Outlaw Creations

More Monster Republic!

2012-02-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

At this point, all the concept sketches for my client are done.

All I have to do now is turning them into pieces of finished artwork... I'm almost there, just a little longer... here's a preview:

Monster Republic concepts

2012-01-15T09:01:00.000-08:00

Since I finally got my computer back, I can start to polish off the concept sketches for Monster Republic. The refining of those sketches is a necessary step to transform rough ideas into finished illustrations.

The image above shows the result of playing around with different possibilities to render an artificial head/skull and how it would fit beneath the (synthetic?) skin. The first image, the sideway rendition, is a concept of a bionic skull which also incorporates features that would not be normally part of a skull, such as the muscles and the tendons of the neck (hydraulics and cables), artificial gums (polycarbonate perspex), optical sensors and the hearing apparatus (in the form of micro cameras and mic receivers). The rendition from the front instead is simple variation on the previous image where I decided to change things a little bit, although I still incorporated an eye for pure graphic purposes (it looked empty without). A particular I had to keep in mind was to maintain the skull expression-less, which per se wasn't a big challenge, but somehow I had to fight the temptation of making it look 'evil'... I guess the influence of 'The Terminator' is a difficult one to ignore when drawing up artificial skulls, but I still managed to get the desired result.

Fiction Vs Reality

2012-01-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

For my client project, I'm working on some concept art and a short animation inspired by the Monster Republic novel.

The project requires a certain understanding of anatomy (its ok, is not my first rodeo when it comes down to drawing bodies) but also bionics which per se, it's nothing I've never done before, although after reading the novel I realised that to fit this concept, this time around the bionic elements should be less 'over the top/bigger than you sci-fi' inspired and a little closer to what is going on in the field of medical bio-engineering and artificial prosthetics.

Basically, my goal is to make things look good but functional at the same time. For inspiration, I decided to look both ways, reality and fiction... I've put together a little collage of some of the images I'm using as reference... Talking of having two Damocle's swords hanging above my head instead of just one...

I think it's pretty interesting to see how the fiction involves a certain amount of 'cool' factor while the brutal reality reminds us all that, sadly, there's nothing cool about needing an artificial limb. This is something I got to keep in mind while working on the Monster Republic concepts. Maintain a balance between aesthetics and grim reality.

Texturing a Mudbox Mesh Tutorial pt.2

2011-10-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

This time around, things were done a little differently. Although the principles of the previous example were still applyed to this character, I've also experimented with actual textures. Considering that the skater model, unlike the luchador, is made up by various meshes (helmet, top, shorts), most of which have a fabric look to them, I simply used actual photos. Same for small elements on the actual skater like pads, gloves and shoes. In my case, I could take actual pictures myself, but goes without saying that you can 'borrow' off the net as much as you need. You'll end up stretching and cutting enough of it to make it yours in the end. (Fig.1&2).

Adding tattoos was another way to cover the areas where the mesh shoulders meets the neck and the chest. Mind you, to make tattoos look good around this areas takes a bit of time exactly like smudging the colours as shown on the luchador tutorial, so it's not a way to cut corners... you've been warned. (Fig. 3,4&5).

Texturing a Mudbox Mesh Tutorial

2011-10-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

This past week I've been diving right into the client project. Is going to be a video aimed to sollicit NTU Alumni that graduated in multimedia (Virtual Environments, to be specific) to donate to the Alumni Fund, so that future talents will have a chance to apply for bursaries, graduate and get a job in the industry. The video will include some animations, and the first character I've been working on to be included in the project is a Luchador (mexican wrestler). During the modelling and texturing process, I came up with the idea of saving screenshots of the work in progress, to show what I did and how. It's basically a tutorial on how to create textures in Photoshop that show some 'depth' (shadows and highlights) even before the model is imported in 3Ds Max and placed under a light of some sort. It will hopefully be helpful to people that are looking for an alternative to flat textures and, of course, the principle can be applied to a model created in any other 3D application (Max, Z-Brush, etc.). Enjoy.

I simply picked the standard Mudbox Human mesh, buffed it up a little bit in Mudbox (the basic human male mesh is slim and athletic but not 'beefy' enough to look like an in ring competitor) and proceeded to paint different areas of the body in different colours to represent the various (all skintight) items of clothing. I also used darker colours to trace guidelines of where the shadows will be. This stage doesn't have to be long and laborious. The painting in Mudbox should be just accurate enough to give an idea of 'what's what?' when working in Photoshop. The result is shown below.

While working on the texture in Photoshop, I suggest you to import the model in 3DsMax and apply the texture you painted in Mudbox. This is because every time you make a change on the texture in Photoshop, and as long as you save the texture with the same name, the model in Max will show you the changes in real time. (Fig. 1)

At this point, go nuts... if you can skin a cat in various ways, the same principle can be applied to paint a wrestler. If you are comfortable with the airbrush tool, use that. If you rather use a soft custom brush, go ahead. Personally, for realistic purposes I use one tone per colour, then I use the 'dodge' and 'burn' tools to create the highlights and the shadows. Keeping an eye on the 'range' and 'exposure' controls also allow you to get exactly the desired effect.

Whatever painting method you go for, if the texture is simmetric like in this case, I strongly suggest you to work on only half of it, then later duplicate it and flip it over (working hard is commendable but working smart is better...). Also, pay extra attention to the areas where the texture join in with other areas... this is usually where the 'smudge' tool come in very handy. Keep saving your progress and check the model in 3DsMax until you are fully satisfied. (Fig. 2&3).

The examples shown on Fig. 2&3 kept me busy for a good while. Don't cut corners! It can be frustrating at times, but do yourself a favour, keep 'smudging' away until the various joining areas look uniform and smooth. A simple base colour plus the shadow (achieved, in my case, with the burn tool) is all you need to get basics right. Once satisfied with that, you can start applying the highlights (again, in my case, achieved with the dodge tool, Fig. 4).

The above part is the most laborious but once you get it right, you'll feel pretty good about it. Keep doing the same for the remaining areas (arm, hand, pelvis, legs, etc.) and keep an eye on the hue. You don't want to end up with areas with a darker tone of shadows (or brighter highlights for that matter) than others, unless there's a good reason for it! (Fig. 5).

Once you are totally satisfied with the look of your model and feel that both shadows and hilights couldn't get any better, it's time for the 'one offs'. In this case, I'm talking about asimmetrical details like the wrestler's name on the belt and the mexican flag on his boots. Check those details accurately. I almost made the mistake to have an inverted flag on the right boot that read 'ocixeM'... (Fig. 6).

Now it's the moment of truth... duplicate the Photoshop layer you've been working on, flip it orizontally and match it in the middle with your previous layer. Save it and take a look at your model in 3DsMax... Do you like it? Was it worth it? I hope so. In my case, I got exactly what I was looking for. A model with depth on the texture, even without any light shining on it. (Fig. 7).

Final Project DP3 Rational

2011-05-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

This time the animation required as the final project had to be a re-interpretation of an existing script. We were given three possible scripts chosen by the module leader to pick from, or we could’ve chosen our own. I went for the latter option.

I decided to re-interpret a story taken from a Marvel comic from the late 70s. It’s about the death of Gwen Stacey, Peter Parker’s (Spiderman) first girlfriend, by the hand of the Green Goblin. If you’ve seen the first Spiderman movie (first of the new millennium, NOT the 70s trilogy of movies, a true abomination…) you probably remember the scene where Mary Jane is thrown into the emptiness by her captor, the Green Goblin, only to be saved by Spiderman’s web-slinging skills. All good, people cheered. But in the comic book things went a little differently: It was Gwen, not MJ to be captured by the Goblin, and most importantly, she doesn’t survive the fall. Spiderman did manage to catch her in time, but sadly the whiplash snaps her neck.

So, this was going to be the core scene of my animation, but what about the re-interpretation part? I simply thought: If the original story is about a man with spider like powers, why not twisting the subject the other way around? Why not making it about a spider with human sensibility? So off I went…

The whole story is set in a kid’s bedroom. A brother and sister bedroom, which gave me the opportunity to fill it with whatever props and toys I would’ve found useful for the animation. To ease the characters into the story, I started from the typical boy-meet-girl situation. Considering the average size of a bedroom that supposed to accommodate two young kids (and their stuff), that’s a large environment from a spider’s perspective.

Both spiders are in fact virtually free to roam around the room and entertain themselves with whatever they find lying around. They can use a plant pot as a park, they can use toys from a farm set to pretend they are at a petting zoo: they can ride a wind up scooter on a bunch of comic books scattered around the floor like on a speed track, using other toys as obstacles. An I-Pod provides the background music to all these shenanigans.

In particular, a Hot-Wheels type bridge set and a bunch of Lego models and bricks turned out to be very useful for two key moments of the animation. I also scattered a few Spiderman and Marvel clues around: Comic books, action figures, blankets and pillow covers for the boy’s bed… I almost forgot: The Green Goblin! What could I use to represent the Green Goblin on an insect scale? It obviously has to fly… but not a fly, too small. Not a bee, too yellow. Not a butterfly, too pretty (or so they say)… a dragonfly? They certainly have a certain mystique about them.

Before starting to model an animate I had to consider the storyboard and how to fit the various scenes together (and in what order). Unlike the project on our previous term, this time I kept the storyboard pretty open to last minute changes (I learned from my mistakes).

Overall, the most important thing I learned while working on this animation is this: Never, ever again I’m going to use the ‘hair and fur’ effect of 3Ds Max unless I’m working on an industry standard machine. It takes too long to render frames that would’ve taken much less time. You could almost grow a real beard while you wait…

P.S. You can check the video out on my site, just click on the above link and go to the 'Animation' section.

LEGO modelling

2011-04-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

Evening ladies and gents.
These are some pics of a LEGO set that will be included in my DP3 animation... I had so much fun with it that if I could go back in time (not much, just four months...) I'd set the whole animation in LEGOLAND! (aside from choosing the appropriate lottery number combo...)

Along came a spider... and a dragonfly!

2011-04-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks!
The past spring break wasn't all about fun'n'games for yours truly (with the exception of attending a friend's stag do on friday). Between finishing the room where my animation will take place, sculpting more props and toys to make it look like there are kids actually living there and sculpting and rigging the models, I've been pretty busy indeed... in particular, because I wasn't too keen on the look of my spider.

After a surgery a few weeks ago with our module leader (Andy, a good sport...;-) who kindly showed me how to sculpt a spider from scratch, I went home and started my own in similar fashion...

However, I soon realised that this wasn't going to do it for me, and that was for two reasons:

1) As much as I tried to work on the proportions and various other details, the spider still looked unmistakinly 'Andy'. If you check his blog and see his digital sculpting, you'll know what I mean.

2) Because of reason N.1, the model didn't fit the scene a bit... If you look at the work in progress of the room a couple of posts below, you'll notice that the proportions and the general look is pretty realistic.

In such an environment, the above model would've looked more like one of the toys instead of the main character, unless I completely re-design the room to fit the style of the spider (something like the house that Snow White shared with the dwarves in the Disney film, or maybe like those mushroom architectures where the Smurfs lived in...) and I certainly don't have time for that, not at this point!

Plus, this is an animation project, and the animation part is what I have to concentrate on as much as possible because even if I consider the concept art side to be my stronger suit, we are going to be marked on the quality of the animation, not the concept behind it!

The new spider however, whilst maintining some cartoony details like the glasses and the goggley eyes, looks more like a real spider (expecially from a distance!) and fits the environment much better.

Also, I finished sculpting and rigging the dragonfly that's going to wreck havok in the animation... I may decide to add some transparency to the wings... I don't know yet, we'll see...

The Art Of Seeing... plus rant!

2011-03-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna keep this short and sweet 'cause I'm bitter enough.

We were asked to upload a bunch of textures on Flickr for a visualisation project called 'The Art of Seeing'... Fair enough... a good 3D environment without good texturing isn't going to impress anybody, so I certainly see the point in collecting as many different textures as we can (and considering my past as graphic designer, my collection over the years took a good while to be uploaded...) until this happened:

So, basically I wasted almost four hours to upload 15 folders (903 textures in total)

Just to find out that only the last 200 of them to be uploaded will be available to view... unless I spend £47... which considering I already have a website, whoever at Flickr came up with this idea, can seriously go and get Flickr'd! Rant over...

P.S. To Roma: If you want to check what's available on my Flickr account, here's the link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ur77textures/sets/. Personally I'd rather burn you a disk with my whole collection 'cause what you'll see on Flickr is less than the tip of the proverbial iceberg (4 sets out of 15... go figure!)

DP3 - Room

2011-03-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

These pics shows the room where my next animation (due in may) will be set.
There are still a bunch of 'props' that I got to add, basically more toys (a lego set, a dolls house, a hotwheels type road+bridge track...) also, I'll find the time to do the webbing on the spidey action figure (I promise!).
As you can guess by the pics, this is a room shared by two kids (bro&sis) aged about 9-10 and 12-13... No prizes for guessing which posters, bed and desk belong to whom...

"Of Bots and Bananas" 500 words rational

2010-12-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

There were a few challenges we had to face for this project. Unlike our last 3D work (previous term) where all we had to do was having a camera fly through various rooms, this time around things got pretty interesting indeed: not only we had to create a proper animation, but we also had to tell a story… and a funny one too.

At the beginning of this term we were introduced to slapstick comedy, we were shown examples of it and we were also explained what’s slapstick and what’s not. The basic gist of it is this: No room for subtlety. No verbal witty jokes, just physicality!

But that’s not all… in my humble opinion a good gag can only work if the subject (or victim) really fits in with the storytelling. Considering that I’m aiming to be a concept artist, this was a very important aspect to me. Is it funny to see a nerd slipping on a banana skin? Sure, why not… But I believe is even funnier when is a well suited gent that gets a facefull of dirt. That’s where I started, by the character. I called him Von Kakkienberg…

He’s an engineer, an inventor but also a bit of a fop and a bit of a warmonger. I wanted the environment where he creates his machines to look serious and grand. I thought that a steampunk inspired factory/lab would’ve been the perfect place to set the gag. I wanted the environment to look like the setting for a serious/dramatic animation, not a slapstick comedy. I believe the best way to achieve that was to add a few details like an elaborate floor tiling, a golden plaque on a wall, a couple of banners with his family insignia hanging from a balcony finely decorated with gold and wood, marble columns at the sides of the massive entrance door, expensive looking wooden desk where he sketches his ideas… The Devil’s in the details, right?

But I also realised that I had to compromise something. My initial sketches of the steam engine walker he’s piloting in the gag looked a little too serious. A little too ‘cool’ even. I wanted to create something that, although mounted with cannons and very dangerous, would’ve make people smile as soon as they saw it. So I ditched the spider-like crawlers of my initial sketches and chose something a little less dramatic… like a chicken! That was perfect in my opinion. Even before the gag reaches its conclusion, the guy’s already a laughing stock to the viewers. Like a guitar amp sporting dial knobs that go all the way up to eleven, only the person who’s dumb enough to come out with such an idea can see its usefulness… no one else can, no one else should!

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the final result. Given more time I wished I could’ve shown more of Von Kakkienberg than just the head sticking from the machine. Maybe having him climb up the walker before revving up the engine or maybe jump down onto it from the balcony!

2010-10-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome back!

After a lazy summer spent scratching my a** I'm ready to start my 2nd year at NTU... Well, it wasn't all about lazyness: I'm currently designing some background graphics for my website, which will be hosted by WIX (It'll carry the same name as this blog, Outlaw Creations) and it'll have a vague steampunk vibe.

I've also kept my 3D skills up to scratch with some 3DsMax and Z-Brush, just to brush off the 'summer rust'. You can see the result below. Enjoy!

500 Words ‘Why&How’. DP2 – Virtual Environments

2010-05-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Virtual Environments project was a great challenge. The task was simple enough yet allowing a great deal of freedom. We simply had to create a ‘Secret Lair’. We had to choose a superhero/heroes or a super villain’s, however at a closer inspection of the brief given, the allowed influences were various and loose… pretty much anything could’ve been used as an influence! That meant that I was able to let the imagination go while considering how make the four areas required for the project consistent with the vibe of the scene/s.

I decided to create my own set of heroes and villains (The TriStar Team Vs. The Legion Of Doom. I posted about them few weeks back) … and then decided to create the secret lair for T.L.O.D.

The way the lair had to be shown was through an animated movie file… which gave me the idea, why not making it like a video-dossier addressed to one of the two groups? There were also a couple of Z-Brush models I was having fun with, and I wanted to include them in the scenes… And the inclusion of these characters were a source of inspiration for what kind of environment would they fit in. Consistency is the key word while creating something. If you are re-creating (copying sounds awful) the environment of a well known character, somebody else’s IP, the technical details are probably more important (because it is through the details that you achieve consistency in this case), but by making my own set of characters, I just needed to make consistency my business card.

The general style used for the 3D design aspect of the lair, was to be gloomy… almost morbid at times. Even in the more sophisticated areas like the laboratory and the experiment chamber, the colour palette chosen is dull, although some reflective surfaces were used ‘here and there’ simply to increase and amplify the austerity of the surroundings. An appropriate use of the lighting was also considered to create the right vibe… if I had to give an example of this, I’d choose a particular scene where the camera cut from the lab to pass to the arena, and it does it across a corridor where two of the rarely used spotlights were illuminating the only doors… the darkness surrounding the path send a grim message about the prospect of being conducted to the arena.

Although the dossier starts by addressing the group, and shows stills that vary from real life pictures to artist impressions, consistency was the reason that prevented me from including ‘everything’. The sketches of the two super-teams were not included in the final piece for two simple reasons. The breaks in the animation when text appears to explain the previous scene or the presentation of the next scene, had to be kept to a minimum. Otherwise I would’ve risked of taking the attention away from the 3D design focus of the piece. The second reason is that these sketches are so bold and colourful that their style simply didn’t belong in the animation. I also didn’t include the pencil sketches for the creatures and the lair design… they were redundant. (I included some of this work as part of my visual essay, however).

2010-05-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

Above you can see details from the other two rooms we have to do for our 3DsMax 'Secret Lair' project.
The first one is a bog-standard laboratory where the captured prisoner's vital signs are monitored whilst injected with a 'super-soldier' type of serum. The second area present a sturdy and rusty structure, affectionately (!?) named the 'Elimination Chamber', where the prisoners are forced to fight each others for their lives... and to entertain their cruel captors... as usual, very lighthearted stuff...

2010-04-15T13:25:00.001-07:00

This are 2 of the 4 rooms we are required to do for the 'Virtual Enviroment' project. The first one is the cave through wich you can access the higher levels of the lair. The second one is a top view of the experiment chamber, were the poor prisoners (see few post below about the Z-Brush prisoner) of this team of supervillains are incarcerated and turned into Wrestlemania contenders... I have the 'camera fly-through' animation for this two rooms as well but I want to show it to you only once I've completed the other 2 rooms... be patient and you'll be rewarded... (plus I got to leave you begging for more, right?)

2010-01-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

Last tuesday we were asked to write something about what are we doing to improve ourselves... Well, I guess practicing Z-Brush does count as developing new skills, so;

These are two models I'm working on for the Virtual Enviroment project we'll start later on. The project consist in designing a secret lair for a superhero/villain. I choose a villain, and the above images represent the genetic experiments that our villain's doing on human subjects... I'm planning to use this images (plus others) to embellish the Virtual Enviroment project, showing what's going on in the various rooms of the lair...

2009-11-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

For this project, I decided to go 'cartoony': I thought I needed to get it out of my system now, and then move on to a more realistic style (my fav.) later.

At the library, I found a pretty useful book about using Flash to make cartoon style animations.

The two authors have a portfolio that

includes Walt Disney and

Hannah&Barbera, so I knew my

inspiration was in good hands...

First I drew the characters on an A4 with a pencil.

After re-drawing the outlines with an

ink pen, I used a sheet of tracing paper

to draw the various character's facial

expressions;

Then I scanned both sheets and did the

colours with Photoshop, preparing

(still in Photoshop) each of the 10 frames

requiredfor the project.

My idea was to have a main character

(the Pencil) passing judgement on the

others artist's tools.

A simple narrative, where it's possible to interact with the scene by

moving the mouse over the character you want, and see what the

Pencil has to say about it.

Getting all the frames correctly scripted was a bit of a nightmare

but after hours spent learning the basics of Flash, I finally managed

to complete the core of the project.

Please enjoy...

Uli Interactive Narrative 1 by ~Powelldogg on deviant ART

2009-10-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

This is my first blog as a Multimedia student at NTU. For the next three years I won't be bothering you too much about what cool movie I've watched or what new album excited me... You already have your friends for that stuff!

I'm here to talk about what I'm doing at uni, so let's get down and dirty...

At the top you'll see the result of my first afternoon working with Z-Brush. For a total newbie, I think the result is pretty good... well, the colouring was done in Photoshop (which I've been using for years) so I guess I cheated a little bit... but fear not! As soon as I master the 'know-how' of a smooth colouring in Z-Brush, you'll be the first to know! Please, leave a comment.

Until next time...