These are very, very, exellent. I just started using Zbrush and these really motivate me. Hope you post more stuff up here.
Awesome stuff. I hope by watching you, it will rub off on me. How long have you been doing this and where did you go to school?
Hello All,
Wow, again - Thanks for all your comments, they’ve been very positive and complimentary, it’s good to know people appreciate the work that goes into these images!
vedanta: I’ll get a quick WIP progress of the Mechanicum cover sometime soon - my main piece of advice… LAYERS! and lots of them (in ZBrush and Photoshop), in case the client wants anything changing.
yosemie: I can’t put anything too hi-res up, but I’ll definitely see what I can do.
Oishiiniku, Mya, Sible, RichtheKiller: A HUGE thanks to you chaps for giving me the confidence and inspiration to go for it! Also, I can blame you when times are tough! 
Alliecat 08: I studied for an Illustration Degree in the UK at Lincoln De Montfort University. I’ve been in the 3D business making games for about 12 years, and started doing the 3D illustrations about 5 years ago for the marketing side of computer games - that then led to some time off where I worked up some ideas and things snowballed from there.
Pigumon: I agree, that’s something I’m working on. Finding a good angle to come at it from is the difficult bit. It’d have to be a work of Alex Ross (I am not worthy!) style proportions to make it work.
Thanks all, I’ll keep you posted with more images as and when I can!
Actually, while I’m at it, here’s a detail from the upcoming Horus Heresy Anthology, “Tales of Heresy”. ZBrush was used for the head, gloves, sword and loads other bits and bobs:
Nice one!
Regards,
great work, love the cape on Magneto
Hello.
Amazing work, i was fan of your wh40k artwork for some time now… and other pieces are equally amazing.
Nice to see you on forums.
Keep up the good work.
hey. I love your warhammer 40k work since i have seen artwork for horus rising. Kinda cool to be able to tell you this straight on the forums. Your other work is amazing too.
Is that character from your last post angron? cant really think of any other character than a primarch that could look like that, and this is not magnus…
Greetings.
Hi Neil,
I’m a big fan of your work, ever since I first got my hands on Horus Rising and wondered “Who the hell is making space marines look like they should!” 
I’m only really starting to dabble with Zbrush and I have a few questions if thats ok.
On the Cover of Tales of heresy you say you used zbrush for the head, hands and various bits, is this a hybrid 2D 3D composition?
And how did you land the Gig with Black Library, I’m currently working up some submissions for them and if you have any advice it would be much appreciated.
I think thats it, Keep up the stunning work, and keep inspiring people to better their own ability.
Hello All,
I’ve been incredibly busy recently, which in these economic times can only be good news. So now I’ve finally got a chance to talk about a piece I recently finished for Judge Dredd Megazine:
It was created using Zbrush for the sculpting, 3DSMax for the base meshes/ final rendering and Photoshop for the compositing and painting. Below you can see some of the elements in ZBrush - the head and shoulder pads were from another piece I’ll post about sometime soon:
The gloves:
Being a commercial artist means I have to cut as many artistic corners as reasonable to meet deadlines, which is why I mainly get images finished by hand painting - but ZBrush has to be the only tool in which I can achieve the kind of detail, realism and imagery I’m always aiming for.
Here’s the cover with logo and blurb:
Great stuff, hope you good people like it.
Cheers,
N
Great stuff buddy, I find zbrush is a great aid to illustration you have all the freedom and don’t have to worry about the technical restraints that a video game artist has to.
What a fantastic illustration. This is the way I use ZBrush too. It would be interesting to see your process, when you have time to share.
GREAT image!!! I Love the colors…it is looking really cool.
Great! Thanks for posting! 
!
Excellent work, great to see!
Look forward to seeing more 
That is one iconic Dredd cover! Are you going to be doing any more Judge Dredd or other 2000 AD related stuff?
So correct me if I’m wrong here, you just “painted” a render of the ZBrush Dredd model in photoshop right? Did you do the same thing for your Warhammer 40k models? Or were those textured in 3D space?
Thanks for all your comments - they’re always greatfully recieved.
So I’ve been really busy recently with comic covers, magazine articles, film concepts and lecturing all taking up my time - which is great!
I thought I’d share some of my images for my article ‘Digital Maquettes in a Production Environment’ in the ‘Avatar’ issue of 3DWorld:
The article talks about how I move from the initial concept:
…to the blocking out in 3DSMax, to taking it all into ZBrush:
…Zsculpting:
…and final compositing and cleanup:
This is an example of the kind of work I do - as always, if anyone wants to talk about to me about freelancing gigs, feel free to drop me a line.
Hope you like - I had a great time making it!
Cheers,
N
Awesome !!!
It’s not about how much Zbrush or Maya or Max or Mental Ray or RenderMan you use…but when your mind and heart say “done” what it LOOKS like!!!
And these look GREAT!
Thanks for the look ‘under the hood’.
Skills neil! SKILLS!
Hope you had a good xmas!
Great work! Nice renders and sculpts. Adding you to my list of great artists. Looking forward to seeing more.
I liked the 10-page 3d World tutorial a lot! Thanks Neil! !