Hex's Sketchbook

[Vancross]

Sorry been busy recently. I think its coming along but I think you need to figure out where it is that you are going with the design. For instance how the mouth would work or why does it have horns on only its head and tail; the horns on the head are too far back to be for defense so I wonder what they could be for. Perhaps they are there in case it gets eaten but the beast strikes me as something that is very large. Also I can't really make out any kind of skeletal structure. I understand that its in it's base pose still but it looks really stiff and ridged. I wish you posed it more like the concept sketch. Also I am wondering how this thing actually swims. Does it use it's fins or it's tail? Its a hard call because if it uses its tail like a snake or an "eel" then what would the flippers need to be so big and functional for.

Of course this could be more of a cartoony creature which would then explain the lack of skeleton, and strange mouth as well as flippers that could be arms and legs stand ins. But the texturing and the renders suggest that it is to be more realistic so its a bit confusing.

All the other models are much better but you still need to pay more attention to the skeletal structure of these things so you get away from the cartoon gumby look—unless of course thats what you are shooting for.

The spider thing is by far the best I think but the textures do not do it justice and make it look very cartoony like a video game. You should really make use of your reference. In this day and age you can easily punch up anything you like online. If you want the bug to have some meaty parts then search for the kind of meat that you want it to look like and model and texture off of that. It brings to mind the old saying that they used to constantly remind us of when I was doing comics and that is, "if you pull it out of your mind then it will usually ends up looking like you did". Like I said its never been easier to get your hands on reference so make use of it.

I hope that you keep coming back and being a part of this community I sure appreciate looking at your stuff. Allot of material gets posted up everyday and its easy for things to get lost or overlooked. I also would love to see you retexture that spider creature; thats my favorite! And the eel beast looks interesting as well and I can't wait to how that plays out.

[Hexadecimator]

Thanks for your in depth post! Finally someone with something to say.. In terms of bone structure, like the eel you cant really tell the internal structure of the eel. I have tryed to capture this element within the length of my model. Also I have tryed to give the model a scaly wet and shine skin like the eel also.
However, The legs I kind of got the idea from the tadpole, newt and crocodile.. and thats sort of influenced my design. Through the development of this creature I was half thinking of making this creature amphibian, a large one at that.
I thought this creature would swim like an eel, also I intended the fins to allow it to make more acurate turns and stops on water. they were not relly intended for propulsion.
as for the spikes, The tail ones were intended for some sort of attack but maybe the placement could have been a little higher. I didnt really think the design through to much. the spikes on the head are pretty useless as far as practionality is concerned. At one point I was concidering making the spikes not spikes at all but smaller infants of the creature latching onto the bulges of the creatures head. I dont know how good this idea would have been so i just made them spikes.

As for the spider, I did have great difficulty creating the texure for the model, I have already redone it like 3 times trying to get something to work well. I agree it could be allot better but as of now i dont have time to redo it because my folio is due in 2 weeks. The time constraints also had an effect on the eel beast also.
Ill have time to work them up after that, but it will just be for fun..
Thanks again for the input... Ill be producing more detailed works later on in the year.

[Hexadecimator]

Hey vancross, Heres the eel beast in a dynamic pose. gave it a bit of a motion blur also.

C&C welcome folks!

[Ljubomir Milic]

I like your eel character, especially the head. Here are some suggestions. I agree with Vancross regarding the horns and flippers. I would get rid of horns simply because they would slow this creature down in movement. To me this creature looks more like a predator. I attached you the image of the things I would change to make this creature more realistic and believable.

Hope it helps!

[Vancross]

Cool the blur on the tail really adds to it. I can understand how you were inspired by a tadpole but since the design should be able to be read at a glance and confuse the viewer as little as possible I think you have to make a decision on how you want this thing to move. Imagine this thing snaking quickly past the camera at the murky depths of a lock or a creepy subterranean underwater cave in a monster movie. You don't want people to be trying to figure out what it was that zoomed by: you want them to fear it even if they don't really know why—unless however its not suppose to be a man-eating beasty.

Milic illustrated this nicely with the post and changes. As you can see you don't have to think twice at how this thing is going to whip around you and tear you apart. It may not be as exotic as you like but sometimes less is more. If however you would like to put more on it then you can but just remember that it should be functional. This also makes your job easier as if there is no reason for it to be there then there is no reason for you to have to work it in; just like nature tends to do.

[TezZy]

Hey man,

some pretty cool stuff you got here. The suggested changes in Ljubomir Milic's post will definitely help with streamlining this guy in water. Regarding the other creatures, just a basic crit. Make sure the form is there before adding small details. Once you have a strong silhouette the details will bring it together.

Hope this helps

[Hexadecimator]

Hey guys, thanks for the posts, I agree and i will definatly do a redo of the eel,
Ljubomir Milic I like the redone tail idea you have, i think ill get rid of the head horns but id like to keep the back fins. And teeth, yeah of course i was thinking about it, ill see how they will look.
however i wont have time to do it for another 2 weeks. because i must work on other stuff to get it ready for my school project (high school design) that is.

anyway I made a render of the spider creature in a posing stance.

[Vancross]

Nice, and just in time for Halloween!

[Hexadecimator]

Heres the final for the eel beast to go on my folio. hope you like it.
Changed the bubbles, added light rays and made a 30 minute fish for it to chase. ill be doing a render for all my models in this thread..
C&C welcome guys! thanks

[Hexadecimator]

Hey guys, heres the render for the death slug...
All rendered in zbrush by the way,
then touched up in the software gimp.
For this creature i imagined that it would hide in red grass
waiting for other lifeforms to stand on its poison needles.
Then it would eat them...lol
C&C please people!

[Sathanael]

Cool stuff, I really liked how you posed your spider added so much to the sculpt. i really liked the design of his face. On the slug sculpt, I think the spikes on it sback can be confused with coarse hair I would bulk them a tad and inflate where it connects to the body, keeping in mind its a slug and has no spine or does it?

The front teeth look weird to me i havent tried to drawn this but i think 2 teeth closer together might do better for it.

Anyways hope this helps you out somehow good luck and keep going it.

[Hexadecimator]

Hey Sathanael, If you liked the spider your gunna like this render of it!
As for the Slug, It is intended to be from another planet its not meant to be a slug as such, I just call it that cause it looks like one, And yeah I have some ideas on the internal structure of this creature.... It has a basic bone structure made of cartilage ( if that makes sense) this is because it relys on other life forms stepping on it to get its food, It needs to be flexible.
And perhaps you may have thought it has 3 teeth when it actually has four,
the fourth is hidden behind the skull. Maybe I should have made the needles a little thicker, but as of now im not to bothered about it. that was one of my earliest sculpts and i wanted it out of the way.

Anyway heres the realistic render of the spider creature, Its in what I thought would be its natural habitat not to far from its cave ..lol
All rendered in zbrush..
This one was a little tricky to do, The back image of the forest is actually painted onto a polyplane, I think i was meant to use layers to achieve this but i found it hard to understand, Im still a learner I also used Perspective in 180 focal length, little confusing positioning this model ill tell you that! I think it came out well anyhow.
C&C please people...thanks

[loki_22]

hey nice work so far. i just wanted to comment on your bug with the background. just a couple things i would suggest. i would take and get the bug and background and put them in separate layers in photoshop i you have access to it. with the bug having a bit of a painted look you could actually take and apply filter or 2 to the background so it makes it feel more like its part of the image. once you get done there you could add 1 more layer between the bug and background. on that layer you can create a cast shadow of the bug on the ground. if you play around with the transparancy and blend mode on the shadow layer itll ground the bug. i think you'd have a finished piece from there. like i said tho youre doing pretty good. just a couple tweaks are needed! keep it up and cheers!

[Sathanael]

Hey Hex,

Indeed i liked this render quite alot. Looking really beast! . Altho instead of composing all in zbrush id suggested getting the bug render with an alpha and composing in photoshop, like Loki said. This way you can:Use different matcaps to make different render passes like: Highlight.Falloff,Enviromental Reflection,Specular,AO,Cavity,SUbdermal.. and compose them with blend modes and masks. Also Getting the Flat Color shader you can extracts its Alpha. Having it in an alpha you can pretty much go crazy and rework the background photo, add shadows, highlights, sharpen, liquify, simulate lens blur,grain... sky is the limit.

You mentioned before you used gimp to compose one of your shots, Id suggest using Photoshop or even Combustion,After Effects, even those these later are meant for video they have powerful composing tools and plugins. Im still searching round for a good tutorial on matap composition and setting, if I do ill share the link with you. I think Rafael Grassetti had one but i lost the link

Anyways, Keep the good work man

[Hexadecimator]

Thanks for the posts guys!, I did use an alpha of the spider to adjust colours ect, I use gimp because I know how to use it. I do have access to photoshop however its my technical knowledge that lets me down.
Also Im not sure how im meant to render out specific elements of a model, What I was doing was rendering the background black and the model white with flat material. then I would colour to alpha the black and overlay the original to get the cut of of the spider. Is there a way to make zbrush render out a alpha channel instead of a background?

Also loki, how do i create a cast shadow in photoshop?