Aberrants Daily Sketches

[dustinbrown]

You asked for it I don't get the sense that it has anatomical foundation. Until you get used to including that foundation work in your sculpts, try starting on graphic or tracing paper. Draw your character on one layer, then over that draw what it's skull and skeleton would look like. This will force you to think about structure, and you'll have to make adjustments to your original drawing to compensate for the skeleton. Then make a superficial muscle sheet over that. You don't have to spend a long time on these to get them looking beautiful, you just want to have something well thought out before you go to 3D.

Also, get some great anatomy refs and pin them up on the wall around where you work at home. Sometimes I'm too lazy to go fetch an anatomy book when I'm working, but nobody is too lazy to look up at the wall. It helps, trust me.

[Aberrant]

Thanks for the critique Dustin. I actually have not done that before but I see some artists do. I should definitely give it a try. It was a quick doodle from a sphere, and I did it on the fly with no goal in mind. I am not making excuses however, if I decide to finish it up I will do sketch of a couple skeletal and muscle layers. Thanks for the tips.

Also a quick question to you. I have tried using D32 to export and I cant get MR working with displacement. I went through a bunch of tuts step by step. Do you have a link to a tut that works for you? I am using 3DS Max 9 right now.

Displacement exporter using D32. I use 2048 maps with a 4 px seam overpaint. I also turn map adjustment from 100 to 0. I made sure all UV's are in 1 UV space and adjusted the export options. The export options are as follows

Channels = 3, Bits = 32, Vertical Flip = Yes
Scale = A.D. Factor, Smooth = No, Seamless = No
Channel 1 Range: Full Range, Full Range, Full Range.
Channel 1 Res: Full, Full, Full

I set MR as my render engine, and under the shadow/displacement settings I set my edge length to 1 and the max displace to various settings 1, 2.2 and others.

I select the material and I will apply the displacement map to, and under mental ray connection I unlock the displacement slot and add a 3D Displacement node. In the node I select my displacement map and make sure to set the RGB offset to -.5 and the blur to .01

For the displacement settings I used 1 in displacement length various values for extrusion strength. I have tried 1, 2.2, 220.... all give me very bad results.

[dustinbrown]

I've been meaning to make a video on that subject anyway. Hopefully this helps you.

http://www.vimeo.com/6674655

[Aberrant]

This is a WIP, and I plan on refining textures a bit. Any Comments and Critiques are welcome.

[dustinbrown]

- This is a big jump forward in your work, you obviously put time into it. Kudos, well done, pat pat

- Really digging some of the forms, reminds me of an engine block.

- Consider bringing your color map into Illustrator and cleaning up the yellow paint so the edges are uber crisp. You can dirty them up again in PS with some crusty brushes if you want.

- Things are looking a little lumpy. Walk away from it for a few days then take another look with fresh eyes, you'll see what I mean.

- The tribal spikes on the "knees" are a little contrived, but that's a matter of taste, so I'm talking out my arse. Keep them if they rock your socks off.

- I'd like to see the eye look more like either a red glass lens or red carbon fiber, or some clever combination of the two. It currently just looks like it's painted red. It needs depth.

- Lighting needs work. If your ground plane is grey, it shouldn't be blown out white where the light is hitting it. That diagonal line in the first image is a clear indication that something is awry.

[Aberrant]

Thank you for the feedback Dustin. I would have to agree about the lumpyness, I may take another pass at it, but I was getting tired of it and just wanted to finish.

The yellow lines are a bit sloppy, I agree. I took my cavity map into photoshop and tried to use the wand selection to select my inset stripes. The issue with this was that I did not adjust the curves of the cavity map, and since they were linear the selection was not crisp, and left some spill. Illustrator would be a cleaner solution, but I would need to trace each one with a path right? If you know of a faster way I would love to know. I am not well versed in illustrator.

I will tweak the red glass and see what variations I can come up with.

And for the lighting, I definitely need to work on it. I have very little lighting knowledge, but I will look up some tuts and see what I can learn in the process.

Thanks again for the feedback, its greatly appreciated.

[Aberrant]

Here is an updated render with revised lighting and slight varriation on the textures. I decided to make the yellow self illuminated instead of just painted on. I personally like it but I would like to hear what others think. I have also changed the pose. I am in the process of rendering out layer passes and comping them together to see what I come up with and play with colors and blending modes.

[Aberrant]

I would like to see what other people think, I personally like the dark version. Comments welcome.

[DELTATHUND3R]

Dark version looks great makes it really stand out..

[Aberrant]

Thanks DELTATHUND3R I agree. Ill be calling this finished and move on to something new. Thanks for the response.

[adampof]

wonderful

[Aberrant]

Havent updated in a while, I have a project I am working on. Its a character called Raven. Here is the link if you want to check it out.

I am curious what looks better as a part of a logo.

V1 or V2. Please let me know.

[cherub_rock]

I completely missed this. Great robot design and execution

I prefer the second logo.