3D Enviornment: Lights and Materials

Messing around with some lights and materials in Maya 2009. The environment is getting there. The entire scene is unwrapped and the layout is complete. TEXTURE TIME!

3D Environment

Two different views of my environment. Still a work in progress. I hope to have it textured very soon.

Trees

The third tree is my favorite, (the tree above). I spent equal amounts of time for each and I started to understand a little bit of how to draw them effectively. Thanks Peter Morhle for the critique and suggestions. Oh yes, there was actually a smile on the tree.

Animation 300 - "The Stapler"

The assignment was to take an inanimate object and give it life. We made reference videos before animating the objects. I have to say this was a very fun project and I did learn a lot more from this on animation just because of the process. Hope you like it and no I would not consider myself even close to professional, YET.

Character Silhouettes - Game Team

First set of silhouettes.



Second set of silhouettes.



Third (really abstract) set of silhouettes.



The final eight. These were chosen to be in the game.

Thumbnail-mania!

Thumbnails that I used during the summer to create my 3D environment which was suppose to be my Junior Project environment, but that fell through due to curriculum changes. Oh well it was fun to do.




I am a strong believer in thumbnails and the process. The above are very rough ideas that I have had lingering in my head for a long time. Some of these are even dreams I've had, so why not thumb them out. I may take some and explore more.

Doodles, you know drawings we do on the side.

Just some drawings I did on the side. It's good to break away from all strict requirements set on us at DigiPen. Nothing great, but I am constantly drawing everyday either it be for assignments/projects or for fun.

Junior Project *rough concept*

The environment you see above took me about 1 week to design and 2 days to model. I am hoping to use this for my Junior Project at DigiPen, but we'll see.

Down time...

Due to work and a lot of personal time, there will be a slow down on the time I spend on posting any art work.

Mui's Revenge

The above video is my CG275 3D final of my character for Character Design. There are still some things that need tweaking and changing, but for now it is what it is.

Bert's hunger

The above video was created in traditional 2D animation. The clip was suppose to represent him looking into a bakery hungry, desiring the food displayed in the bakery. It didn't make it into the final cut, but I am proud of it nonetheless.

Final Character Sheet

Software: Photoshop CS2
Style: Open

The above character sheet is the final character design assignment. The process to get where it is now was more demanding than the previous character sheets. Basically I had to find a unique look by drawing real people at Pike Place Market and then elaborate on a favorite, then create a story line. What I had about 2 to 3 weeks to work on before I only had 1 week for this assignment. Fun, but tough.

Character Design for Junior Projects

The above sketches are from an elaboration of a drawing I did in my sketchbook of an old man at Pikes Place market. Below is the finished render of the old man completed in Photoshop CS2.

The above animation was done using 3DS MAX 2009. This is one of the many animation tests for this character. I need to change some lighting issues and hand animation.

Another Mui Shot

A snap shot, part of the 10 second animation for CG275 Final.

Mui "Anna" Ng in 3D

Software: 3DS Max 2009
Style: Mike Mignola

After doing a little foot work and the great help from Adam Crespi, I was able to produce the character in Mike Mignola's style in 3D. NOW IF I CAN JUST ANIMATE THIS THING!!

Mui "Anna" Ng Motion w/o sash and shirt tails

First successful motion test without the shirt tail and sash. I have to figure out how the shirt tails and sash will be animated. They are rigged, but at this point its the last thing on the list of priorities.

Mui "Anna" Ng Sleeve Resolved

This is a short video of the right sleeve finally doing what I want. Its nice and easy and flows evenly. I almost gave up on it and didn't want to deal with it in the final animation, but persistance paid off. TIME TO ANIMATE!!!!

OH if you are confused about the characters left arm don't worry it will be just like the characters right arm. I didn't want to spend time on trying to fix everything if one thing was creating an issue.

As always, thanks for taking your time in viewing my blog. Hope you visit again.

Final Steed Sheet

Final Cut:

I will have to call this my final. I spent a lot of time on this sheet and not enough time on 3D.

Work in Progress...(update)

Update:
Changes/Additions/Modified -
The background has some chinese characters, and Wing Chun, the horses name.
Added the last drawing bottom middle.
Moved the horses on the top row around.
I still need shadows to get it a little closer to Mike Mignola.

Work in Progress....

Character Design:
Mui "Anna" Ng's steed

Software: Photoshop CS2
Style: Mike Mignola

Status: Work in Progress....
To Do: Add in shadow lines then fill black. Add one more drawing. Figure out what to do with the background.

I have to be honest, horses are freaking difficult to draw. You draw them just slightly wrong and they look weird as all heck. I will post a completed sheet once I am done. Critiques are welcome, and thanks in advance.

Spring Break '09

It's break time. I am working on some side projects and finishing up some assignments, but at the same time I am having fun with friends and family. I'll post what I have been doing either Saturday or Sunday.

Weapons Prop

Turnaround

Action Poses
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The above images are from Character Design. The images, from top to bottom, is the weapon prop design, turnaround character sheet, and character action sheet. To make a long story short, my characters name is Mui "Anna" Ng and she was raised by her grandfather. Along with the other chinese people, who came to the United States to live a better life, ended up building the railroads. Anna's grandfather was murdered and she vowed to find the killer and get revenge. Anna's weapons of choice is both the Chicken Sabre Sickle and the White Wax Staff, as seen above.

Weapons Prop:
Software: Photoshop CS2, Flash 8
Style: Open
I found this to be the most difficult of the three as I am still trying to sharpen my skills in Photoshop.

Character Turnaround:
Software: Photoshop CS2
Style: Mike Mignola
The style was probably the hardest thing to manage when building up to this final render. Most of the studies and drawings we do at Digipen were of at least 4 values minimum, but for this artist you had to visualize a 3D world in a 2D, 2 value style. Once I revisited the "straight line relationships" learned in Advance Life Drawing it became easier. Now it was just the matter of proportions.

Character Action Pose:
Software: Photoshop CS2
Style: Mike Mignola
Pretty much all that I said about the turnaround is true for this final piece. The only thing different is how much easier it became once I understood how to approach it with the tools I used.

Start of a new Art Blog

I started the blogger tonight and figured I would post something.

Something

"There, now get outta here, you're bothering me."