3D Still Life

*drumroll* 

TA-DAH! After 3-4 weeks of hard work, and one particularly hectic last week of intense dedication, I am proud to present my final project for our Photorealism class, made with my classmate Candice Mayer.

For our final project we had to pick a traditional still life painting from an artist of our choice, and reproduce it as photo-realistically as possible in 3D, using Softimage XSI. So we decided to use a lovely whimsical painting by artist Michelle Waldele as our inspiration. Below you can see our reproduction, followed by her original painting.

 Final Image by Fanny Berthiaume & Candice Mayer

Painting by Michelle Waldele (http://www.mwaldelefineart.com/)

All the modeling, setup, lighting, shading and texturing was done in XSI. The final render was then brought in Photoshop for final color correction, grain addition, some edge blur and very minute additions to some of the textures.

Overall I have estimated our work on this project to be somewhere between 50-60hrs each, from initial concept research to final tweaks in Photoshop. It was a lot of work, but I had an awesome time working on this.

Awesome Photoshop Brushes

Lately I've found myself discussing drawing techniques with a few friends, and it made me want to share some of the brushes I've been using. They've really helped me getting some sense of direction when painting digitally, which is still relatively new for me, so I'm hoping they can be of use to others as well.

Below are links to custom brushes I used, namely for my latest illustration (see previous post). The general brush set was made by an amazing concept artist I found on DeviantArt through a friend. I can't say I've explored every last brush in it yet, but so far some of them have been very useful.

I've also included a link to a bunch of blood spatter brush packs, the first of which I used for my latest painting.

A great general painting brush set :

http://danluvisiart.deviantart.com/gallery/9827508#/d1ytm3r

A bunch of blood spatter brushes :

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2010/09/20/33-blood-splatter-brushes-for-photoshop-users/

Cracked Porcelain

As a follow up to last week's post, here is my second go at a creepy creature/monster for a hypothetical live-action film. I had no desire to do something "disgusting" per say, as I cringe at the sight of twisted and nasty bodily stuff, however you want to interpret that, so I went for a different kind of creepy. We were free to do something that fitted anywhere on the human/inhuman scale, so I chose to give life to a porcelain doll. In fact she's a bit of a hybrid between a porcelain doll and your average disturbing little girl. I thought of her as a life size demonic figurine or something like that.

Anyway, this started out as the most unappealing assignment in my life, but it turns out I had a lot of fun painting this. Definitely doesn't fall within my usual style, but I had fun with it, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

The End of a Great Experience

This is a bit of a delayed post, which I should have written a week or so ago, but better late than never.

So as some of you may know, my part-time contract at Woozworld ended 2 weeks ago. I was very sad to leave, as it was a really awesome work environment, a great team, and the perfect job really for the full-time student that I am. Though I have cumulated a lot of experience over the years working freelance contracts, working on film sets and in small cinema and FX studios, this was my first job in a larger studio setting, and my first experience in the world of social gaming. I feel extremely privileged to have had the chance to join their fantastic team for those past 5 months, and I am so grateful for the experience.

Though I wish I could have stayed there longer, and I already miss it a lot, I can see how much I gained from that job, and it makes me look forward to whatever will come next. I'm glad for the new friendships, the work I accomplished, and the knowledge that however hard it may have been to get here, and despite all the doubts and bumps along the way, I'm on the right track, and it is possible to get up every morning, and go do something you actually love! :)

So I'm now looking for other part-time opportunities, whether in gaming or cinema. But meanwhile there's still school, which is enough to keep me plenty busy! 

To conclude the Woozworld experience, here are a bunch of assets I did for them. As usual, everything has already been released in-game, and is shown with permission. You can check out the game at www.woozworld.com if you'd like to know more.

Cheers!

Illustration Idea

So I did this illustration concept for my character design class, planning on bringing it to a fully rendered version, but I think I might have to put it aside for now and go in a completely different direction.

We were asked to design a creepy, scary "monster", which could be anything on the human/inhuman scale, basically the creepiest thing we could think of. I essentially rebelled against the assignment because I've spent the last 24 years straying as far as I could from horror films and everything the cool kids used to watch on halloween because I am very easily grossed out, and the thought of purposely putting myself in front of something that makes me cringe feels, well, repulsive. So I thought I'd be smart and detour around the assignment guidelines by doing a cartoon monster, something creepy but that I could safely nest into a fictional universe, therefore ensuring my sleep remains nightmare free.

Turns out I was fooled.

The said creepy thing needs to be designed for live-action, which completely throws off my concept. I really like it as is, so I don't want to just use that and push it towards a live-action version. I'd rather set this linework aside for a couple weeks and get back to the sketching board. I'll find the time to color this one at some point.

Now on to look at every nasty horror movie reference out there.

Joy.