Art Dump!

edited in Portfolios



EDIT: DROPBOX SUCKS. Pretty much all images broken until page 5.














So, another one of the things I've been wanting to do is to create a steampunk-type girl. A simple image search for steampunk clothing -- especially feminine stuff -- turns up such beautiful designs. These are some that I found on some Pinterest boards; still scribbling together an initial design for the clothing, but I imagine it'd be pretty similar to some of these. <3

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I really like the overall costume of the first one. The second's hair+gogglehatthing is soooo cute. The third has some cool belt stuff, and I'm thinking of whether it makes sense to do some kind of tulle-based skirt like that, but still deciding whether it'd match. And in the last one one kind of reminds me of Gadget from Rescue Rangers, but with a musketgunthing instead of a wrench. :P

Also got a sculpt going of the girl; so in theory all I've got to do is get the clothing done. :) Then I'll retopo, rig+pose, put it in a game or something. :D Her anatomy isn't super perfect or anything, but I don't mind so much because it's close enough, and like 85+% of her will be covered up with costume anyway. I was kind of struggling with her overall build. Wanted something that was attractive, but not unrealistic. I imagined her to be something of a scout-type character, so opted for a build that's fairly light, but with more muscle in the legs. Always got to be careful with women though, end up having to smooth the muscles away, otherwise they start looking kind of roidsy.

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Also, this. :P

After this, wanna do a super stylised man, so I can go crazy on muscles and stuff; but I should probably try finishing stuff sometime. :P

There's also this that you might remember. Decided the composition worked better landscape than portrait, but it's kind of on the backburner now.

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Thanked by 1shelton

Comments

  • That model seems realistic. For me, and I may be wrong, steam punk seems like an emo in a way. I say this because I want an emo female character in some project I might work on. Also your artwork looks exceptional and I really want to see that in a game.
  • Nevermind in a game, I want a steam punk chick in my life!!

    @Elyaradine - my personal experience has been that stepping away from a project for a while is a good thing, but not having more than about 3 simultaneous projects (design, programming, concept, whatever) is equally as important.

    When I'm disciplined about this it means I always come back to finish stuff.. even if it turns out to be a dud.. which almost always ends up teaching me something about the process. This not following through with stuff is a real problem for a lot of us I suspect.

    Anyway, I digress.. will be cool to see where you go with this.
  • I fucking love steampunk! But having said that, I don't like the references so much. Actually, the costumes are great (except for the second one which is only wearing goggles and isn't really steam punk at all?) but I don't really like the "emo" / "scene" look these girls have.

    I'm going purely by subjective aesthetics here, but I've always thought of steampunk as having a distinctly Victorian or 19th century look to it.

    The model looks fantastic, though those censorship stars are a bit funny... is it really necessary to censor what isn't even real nudity? I'm just asking cos I find it very strange how people never bother censoring graphic violence.
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    Been playing with the head/face because I haven't really had time to design a costume. (Only really expecting to get back to this proper-proper in November.) But now and then, when I'm sick of programming, it's a nice break to just scribble stuff, or play with hair. :P

    Saw this strange workflow recently where you block in your hair using the hair sim stuff (because it provides a fairly nice interface for "sculpting" hair), then use the splines to create the hair cards. I'm not sure how well it'd work for complicated hairstyles (like complex Victorian hairdos/braids), but I'm giving it a go with a simpler, shorter hairstyle.

    May still put the goggles in the hair. :)

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    Thanked by 1shelton
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    Been working on this a bit today. Was hoping to get a lot more done, but the platformer game kept calling me, so I spent a couple of hours on that instead. Doh.

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    I'll post better turnaround stuff when I'm done. Leaving for rAge now. Hoping to get the fragment done tomorrow, so I can start on another version with female-fatty bits to do during the week. :P
    Thanked by 2Nandrew shelton
  • looking good guy, start of the bicep looks a bit strange, got a bump there. Have fun at rage!
  • hey, yeah, my arms and back are horrible at the moment. :P

    I'm finding it super hard to do -- even though I'm somewhat confident with what muscles are actually there, and I've drawn them before, making them the right form and volume is quite a struggle. At least I feel myself growing! :)
  • Your arms also mysteriously end in stumps. May wanna take a look at that. :)
  • I was saying on Tuesday that it... represents the maiming of... my soul...? <_<

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    Did a female version too, but there are a bunch of things I want to fix if/when I get a chance. :)
    Thanked by 2Nandrew shelton
  • Made some changes to that sculpt with feedback from Scott, the lecturer. (Can read more about the course here.)

    Also did the female:
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    And my current wip:
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    Thanked by 2Tuism shelton
  • Do we need to start asking people arriving on the site for their birthdate? :P

    Cool sculpts! I would have made one side then mirrored the other side but that wouldn't look nearly as good (naturalness is asymmetrical)

    Do you do these off anatomical references?
  • Yeah, I actually do work mirrored as a time-saver, and then when I'm fairly happy, I go back in and treat each side individually. Best of both worlds I think! :)

    And yeah, I've got some really awesome reference for the course. The models get sprayed with oil, then lit in a way that highlights their forms, and they're photographed from eight angles, so there's plenty of information.
  • awesome :D lets see some armour and hard surface studies too :D?
  • Eventually, yeah. :P Going to be spending a few weeks doing studies of the rest of the body first.
  • When the gif animates with frame delay=0, he actually flies out of the screen!

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    Thanked by 1shelton
  • Wow rippling muscles and all that stuff, so amazing @_@
    Are these frames tweenable or is it all frame by sculpted frame?

    (Traditionally it's the boobies that usually get the arms lifted treatment, according to renaissance stuff from art history classes :P)
  • I would totally sculpt boobies if someone would offer me some awesome reference. :P

    Each pose was sculpted (although each pose used the previous one as a base). It took forever. There are some mistakes that I can see, but can't bring myself to fix because I'm so tired of this one. (I had to redo about 30% of it when the program crashed, and I only then realised that I hadn't saved since the previous evening. T_T)
    Thanked by 1shelton
  • edited
    @Elyaradine Now really, I believe that 90% of the internet consists of boobies. I really don't think you have to ask for that here :P
    Thanked by 1Elyaradine
  • Moar studies. :)

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    Thanked by 2Ratel shelton
  • edited
    Is he meant to be covered in grooves? Does that make a cool effect if you use it to produce normal maps perhaps?

    It looks like it might look amazing if rendered in an etched rendering style. I can't think of any game in fact that's attempted that.

    I mean, a little like: http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/pp265/WVEngraver/line_engraving/Picture004.jpg

    Though I'm sure that's not what you're thinking.
  • Yeah were all those grooves part of the production process or some kind of effect? Cos they look really cool :)
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    Hey, thanks! :)

    If you tried to bake a normal map from that, you'd probably lose a lot of the details because of low texel density. An effect like what you posted would likely be done with a postprocess shader. Otherwise, if some attention were given to the UVs so that their scale and orientation matched, you could layer a detail normal (or some other) map over it to get highly detailed striations.

    The way I've been working is to define anatomy and musculature using a Clay Tubes brush, which gives the heavily textured look, kind of similar to using a rake in traditional sculpture. And then I'd go in with Trim Dynamic to simplify the forms and exaggerate the planes some more, and I preferred that result... but it takes some extra time that I didn't have. I'm probably working backwards to what I should. :P (i.e. should ideally do the planes first, and add the anatomy afterwards. But if you learning the anatomy, then you do the anatomy first so you know what's there, and simplify the forms afterwards, I guess. Or maybe they're supposed to be done concurrently, but then you have to know this stuff really well.)
  • Dude this progress is awesome. Are you using zbrush for your sculpting and did you animate in there as well.
    Kudos
  • Cool! :D The anatomical approach is pretty cool, I like the steampunk bones :)
  • @shelton: Yeah, I'm using ZBrush, although the technique itself could mostly be used in any other sculpting program. The one thing that does make ZBrush pretty damn win is Dynamesh. I didn't animate the arm, so much as sculpt 5 different poses of them. :)

    @Tuism: Thanks! :) I was working off of Godfried Bammes's simplifications of the knee. (He does it for the rest of the body too, and is amazing for it.)
    Thanked by 1shelton
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    So, doing a full body pose over the next three weeks or so (maybe a week longer, as I'm going away for a holiday for all of next week). This is the start. Mainly blocking in, finding landmarks, though I started doing a bit of detail work just because it's fun. :P

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    Thanked by 1shelton
  • you have a great eye for detail.
    what inspired this? I'm looking at Zbrush and liking what I'm seeing
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    I took an anatomy course last year that I felt helped me a lot. Decided to take part in a sculpting course that makes the application of anatomy more practical. ZBrush is great, but you can apply much of the same knowledge to other sculpting programs like Sculptris or Mudbox. The software can help do certain things faster or easier, but the knowledge is more important.

    Progress has been a bit slow, with holiday season "chilling out" creeping in, and my being away for a week. Must fight it!

    Things I should address next are posing the hands properly, and doing some passes on them, and the face. I don't really care about the lower body yet. Just haven't been excited about it I guess. It's best practice to work the entire thing to the same quality, and keep doing passes over the entire body... but since this is a personal piece I've just been doing whatever feels like the most fun. <_<

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    Thanked by 1shelton
  • the anatomy class sounds intriguing. For anatomy I sketch strangers in public hoping to not be noticed lol. Kudos. Your models look skeletally, and muscularly sound. Top notch ::)
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    Thanks. :)

    Played with some lighting when I was tired of sculpting hands. :)

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  • wow, lighting seemingly brings it to life. It looks actually molded with putty in 3d. Whats the goal? Pure art study or is it game focused? Im liking the smooth finish too
  • @Elyaradine the anatomy is nearly perfect! Wow!
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    Thanks! :)

    @shelton: Pure art study, and as practice for my next game character.

    Here's a render with the back. Did the feet. While there are still improvements I could make, I'm happy enough with it as a portfolio piece as it is. :) "M-M-M-MANTHONG!!!" Might come back to it if/when I get tired of the other stuff I'm working on.
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    So... about that steampunk/Victorian girl I wanted to do in the first post of this thread? Finally started designing her costume! She's going to end up as a game-res model, rigged and animated. While I'm at it I'm also entering her into a competition, because the competition provides an auto-rigger and motion capture, and cloth-sim. I want to rig her face up too... but as it is it's a rather crazy amount of work I'd like to do, I'm just going to do my best and see how far I can get.

    Looking for crit, from anyone, but especially anyone who's got experience with fashion design! :)

    The basis of the idea was that she could fit in the world of Victorian/steampunk-themed game as a playable female character. She'd be seemingly care-free and playful, hedonistic, with, fashion-wise, an obsession with polka dots and lace.

    I imagined an introduction scene where she leaps in out of the air, after having hovered into view Mary Poppins-style on a polka-dot-and-lace umbrella, quickly dispenses of a small group of 'bad guys' with a few bone-crunching raps to the skull, before finishing the last few off with a barrage of bullets firing from the machine-gun tip of the parasol, punctuated by bouts of manic laughter. Finally, after the chaos she'd notice the bullet holes she'd left on the wall... and fire a few more rounds into it to finish off the polka dot pattern.

    I have no idea why the hell she can fight like that though, but I'm not going to ask her.

    None of this is final (and none of this has anything to do with the work I'm actually doing at Luma, just to be clear!). Just a portfolio piece, with a character I think will be lots of fun to create. :D
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  • Ooh nice. Is she french. I dont know anything steampunk but amazed by what I see. Will google it. I think the female form is infinitely fascinating and am glad youre going that route with your main character. Also digging the intro/short story. Any character names
  • Did some reading on steam punk. Interesting subculture, branch of science fiction and fashion couture.
  • She doesn't have a name (yet?). I'm open to suggestions, though it's kind of inconsequential I think.

    Still want to add a hat, a belt buckle type thing, and something at the back to hold stuff together. (I painted in some sewing stuff, but I don't think that works so well. May just go with a flat strap instead.)

    I'd like to add an umbrella too, but maybe that can wait until later as a separate piece.

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    Thanked by 3hanli Tachyon tbulford
  • How about Bow Derek? :P

    As more of a writer, I can't really comment on the appearance very expertly. However, I feel she isn't Steampunk enough? But I think the elements you're thinking of adding will help with that.

    Maybe I'm just too into leather and buckles :P.
  • Haha! :P

    I did struggle with that some. At first I was going to go goggles, cogs and leather... but after going over the design with a fashion design friend, I changed my mind. Instead of using the typical steampunk stuff, I decided instead to make it so that she could conceivably appear in a steampunk world and not feel anachronistic, while picking each item of clothing to reveal more about her character and personality and not because it's typical of a certain style.

    I don't know how successful it really is then in terms of steampunk, but the main goal is to make a well-executed piece of work for my art portfolio, and whether it fits with the original theme is relatively unimportant then. :) I'm open to suggestions though!
  • Pneumaticised legs. Which would go some way to explaining why the dress is open in the front.

    Then the bow could belch steam and smoke too.
    Thanked by 1hanli
  • Ho-hum! That's a pretty sweet idea; and if I just do it to the one leg, it'll break the symmetry some too! I'll do some paintings and test it out. :)
  • Have you ever read any of the Bas-Lag novels by China Mieville? I'd love to see your take on his Remade humans.
  • Its looking phenomenal Jono! The lace and the boots are my best bits. I like the pneumatic leg idea a lot - as Danny says the open dress would make a lot more sense then as more than just a panty shot.
  • @dislekcia: I haven't. I read through a couple of wiki articles, but I'll probably end up borrowing the mechanics for the joints from existing designs, whether it's some Japanese robot or a crane, or something. Hoping to finish the high poly this weekend, because I'm rather behind in the schedule I'd drawn up as it is. :) (I want this done, as well as some fx work + shaders, tools, business cards, before GDC.)

    @hanli: Thanks! I was originally not going to go with the open skirt, and my original design was more conventional, like this:
    image

    After showing that to my ex-fashion design friend (Gareth Pon), he suggested the skirt in the top left image as something that allows the legs to move freely, while also having nice flowing cloth for the cloth simulator* to play with. Maybe if I remove the frills at the bottom of the pants they'll look more like the hot-pants they were supposed to be, and less like knickers?

    (* I need to run a cloth simulator to be eligible for the Mixamo-Houdini competition in which I'm competing.)
  • Yeah nice work man, one thing that's bothering me though is the difference between your sculpt poses. The front pose seems a lot more steampunk while the back is more victorian. That doesn't gel too well for me (but maybe you disagree?). Your concept poses are fantastic though. I'd like to see the sculpt follow that back more: Less floral design, more folds, the bow feels a bit rigid atm.

    How do you start your sculpts. Do you have a plugin which creates basic nudes from settings or are you actively sculping the entire body from scratch?
  • edited
    The cloth is all necessarily rigid right now, unfortunately. When you create your cloth in preparation for a cloth simulation, you want to let the cloth sim do its work, and create the model in a sort of floaty, anti-gravity state. :) (Admittedly, I've actually posed the cloth a lot more than I probably should have. Just, I was fighting Houdini's cloth sim really badly, and decided, screw this crap, I'm just going to go on as if the cloth sim isn't happening... and then they put up some cloth sim video tuts, so I'm back to using the cloth sim again. :P) Both the giant bow and the skirt will experience the wonders of gravity eventually, and not poke out so obnoxiously. :P As for steampunk vs. Victorian, meh. Just using the theme to springboard something cool and fun-to-make, rather than limited by it. :)

    A year or two ago I did a course with Sze Jones (who worked at Blur Studio for about a decade, before heading off to Naughty Dog; she's done the cinematic characters for stuff like SWTOR, Tomb Raider, Jack from ME2, etc.), where I learnt a crapload about redirecting topology, and the thought-process one goes through when solving topological puzzles. I ended up with a very decent base mesh from that course. So I have humanoid base meshes for male and female figures, and sculpt the nude from that. For clothing, depending on how tight it is to the figure, I either extract and edit polygons from the nude base mesh and continue sculpting them, or create new geometry in a modelling app before sending them off to be sculpted too.
  • It really is looking great. The concern with the panty shot is really just nitpicking from my side :)

    I think that maybe extending the pants down to the thigh rather than stopping at the groin/thigh join would also help - just an inch or two. Similarly with the dress front.
  • Looking better and better! I see the reference you referred to for the panty shot design, I wonder how historically correct it is, but who cares. Logically she'd be somewhat of a courtesan type character/costume? If so then it all makes sense.

    I think if the boots went above the knees it'd make the mystique of the section better, I feel like large chunks of skin to be anti-courtesanish, but that's a minor nitpick :)
  • edited
    Thanks guys. :)

    @Tuism: I don't think it's historically correct AT ALL. :P Definitely style over substance/function. But yeah, I don't really care as long as it's somewhat believable. And yeah, I was using some barmaid-courtesan reference as well. The idea is that she's flirty, hedonistic, and a bit of a violent psychotic. :P Kind of like Miss Fortune in League of Legends.

    Over the weekend, I made the pants and skirt a little longer and played with the colours to see if it looked interesting, or whether it felt bare. Then I got depressed over it looking bare and took a break.

    image

    I took some time out to copy some photos instead (i.e. photo open in Google Image Search on the second monitor, and paint from that). Just wanted to get a likeness, and to pick colours that didn't suck. I like how it turned out.

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    Thanked by 2hanli EvanGreenwood
  • Actually I'm totally with you - Historically correct wasn't the right phrase to use - believable was more what I was wanting to say. I like the updates! The "Golden Gap" being narrower is both more classy and more interesting :) Polkadots seems a bit... Jovial :P

    That painting looks awesome, is it the Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones? Looks like her :)
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