis class so I figured it was appropriate to finally pick up the project again. Feeling good going into this semester, I can concept and sculpt even faster now. Made some gloves I put off last semester for Jack, they came out pretty bad ass.

September already? wow..

This week I’m in talks with a serious amount of clients and I think it’s gonna take weeks to either make deals or go our separate ways. Lots to organize and think about!

I added in my latest game asset into my portfolio and tossed in a new miniature from last week. Asking for permission to add in a few more miniatures and today I should be finishing yet another Sword & Board miniature.

School is starting up for real on Wednesday so I should probably touch my thesis in some way shape or form…