Challenge 4 - Day 11

I had another go at ZBrush. I started with the intention of making a girl, but I was failing so I changed it to this.Which is not much of a win in terms of anatomy. I spent time tweaking the shape of the head, looking up references, tweaking some more, but something was always off.
I was taking decisions as I went along, so my workflow wasn't very good for this one once I thought "Hey! Maybe I could texture him too!"
So I exported in .obj the lowest poly one I had, unwrapped, brought him back in ZBrush, redid some details because of the UV mapping (which I did not have before), created normals, went to 3dsMax and applied the textures (which were done in Photoshop) and the normals.
Rendered with SSS and Mental Ray.
I attempted to paint the hair in Photoshop whilst making the preview, but it looked off so he is now hailress. Hihihi.

Challenge 4 - Day 10

My first Z Brush sculpt! Started sculpting on a thin cylinder. I found that thinking about how I would draw this helped in bringing out some shapes, like the lips. They are not great,but they got much better after I started thinking about where the shadows would usually be and the reason why they form at the places they do.
I wanted to work on it more and maybe attempt some texturing as well to get the feel of how it is in Z Brush however I naively saved it in the wrong format..so it is forever lost *sob*
I created a Movie though, from which I was able to take some snapshots so I think it is a sign for me to start from scratch and so something better!

Challenge 4 - Day 9

Challenge 4 - Day 8

A dwarf mechanic. Still in his forge, the fire burning, taking a break before finishing the forgery of the missing pieces of his latest machine. His scars are not ones from battles. They are those of creation, earned from hard work, putting together the pieces one by one. Testing, failing, then testing again. Until one more step is taken towards advanced technology.

Approximate time: 12 hours, over the course of 2 days

I felt the need to draw the portrait of a dwarf. I made a bit of a back story before starting the sketch as I wanted to not simply draw a hairy face, but draw the portrait of the character. I did of a lot of back-story thinking, some of which I did not write down and now regret. Here are some of my main notes:

• Being young (for a dwarf) he has ambitious eyes and a mind that wants to achieve big things, even if going against the traditions of his battle dwarf and gold greedy ancestors (mining for gold and hammering for weapons, not for strange moving things)

• As a mechanic he is someone who follows practicality, so when his hair got too long he would tie it up if not just cut it. The beard tucked into the robe so they don't get in the way.

• Working with metal, fire, machines and greasy parts, his hands would be dirty during work. Scars  from burns and cuts are not elements missing from his arms and body.
• The cigar is part of his break and recollection-of-thoughts time.

Challenge 4 - Day 7

 Ah~ Much better.  Not splashy, but more controlled, it took some time as I worked with layers, sometimes waiting for the paint to dry a little bit so it doesn't spread in unwanted areas. While other times I felt the need to water the whole piece so it does not completely dry.

Here are also some progress shots.

Challenge 4 - Day 6

An attempt to create an interesting splashy watercolour portrait, which ended up in me trying to patch up things that went wrong with the splashing! I used a coloured pencil at the end to intensify some areas.

Challenge 4 - Day 5

This time I tried to identify what pulls and what pushes during various expressions. They are quick drawings, not always correct, but even drawing wireframes over the incorrect ones helped me to identify what went wrong and what I should look out for. It was interesting and fun. And an exercise I should definitely keep on doing!

Challenge 4 - Day 4

Same face from different angles. Started quite but wasn't able to maintain it, hence the frustrated doodles. The teeth are mocking me... I know they are...

Challenge 4 - Day 3

A character that I created myself! Using the angle from Day 2.
It took about 8 hours from sketch to finish (+ 1 hour of me starring at my reference)over the course of to days.

Challenge 4 - Day 2

Challenge 4 - Day 1

Challenge 4 =START=

Challenge 3 - Compilation

And finally, a compilation I prepared aaaages ago!

Challenge 3 - Day 15

Had a go at a darker skin tone for the last one of this challenge.. I tried to play with the reflection of the background on her skin but I am not sure how I feel about this one..

Challenge 3 - Day 14

I have not posted for a while (a quite long while), however I have been working towards my goal!! Which is, of course, to get into practice practice practice to get better at what I love doing.

I tried a more reddish skin tone, with a bit of make-up on the eye ;)