Moni-Poroni

[Moni-Poroni]

Hi everyone,
I´ve decided to start my sketchbook thread now.
I´ll post all my future work here.
Currenty I´m working on three different projects parallel and finished one of them just a few minutes ago -- one of my favourite animals.







I wanted to try ZBrush´s painting functions -- so I´ve decided to paint the background within Zbrush.
I´ve drawn the polypainted model in front of it and did a little paintover then.
(For example: I forgot to sculpt the claws *oops* so I painted them quickly ... and sloppy )

C+C are more than welcome.
Cheers!

[ISK-86]

Hey!! been waiting a while for your sketchbook!!

It looks very good

[Etcher]

Hi Monja! Finally, your thread!

What a beautiful image you made! !

Be so proud of yourself! !

Just take another look at your final image Monja, and try to grasp the scale of this first project:

1.Understanding/Studying/Knowing/Sculpting animal anatomy/ animals:
you will have noticed that sculpting animals is very similar to sculpting humans: knowing the skeleton and muscles that drive the fat and skin. Sculpting from the inside out. You are a relatively newcomer to drawing/sculpting, so you did great. You will see that this animal mesh will be an excellent tool in your further studies: you can make him more muscular, more bony or skinny or even fat. You can stretch him to form the base of another quadruped.

2.Understanding/Studying/Knowing/ sculpting material/texture:
The rock is great: it shows how you studied real rocks to get the look and feel right. This exercise is going to be so rewarding when you have to do other material sculpts (crocodile skin on some fantasy creature/ you saw how FoOD applied the rock studies on his Action Hero). Keep in mind that you not only sculpted a great rock, but you gave yourself a priceless exercise in visual training and study that’s going to pay off in the future.

3.Understanding/Studying/Knowing/ painting.
Painters need years to become proficient at what they do. You show here that you have an intuitive grasp of how to apply/mix color/ light and shadows. In the next few years, you’ll have more time to read and study about painters and painting techniques. I think you will have a blast on experimenting and adding to the foundation you just laid out with this first image.

It is great to see that you painted in ZBrush. Refrain from going to PS or Painter. ZBrush can do the trick. If you can’t draw or paint, no PS or Painter is going to help you.

And, maybe the most important thing of all: you delivered a project from start to finish! This might seem logical to you, but, how many people you meet have great ideas? And how many of those actually get realized? You can talk about something all you want, but in the end, you have to sit down and make it… . !

Just take another look at your final image Monja, and be proud of the result! !

So looking forward to the next! And, take your time (I already told you, you still have plenty of time!) !

(btw: did you just post reply 200 on my thread? Aaah… numbers… numerology…)

[Captain Sensible]

At last it's here! And a very fine start to your thread. I like what you have done on the cat and the pose you have given him. Nice job on the rock too. Something I'm doing at the moment. As Etcher said, muscle definition and skin folds would really fine tune this sculpt. Good job on the painted background. Looking forward to updates

[Lucky_1]

ahaaaa finally
the paintover is looking very good (you got rid of the flatness of his upperlegs) Love the mood of the setting sun and the sky (a litlle van Gogh-ish sky )

Great Job Monja !

Keep it up

[Moni-Poroni]

ISK-86 :
Hi Thank you vey much!

Etcher :
Hey Etcher, many thanks for the kind words!
When I started with this model I thought it would be easy, then I realized -- oh, yeah the anatomy stuff. It´s so hard for me!
I really admire your knowledge and your work!
I guess I should buy some books now.
Regarding the rock -- I had a lot of fun. Sure it could be better but the whole cougar/puma project was just a learning project. I wanted to try some new techniques and some brushes I never touched before.
Regarding the painting -- I´ll paint much more within Zbrush.
I had a lot of fun although I´m a little bit swamped by all those functions. There´s so much to learn.
I guess I´ll understand Zbrush 3 when Zbush 10 will be released.
Thanks again for taking time to write this cool post with so many kind words.
I really appreciate that!
And BTW -- no, unfortunately I missed writing post no. 200.
My post is no. 201
But I´m sure it won´t take long until post no. 300 will be made.

Captain Sensible:
Hey Captain, many thanks for the compliments. Glad to hear you like it.
Hope to see your vicious update soon. Your rock was great!

Lucky_1:
Yep -- finally. LOL. Many thanks for the kind words!
Van Gogh-ish? I´d say quick paint-, smudge- and blur-brush action in a haphazard way. Hehe.


---------------------------------------------


Now it´s creature time.
I started a few weeks ago with this model but I made so many mistakes (yep -- the good old anatomy. AAAHHH!!!! )
Therefore I´ve decided to start from scratch.
I love creatures and as I cleaned up the cellar I found my beloved cirque du soleil DVDs.
I decided to mix those themes because modeling some of my favourite cirque du soleil artists is way too hard for me. Remember -- the anatomy.
That doesn´t mean that I think modeling creatures is easier but if it´ll look terrible in the end I can say -- hey it´s a creature and it should look exactly like that. Hehe.

Ok -- here´s the concept-sketch from the head.

"The Juggler"



He loves bells so he tethered one bell on each of his three horns ( the third horn is on the back of his head ) and he also pierced his skin.
I still have no idea with what he´ll juggle.
I´m thankul for every suggestion.

C+C are more than welcome. Thanks.

[wethand]

hey moni.

really cool cat! and the demon concept looks cool! looking forward to see him in 3d.

btw.: really cool use of zbrush. keep it coming!

[maxinkuk]

Hi Moni, massive start! That big cat is great, it really has all the sinuosity of the feline. And the painted background is very effective and spot on with the rest of the illustration, which is beautiful.

[neurogenesis]

I got a great laugh out of the 'reference pic'. Not anything enlightening to say, I just got a good laugh. It all seems to be very good work, tho, no real crits I can think of.

[Moni-Poroni]

wethand:
Thank you very much!
Oh and it´s not a cat. It´s a puma/cougar/mountain lion (...they have many names). But my fault if there´s no likeness.



maxinkuk:
Thank you very much for the compliment, maxinkuk.

neurogenesis:
Thank you very much!
*LOL* Maybe "reference pic" is the wrong formulation. This pic was just an inspiration.

---------------------

"Juggler" W.I.P



paintover -- the next steps: posing of the hands, sculpting of claws, horns, teeth etc...



C+C are more than welcome.
Especially critiques and suggestions regarding the anatomy.

[ISK-86]

he looks very good moni there are some things regarding anatomy

First of all, excelent work with the arms

The legs look too short for the kind of heavy-muscle beast he is, i suggest for the whole upper body to be a little smaller.

The crotch area looks odd and so does the part where the leg is atteched to the body (i just woke up.... I wont google it's name, hope you understand me )

Here is a liquify-over

[Moni-Poroni]

Thank you very much.
Yep -- I know what you mean.
Thanks for pointing that out. I´ll correct these things and I think he´ll wear some loincloth in the end.
Thanks for the paintover.

Oooh this Aaaah-natomy stuff.

Edit:
Here´s a turntable video.
Hope that helps to discover more anatomy mistakes I made.

[Etcher]

Hi Monja!

Updates on the Juggler are lookin' good! Again, you seem to handle a project of this magnitude very well (=full body sculpt of a fantasy creature). On the turntable, I could notice that the proportions of the R and L legs are different: Long upper Right leg-short lower Right leg / Short upper left leg, long lower left leg. Could be due to the transpose though! Lookin' forward to the updates ! Love the paintovers too - great way to experiment on the further development of the sculpt.

[Moni-Poroni]

Etcher:
Hey Etcher, thank you very much!
Yes, you´re right regarding the legs -- I agree with you.
Unfortunately... I lost this model a few hours --that´s hy I can´t correct it anymore.
Had NOOOO problems over the last weeks but today I had.
( Not a Zbrush problem -- my PC crashed while I saved the model )
Yep and I only had two saved files of it thus far and the only thing I still have is the base mesh.
Bad luck -- but that´s life.
(pitchepuck -- yeah, I didn´t listen to you. I did it again -- overwrote the same file -- just punishment! )

I´ll continue with another model now.
It´s a female.
Didn´t want to work on her for the next few weeks (wanted to learn more about anatomy first) but I´ll never learn it if I don´t try it.
For that reason I´ll try it now.
I´m going to visit a nude-drawing class tomorrow BTW. Hope that´ll help me.

Here´s what I´ve got so far.

Sleepwalker WIP





C+C are always welcome.

[YONA]

hey! how can i have missed your thread!! shame on me!!
i don't know your background but what i see here are the first steps of a future great artist!
The main thing is the fact that you have understood that references and observation are very important!!! and the BG that you've painted behind the cougar also shows that you're a sensible artist!! congratulations!!
I'm sure that you're going to do great stuffs!!!
i've noticed some details to fix on your sleepwalker. Your elbows should be more presents so that you can mark the frontier between the upper and low arm. I would have marked the hip a bit too..than, maybe it comes from the point of view but i think that your trapeziums are too short. It gives the impression that your shoulders are too close from the neck.

you're right, anatomy is a very exhaustive learning but you can see that it's already paying!!!
keep going!! you're work is already good! it can only become fantastic!!!