Otter and a bumblebee - PocketPals

These were the last two models I made whilst working for PocketPals over the summer period after my final year at Falmouth University.

Showreelin'

This is one of my first demo reels of some of my favourite work which I produced during my time at Falmouth University.

Hands

Some sketches of hands I did a while back

Digital Painting

Here are a couple of digital paintings I created using photoshop back in September - I forgot to post them! I used some reference images for these and tutorials to help me out. They need quite a bit of improving but for not having much practise with digital painting I think I'm happy with how they turned out.

Time lapse of retopology

Here are some time lapse videos of me working on the retopology for one of the main characters for Pocket Pals.

Character sculpt

I put the box model into mudbox to sculpt it and add more detail, I am quite happy with the result and am now retopologising this character.

Box model

These are rough box models for one of the two main characters in the PocketPals app. The second picture is a test texture for the boy to see what the boy would look like with a 2D face. I can now take this model into mudbox to add more detail and improve the overall shape.

Blue Tit

This semester I had a go at another idle animation, this time a blue tit. Blue tits are very fast moving birds and I wanted to show that in the idle but not over-do it. I made quick but small movements so that it wouldn't look too strange when played on loop. 

Not modelled by me, rig by Bradley Bradley Clarke

Statue

This is a work in progress model of a statue for Goblin Story which I am currently sculpting in Mudbox. At first I found it challenging to model this statue as it is quite different and unique but I quickly got the hang of it and am enjoying sculpting him.

Mirror mirror

This is a mirror I modeled for Goblin Story which is going to be used in the temple room. As this design is unique it was hard to model from, but I managed to do a pretty good job, however I may need to sculpt it to add more detail.

Gems

Another project I've been working on is Goblin Story. For this I was given the task of modelling the gem which is one of the main assets in the film. I created one model and then made a few more through retopologising the mesh of the original one to keep the size and style similar. I then used a shader that Luke made for the original gem, however it didn't seem to work on the other models the same way. We haven't figured out what the problem was but I am currently in the process of sculpting an entirely new gem. 

Animating animals

I also did some animating for the Pocket Pals app last semester. The top video shows an idle animation I made for the pine marten, however as it is an idle I needed to decrease the amount of movement otherwise watching the idle on a loop would look strange. Although pine martens are curious little creatures and move quite quickly I couldn't overdo the movement as it was an idle animation. I began with the animal taking a step forwards in the idle but it looked strange so I re-animated it, took the step out and decreased the overall movement of it. 

I think it could look good if it looked like the animals were just breathing and moving very slightly with an occasional blink - I might try this on another idle.

Rigged by Bradley Clarke

Animal models

These are two animal models I modeled for Pocket Pals last semester. I learnt how to UV unwrap them and had a go at texturing the squirrel. I am currently modelling one of the main human characters for this project and am hoping to sculpt, retopologize, UV unwrap, texture and rig this boy character. 

UV unwrapping

Last semester I learned how to UV unwrap models so that they can be textured. These animals were modeled and UV unwrapped by me. This project, Pocket Pals, has a low poly design style which made it easier to UV unwrap as I didn't have to worry too much about how the seams affected the texture as they were mostly block colours.

Although it was suggested that I make the layout make sense for the animal to make it look as though the body had been unfolded to help the texture artists understand where the body parts were, I think I should make better use of space in future UV unwrapping. I should also make sure I increase the size of the UV shells that need the most detail. This will help texture artists to have a clearer view of all the UV shells when painting them.

3D environment

A project I was helping out on last semester, Pirate Code, needed a 3D environment model of a swimming pool. I drew the swimming pool from birds-eye-view and then created a simple model using Maya as you can see in the screenshots and quick test renders below.

   

Although this model was only to be used for backgrounds I could have improved it by adding details to the benches, doors, pool ladders and such. It was good practice and I have learnt quite a bit about modelling an environment for backgrounds through this. 

Splotches

Over the summer I've been practising my drawing skills. I know that character drawing is one of my weaker areas so I have been creating splotches and random shapes and attempting to fit character faces into those shapes. I feel this has helped to create slightly more expressive characters. 

Summer practise

Some modelling and rendering practise using Maya and Pixar's Renderman over summer. I know this needs a lot more work to appear realistic so I will continue to play around with the textures and shaders.

Life drawing

A selection of drawings and a painting from my last two lessons. 

We used the technique of boxes and sketching out through using the edge of a piece of charcoal again which I found really helpful to get back into drawing. I think I might keep using this technique when posing characters.

Some longer poses which I preferred as I had the time to add detail. I also enjoyed working on coloured paper to work with contrasting tones. 

One of our life drawing lessons gave us the change to practise painting in acrylics. I haven't painted in a really long time and found it quite difficult to get the grips of it, however I'm quite pleased with the result. I think it needs some work to improve my painting skills and my painting speed by blocking out the different shades really quickly. 

Eco-render

After testing how long it would take to render out a shot without fog we realised it would take too long to render if we were to use it throughout the whole animation. As well as not having enough time the fog seems to be creating more noise and although there is a way to reduce this it would increase the render time even more. 

Life drawing

Using the technique of drawing in boxes was quite helpful as it made sure we could keep the full figure within the area. We then had to make the figure touch two sides of the box which I think helped to prevent from drawing too small. 

 

We then applied this drawing technique to a full page drawing as well as a new technique of using the edge of a piece of charcoal to capture the overall position of the figure. We then went in and added detail once we had rough markings outlining the figure. I found this really helpful as it allowed me to lightly sketch up the form and position before I began drawing. 

We then applied both these techniques to portraits of each other later on. I don't think it worked as well as it did when drawing the figure, but I also think I need to work portraits more.