The Curse of the Bride of Dracula...

Larger 5250 x 1500 breakdown image.

...okay, so it's not the most original name, but that's partly the point as I originally wanted this image to hark back to some of the old Hammer vampire films from the 60's and 70's that I love so much.

She is the third in my series of Living Dead Girl characters - I'm planning on making more. When I originally started working on this image (way back) I wanted to create something that had a classic vampire feel to it. Part of it has turned out as I envisioned it and other parts developed more organically during the creation process. There is a lot that could be improved upon but I had to let go at some point otherwise it would never be finished. I'll take what I've learned from this experience, and it's been a lot I must say, and apply that to any future projects.

The final 3000 x 1500 image took around 84 hours to render. I'll possibly create an actual making of sometime in the nearish future, but in the meantime I've created a breakdown (below the finished image).

Until next time...

G

PS. I hope that you all have had a great Christmas and that you all have a fantastic New Year!!

A new stylized character

I'm still working on my Living Dead Girl character - she's about 90% done, but felt like working on something a bit different for a change, so I began work on this stylized character about a week ago in my spare time. I also had a bit of downtime whilst working on 300: Rise Of An Empire at Cinesite so also managed to squeeze in some work on her there. And yes, I'm using Maya.

Most of the base geometry is done with the exception of the figure itself, which is still the low poly base mesh and is thus lacking detail and shape. I still need to add in small details like toe and finger nails and flesh out more of her forms and also give her proper ears. I want to keep her quite simple and not add too much anatomical detail. I've been really inspired by Paranorman and a few other films lately, so felt like doing something a bit more in that vain, though this won't be anywhere nearly as stylized as that.

I'm actually working on 3 characters at the moment; one I mentioned in a previous post (Living Dead Girl 4) which I've put on hold until I finish the 3rd (Living Dead Girl) and this character. I want both characters done for when I launch my new website.

More to come...

G

A small update

If you right-click on the image and select open image in new tab/window it should open a larger 1600px version.

It's been a while since I've updated my blog - I've been quite busy with freelance work over the past months, so I haven't had too much time to work on my personal work. Fortunately, I've had a bit of time over the past month or so to do some work on my Living Dead Girl (number 3). It's mostly involved redoing the hair for her (which I'm still working on). I've also been able to render it properly with VRay since Hair-Farm now seems to fully support it. I've redone the cloth as well as textured it properly now.

I'm quite happy with the way she's turning out. The lighting is still very much a work in progress (though I do like the direction it's taking); along with quite a few other things that I'll touch up once I start putting the scene together - I'll hopefully start modelling an environment for her this coming week.

More to come...

G

More cloth...

Nothing too new - one with lace trimmings and one without. Mostly just some adjustments to the placement of the cloth - mostly how it covers the breasts more now. Though I'm not so happy about the way the cloth interacts with the nipples (it's more visible in the version without the lace). So I'll probably adjust that a bit.

It's still using a basic shader with a few tweaks which looks better than the shader from my previous post. The lace is also pretty flat at the moment as it has no bump applied. I'll still be playing with the shaders later on. There are still no textures aside from the lace and a rough bump material for over all coverage. This will change once I've sorted out the UV's etc.

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Dressing her up...

I wasn't going to post this because the robe/cloth is still a very early work in progress, but I thought that I need to post something.

Anyway, just a quick render of where this character is heading; sans hair (I'll probably end up redoing more of the hair (that I posted earlier) than I intended as my idea or using morph targets with Hair-Farm didn't quite go as planned unfortunately).

The cloth still needs a lot of work:
- The way it's draped needs some attention as well as I want less of her breasts exposed
- I still need to add in seams, etc.
- The shader is also very temporary and there isn't a texture yet so that'll need addressing soon. I'll probably be adding lace trimming and some other delicate stuff.

I like where the lighting is heading as well - obviously it's just a quick test (her right eye looks rather weird at the moment). I still need to start working on the environment (here I come Maya). I've also created a small accessory for her, but will add that in at a later stage.

All that and some extra gooeyness...

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Posing

It's all been going a bit too slow as I've been stuck in a bit of a rut and have also been a bit lazy. Anyway.... I've finished the ZSphere posing and now I'm cleaning up the pose deformation and getting the muscle definition sorted out to match the pose. I've just started on her upper torso. Once that cleaning up is done, it's on to the expression. Shouldn't take too much time to get that all done then I can start setting up the final scene. I've also been testing some VRay shaders, but more on that later.

I'm also about halfway with the clothing. I'll post some updates on that soon.

G

Rigging and Posing with ZSpheres.

I've really been been enjoying the freedom and ease that ZBrush's ZSpeheres offer for rigging and posing. I always used to have to painstakingly set up the skinning and posing using Max's biped and Character Studio, which would take ages to do and never really gave me great results (probably because I'm not a character rigger).

I find this works so much more easily and not to mention quickly for what I need. It took roughly 10-15 minutes to create this rig, and the best part is that it skins the character on the fly. It works incredibly well; even really hard areas to rig and manipulate like the shoulder areas are no problem - the arms rotate upwards and the mesh deforms with no problem.

There are still a few areas to pose and tweak: the hands and fingers haven't been touched yet and I might still tweak a few other areas. Once the ZSphere posing is done, I'll do a bit of clean-up sculpting to areas where the muscles have deformed and shifted and then also give the her an expression of some kind.

G

She's hairy...

I started working on the hair a couple of weeks ago. I decided to splash out and buy Hair farm which I'm really happy with. The only real downside for me at the moment is that it doesn't fully support V-Ray (yet).  You can still render the hair with V-Ray but you need to use Max's default lights for the hair to render correctly. These images were rendered using a combination of Max's omni light's and V-Ray lights.

I'm pretty happy with the results so far. It's taken a reasonable amount of experimentation with modelling the hair to get the results that I want, but now that I (think I) know what's going on it should be pretty straight forward for any other hair that I do.

This is by no means the final hair as I'll have to change it to accommodate the final posed figure and garments. I'll quite possibly be changing the colour of the hair as well as tweaking the final hair shaders.

(These images are also a week or two old.)

More to come...

G

More render tests...

I posted these to my deviantArt account a few days ago -  thought I should share them here as well.

Another one of many test renders that I've been doing (I'm enjoying V-Ray). The image on the right is rendered with GI and 2 lights (+ one for the eye highlight). The one on the left is the same but with no GI. Neither are using V-Ray Environment.

I'm mostly done with the sculpting (still might tweak one or two things here and there) and texturing - the bump map still has one or two areas that are inverted (the eyebrows which will be removed when I do the grooming and one or two moles, etc.).

I should be starting the hair and clothing for her soon, meaning that she'll actually start to look like a character.

G

Render tests...

I started testing out VRay for the fist time in ages. Okay I lie, I tested  it on a earlier version of this model months back and she's changed a lot since then. It was quite a basic quick test only using a diffuse map and no SSS. But honestly, the last time I used VRay was back when it was free and still in Beta testing.

These are a few of the latest renders I've been testing. The first two in the row of four have GI enabled whilst the last don't, thus their more waxy quality.

This full figure one is the last one that I've done today. The shading is by no means finished, but I'm still really happy with these results. There's still a lot to do to her, mostly:

- Finish sculpting and cleaning up her anatomy;

- Add asymmetrical anatomical detail; 

- Her texturing (diffuse) is about 95% done - finish a few things here and there;

- Update and tweak secondary maps (glossiness, bump, etc.);

- Add hair (her eyebrows are only textured in at the moment but I'll be grooming those with a proper hair system as well);

- Pose her;

- Clothe her;

- Create environment;

- Render, render... and render...

More to come...

G

Some new character stuff...

I have just finished a couple of months freelance work on some characters for a game trailer cinematic, so now I'm officially back to some of my own work for a bit.

This is what I started working on a while before I started the above mentioned work. Nothing too exciting, just a standard base nude figure for a character I'm working on (more on her at a later date). The nice thing about doing this base figure is, I can use her for multiple characters just by making a few model changes and texture tweaks, which will allow me to focus on the character. She's not going to be a real-time character either.

(edit: I have just realised that this base mesh was derived from an older model made a couple of years back that was never finished.  I've essentially adjusted a lot of the anatomy and proportions - I think I've also added in some extra topological detail as well. Looking back at that old one it's really quite bad and I think this one is quite an improvement over that... hopefully...)


The texture work is about 98% done - just a few small touch-ups here and there. At the moment I've got one 8K (8192x8192) texture for the skin and one 4K (4096x4096) texture for the eyes. I've left her eyebrows in for now as a guide for when I get to do the grooming of the hair later on.

As far as the sculpting goes, I'm only 3 subdivisions in as I'm still just fleshing out the shapes of the muscles and proportions, etc. She'll most likely be a lot less toned than she is now, so I'll be smoothing those muscles down a bit when I move on to higher subdivisions.

Hopefully I'll have more updates on the actual character soon...

G

Playing with Marmoset...

I've decided that I'm most likely going to render her in Marmoset from 8monkey Labs. I'm quite happy with the results so far - still busy tweaking secondary textures (specular, etc.) and shaders and lighting. I'm also busy posing her and thinking of a way to actually present her for the final beauty shots.
.
She should hopefully be done soon... and then on to some new work... finally >__<

G

More drawing...

Another drawing from last weekend, I changed the hair today as she originally had a messy bob.

In other news: I'm busy baking the textures for my Punk Girl onto one large texture sheet and getting ready to play with some shaders for lighting.

More to follow...

G

Living Dead Girl Concept

A quick concept I did for a possible 3D character I'm hoping to start in the process of completing my Punk Girl (yes I know she's been dragged out forever). She's loosely based on a girl I saw standing next to me on the subway.

I used Jan Ditlev Christensen's pencil brushes for Photoshop which you can grab from  CGHub - thanks to my bud Serge Birault for the tip. These brushes are great and I'm hoping to do more with them.

Let's hope I can get rid of this cold now :(

G

Painting nudes...

It's been a while I know, between sorting out some tattoos for my Punk Girl and planning multiple new 3D characters, I've been getting back into some Photoshop painting again. I want to try get quite a few of these "quick" studies done. I really enjoy doing these and they do go reasonably quick... well quick in comparison to a 3D character of mine that is. Not sure if I'll add them to Unearthedart or not.

I used a photo as ref for this one. Just as a base for the main figure, expression, etc.

G

edit: I fixed up her right breast as the nipple was bothering me.

Girl Bust 01 finished

I'm finally calling her finished... There are areas (especially the hair) that could still be worked on, but this was meant to be a quick sculpt of about 5-6 hours which became a bit more than that... so, time to move on.

Oh yeah... the headphones are loosely based on the Panasonic Retro Style Monitor Headphones.

I have a couple of ideas for my next bust...

G

Female base head close-up and tweaks....

I just thought that I would post a close up view of the head. I made a few tweaks to the shape of the head and face.

More to come later.

G

Anatomy tweaking

I've been working on all three of my current projects at the moment: Girl Bust, Punk Girl, and this my Female Base model. Nothing much to see here really, just some minor anatomy tweaks (again) before I move on to the next sub-div level (still on 3). I've scaled up her head a bit, along with a few other adjustments.

I'll post updates on the others over the weekend I think...

'til then.

G

Girl Bust 01 and some hair.

This has taken me an hour or two longer than I initially intended, but I think it's been worth the extra time. I've Mostly just been experimenting - trying to loosen up and get a more natural quality to my sculpts.

Anyway, I think she is mostly done. Just the hair now... I've blocked in some rough shapes so far. Not sure I'll stick to this hairstyle though...

G

Girl Bust 01 B

Some progress... I think I've spent a few hours on her now. I should have done more in that time as I tend to get bogged town tweaking silly things instead of moving on and leaving the tweaking until the end. Anyway... I have also sculpted some hair for her, but will post that once I've made her asymmetrical and possibly re-posed her.

I've also noticed that the shape of head/face has changed quite a bit since the last image... I think for the better as well ;)

G