Mudbox Tutorial

This week we had a Mudbox workshop session with Tony Mayor, a freelance 2D and 3D artist who has worked with Sony, Renault, Pinewood Studios, among others.

Mudbox looks a lot like Maya at first, but as we learnt it does far more than "extrude" and "fill hole". We first learnt about the Grab and Sculpt tools, as they are the most basic and the ones we would need the most. Unfortunately my file corrupted after the lesson so I do not have any screenshots of this exercise.

Next, we worked on stencils and stamps, which the brush will flow over to give the object a bump or a depression of the image. This I did capture.

This is the stencil I used, and sculpting over it I realised I had made a piece of the Harry Potter universe:

I give you a golden snitch! The colours were altered in Mudbox as a paint layer, and the material was changed to make it appear shiny and polished.

But then comes the real work - in the afternoon we were told to gather together all the skills and knowledge we had learned earlier in the day and apply it all to a model of a T-Rex.

Basic model

Head

Belly

Flank and legs

Back

Final painted model

Overall I did like working with Mudbox - it might be complicated but it's a useful tool for virtually everything. 

USS Enterprise

Tasked to boldly go where dozens of nerds have gone before. Here is a recreation of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek made in Maya.

The blueprint that was provided for us to use. You can only imagine the heartbreak I suffered when I found that not all blueprints are blue.

This was a fun little project, and I managed to surprise myself by only taking three hours to create the model. I guess the temple from last term really helped strengthen my skills in Maya.

Pixel Art Fire Hydrant

This week we learnt the "old school" way of making art for games - how to do pixels and create an isometric perspective in Photoshop. It was a good exercise in that it was interesting to learn what went into creating games such as Mario, Pac-Man, and modern examples like Fez and Hotline Miami.

Starting with the basics, we learnt how to make a square, going in blocks 2x1 pixels. Once one line was created, it was a simple copy-paste and voila! A square! After that, copy the square, move it below the other, draw lines to connect and we had a cube. Like I said, the basics.

Next was circles, which were a little more difficult but manageable. However, a shortcut was made apparent - create an ellipse, fill in a one pixel wide line all the way around the inside, and move it where it needs to be.

Next came a proper task - to recreate a fire hydrant. The class was given a reference image, and let loose with their new teachings.

Here are my results - not exactly like the one in the reference but I feel I have captured the lighting well and maintained the recognisable form of it.

More Anatomy

More anatomical drawings - this time of the muscle groups.

As I was focusing on other projects, I chose to do large drawings with lots of detail.

The muscles of the arm

The leg muscles

The full body...

...and then painted in Photoshop!

Lizard Man after Feng Zhu

It's the beginning of a new term, and it's back to business.

We started off with a painting exercise, taking some line art (created by Feng Zhu) and painting over it, learning about bounce lighting, layer groups and how to give texture in Photoshop.

The basis of the exercise was a lizard man drawn by Feng Zhu, the legendary concept artist. From the line art we were given free reign as to colouration and details.

This is the initial stage - getting the skin lighting right. This was done by selecting the outline, filling it in with a base colour, and then adding the shading. I created a basic lighting guide (seen in neon green) to show me where the light was coming from and the areas it would be reflected.

With the skin out of the way, it was time for the armour. This used a similar process to the skin - a rough lighting guide, a base colour, and then I began shading. However, I realised once I had completed this that I had been using the wrong brush, and had to start over.

Here is the near complete version. The roughness of the armour is fixed, giving it a more metallic look. I've also added some scratches to both the armour and the creatures skin. Now it was time to give the skin some texture.

I used a stock snake skin image as a basis, and copied and pasted it until it covered all the skin areas. From there, I tidied it with the eraser tool around the edges, and removed it from the claws and other details. I set the layer to overlay, and then I used the eraser again to dull it down so it matched the lighting and was overall more believable.