Zbrushing ‘n people sketching: Getting out of the comfort zone

Excellent new year to everyone! After taking a long deserved holiday, I am back to learning new techniques and pushing personal boundaries -mine and others; Me and another girl decided to invade a coffee house today, and practice our drawing skills on the other customers. It might be a bit naughty thing to do, but we try to be discreet. We are meeting later today. I feel excited already, as I tend to be somewhat shy and avoid conflicts. But this will definitely be good for me, in matters of learning and in matters of courage -and if I get caught, I can always offer to draw a portrait as compensation? (and then run fast if the other person doesn’t find it funny!)

As I felt it would make a great combo, I started picking up Zbrush simultaneously with drawing. Previously being a Mudbox user, the UI in Zbrush is a labyrinth of madness and pure horror. If it came just to UI, I wouldn’t leave Mudbox, but raw firepower of options and variability is really a much better reason to base a choice to, and that Zbrush has covered. I am still watching tutorials and trying to progress one area at the time, making sure I understand what I’m seeing and am able to repeat the commands. Sometimes the UI causes random screams like “what the hell, why is that there” and “who would….why….” and “that doesn’t….It can’t…..” but it won’t get the better of me. All those horrible UI design failures will not scare me away.

So the wintery sun is shining, cat is being lazy, and creativity and excitement are flowing. There is a good chance I’ll be posting some of my anatomy rehearsals from Zbrush in the near future. All in all everything is going steady, and I am soon moving into actual sculpting and producing few prototypes before engaging into long term projects. I plan to gain a deep level of understanding of this program and really weld it a sturdy part of my arsenal of tools.

The wonderful grand’ma project: completion of the grand’ma

So, here you have folks: One wholesome grand’ma. Fully textured and rigged, good to go for Unity, for even complicated animations. The rig has been done using rigify and automatic weights, which calculated absolutely everything horribly wrong and had to be tweaked manually from scratch. I guess there are no people outside size 2 even in the virtual world? Never the less, I am  happy how this character turned out. The rig was challenging because of the body shape deviating so much from the “norm”, but now the movement is quite natural. Her face is using shape keys, which didn’t put up nearly as much a fight as the rig did, but took long because I had too much fun making them! I am taking a short break now before starting the next model in the series (the grumpy huge cat), looking back and being a little proud of myself. (You can check my Marmoset Toolbag 2 renderings of her at my gallery portion.) Whew, what a grand’ma!

The wonderful grand’ma: rigged and textured
by faeriel
on Sketchfab

The wandering grand’ma: stage2

This eldredly lady has now her highpolys in order. A throughout normal mapping  is soon to follow.

The wandering grand'ma stage2
by faeriel
on Sketchfab

Thoughts about launching a sister portfolio focused on realtime graphics

As I have had time to consider my interests in 3D thoroughly, it really seems without a doubt, that the interest for the world of gaming burns the brightest. A seasoned collegue pointed out a while ago, that it is problematic for me, that as is, my pieces of real time graphics don’t stand out from this portfolio as much as they should. I do have a powerful filter tool on this site, but now that I look at it with the eyes of a recruiter specialized on a certain spesific field, that really might be too time consuming way to preview my works.

The more I have have thought about this comment, the more I think this calls for a change, as I do want to emphasize my interest for the art of real time. First I was unsure if two separate portfolios would seem too bizarre and confusing, but I think as long a clear statement is made why this is so, I am at least willing to try and see if this works out. Also, I do not wish to take down every other non-game related piece, as I have a long history of being a good all-arounder who picks up new things fast, and I can’t see that being a negative characteristic.

So I will be doing some sketching how this should be carried out and hope to get this up and running in the near future. I am thinking of going with something really a lot more simplistics than this layout, but still somehow keep the sites as siblings.

The wandering grand’ma: early stage model

What’s up!

The high-fiving grandma is in the house!  So I am experimenting with Sketchfab, and so far I adore it.  So the basic shapes are done for my elderly lady figurine, and I am moving onto details now. Check me again soon!

the high five grandma
by faeriel
on Sketchfab

New project: the “upper grandma'”

“Ylämummo” is a weird finnish ice hockey slang word, which means a goal shot in the upper corner of the net from a very unlikely source and suddenly. Besides this term, my knowledge of ice hockey is nothing to brag about.  “Ylämummo” would also directly translate into “the upper grandma,” which is the larger part of my little linguistic joke here!

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Ylämummo quick sketchings

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I’ll be modelling an old comic-like lady with a huge cat, which she is walking….or is it the other way around? A while back when still studying, I came up with this design for an animation project, but never used it. The old lady is bit ignorant about her safety, so the cat lifts, throws and catches her when needed. I have decided the duo would function much better in the gaming environment, rather than as an animation, so they will be modelled as low-poly and with real-time optimized approach. I’ll try to update my skills and do my renders in marmoset toolbag2, which I have been secretly practising lately. Maybe I’ll try sketchfab too for comparison.

Critique of the goldfish rider; Second render coming right up!

After Assembly 2014 and the competition I made my newest graphic piece for, I was completely exhausted and didn’t think I would touch that piece anymore…But then I remembered that I am a perfectionist and can’t just let a mistake be in an image. The work also received heartwarming feedback, which also gave an energy boost to have at it one more time. So, in few days, which half of it will be spent by my gruesomely slow computer trying to render and spit the image out and not to die in the process, I can present a second render. There have  been various brialliant ideas flying around by friends and strangers alike, which have been heard out and put to use.  Check me up in few days!

Assembly 2014- afterthoughts

So Assembly 2014  is over….. This year was exciting for me, as I decided to build up courage and stamina to enter the graphics competition. I had started around late june a promising sculpting project, which I then had a good idea for, how to expand it. I decided quite early to have a humorous approach with my entry, so I made the diver riding the goldfish chubby and his equipment far from modern.

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Hmm….how would it look if someone rode this fella?

I’mma catch myself a goldfish and ride that silly thing!

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Was it a smooth road then? Well, the amount of work was staggering for the time I had. I was hellbent on getting this done on time, and I did. For everyone wanting to lose weight I do recommend trying a large 3D project with severe deadlines, picking up new techniques on the fly and rendering your work with a terribly slow old laptop….I guarantee it keeps the adrenaline flowing and you forget quickly eating or sleeping is a necessity…

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5 am on the day of the deadline and ready to render!

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Alas, my piece did not make it, with a 0.25 points margin to the qualification limit. I was pretty struck by this. I admit my work has its errors, for example the main item (goldfish and the rider), were not really meant for horizontal presentation and when the rules required for it, it left the work with a lot of empty space, which had no proper use (or time to come up with any) and the main item being extremely far and small in the final image. Oh well. You can check the other entries here. I will definitely try again next year and be one year smarter on how to divide the time between different working phases! Also, I will definitely read the instructions before starting to work, not one day before rendering…!

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The final image

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All in all the fair was a fun event. I did participate on the shadow event too (Boozembly) and had cool conversations with other graphic artists. Thank you everybody, please be there next year too!

Bachelor of Arts

That amount of paper work….brr. The university bureaucracy sure took it´s tedious toll on my psyche, but I am proud to announce having lived through it. Also probably having called my degree by multiple names because of uncertainty how it should translate (Humanististen tieteiden kandidaatti), I would like to correct myself and announce now being a fresh Bachelor of Arts. I have also officially announced the university that I relinquish my right for the master phase of studies. Although carefully considered and a willing decision, still a wistful moment.

-But I can’t express the relief this graduation has brought me. I will be able to move on to a new phase of life without that annoying feeling, that I left a half solved puzzle behind, which must be one of the worst sensations for a lifetime videogamer! Also as my final thesis passed with the best possible grade, my inner child feels very tempted to shout “Oh yiss, a high score!”

The official graduation ceremony is 10.6, which is relatively close to my birthday. Thank you, University of Helsinki, old friend; It´ll be the loveliest of presents.