For this newest project, we were told to create either a 2D or 3D image of a creepy halloween creature. I decided its finally time to bring one of my nightmares to life.

In terms of research, there wasnt much to be done, as it was quite a vivid nightmare. The main concept for him is a living stone man, with light shining from the eyes and mouth. I had a few looks at things like the weeping angels in Doctor Who, and also more at enviroments he would be in, like the tunnels of the london underground.

I began by doing a quick doodle to get my idea on paper. It wasnt super cohesive, but got the general image across.

I then went into mudbox and grabbed the huan form msh, and began to play around with it, seeing if I could maybe bulk him out or pose him differently. I also attempted to paint him with a stone texture, yet the effect was very underwhelming, making look more like he had measles.

I then took the mesh into 3DS Max and began creating an enviroment for him.

The main focus of the render was to get the lighting spot on. I ddnt want to have much in the way of lighing behind him, just enough to give him an outline. I used two Area lights with a slight decay to get the effect.

I also created 3 spotlights out of his eyes and mouth, pointing directly at the viewer, to shine across the walls.I rendered out an image of the creature by itself with the area lights, and the enviroment by itself with only the spotlights.

I then took the renders into photoshop and began working on the final lighting and texturing. I added a brickwork texture to the walls, after adjusting the levels for the creature and tunnel. The creature still looked a little too dark, so I added small lense flare behind him. I painted on his eyes and mouth in pure white, to have the light effect, and added a strong lens flare over it in a lighten layer. I started playing around with a few other things after this, such as adding in a cracked stone texture to the view, although very lightly, to show that the viewer has been slightly turned to stone already by the creature. All in all Im pretty happy with the way it came out, although it would have been nice to get the creature looking a little more stonework like.

Starship

For this assignment we were told to create a ship design. The term was very loose, and we were given pretty much free reign to design any kind of ship, be it starship, airship, sea vessel .etc. I decided to go with a starship/atmospheric cargo carrier. I pulled a few resources from other pieces of concept work for large star craft, the space shuttle (the first ever cargo spaceship) and also fighter jets. There were a miriad different design styles, from more generic starships, like the Daedalus from Stargate, and Serenity from Firefly, all the way to very unconventional designs such as the Battletech Union dropship.

This gave me free reign to kinda play with multiple designs and design styles. I even did a slightly 'classic' design too.

I wanted this one to be more like a smuggler ship, with four cargo pods to provide a sort of contingency, if one gets shot off .etc. It is also slightly more streamlined, with heavy engines.

This is a slightly similar one, yet I decided half way I wanted to make these ships fit into a mech universe I am writing at the moment. I added a catapult deck on the top, to launch the mechs from the cargo bay. A bit bulky however.

This one was inspired slighly by the Halo frigate design, with a slightly truck like feel to it. This one also has a rotating cargo bay to raise different holds up to a catapult deck on the top. The movement ideas I have for this are kind of like this: http://youtu.be/LZpfNLsnYYI

This one is more in the style of the mechs I have been designing, with an embedded catapult on the top. This kinda was slightly inspired by a train, yet I bulked out the rear to become super bulky.

In terms of the final design, I am probably going to combine designs 3 and 4, similar shape and such of the 3rd, with some styling of the 4th, maybe adding wings from 1 or 2.

The model was made in as little spereate objects as I possibly could. The main hull was one, with the cylinder, reactor, front thrusters, armour plates and the 5 part mech bay all being other objects. I tried to make it as simple as I can, yet also with enough detail to give a distincitive shape under lighting. I gave it some basic materials too for colour purposes, and lit areas, such as the thrusters and the windows.

I also added for lighting purposes, an area light in each of the thrusters, to give it the idea of it is active. To help show this lighting, and scale, I put in some small simple blocky 'trucks' and buildings in the distance, to help give it a small enviroment.

 

'The ‘Wild Moon’ bulk cargo carrier. Heavily modified to remove the cetre mounted cargo pod and replacing it with a rotating quad mech bay, capable of storing 4 Valkarie class mechs and all related equipment and weaponry. It also features a dorsal catapult deck, for launching the machines for combat, or for salvage operations. The twin frontal cargo holds are more than spacious enough to carry the remaining cargo to the destination. Suprisingly nimble for a craft it’s size, it is also able to hover close to a planet’s surface (10 metre clearance) to travel along the super highways connecting cities, such as the famous SH-502 between Olympus and New Seoul on Mars.'

The render came out pretty well, but didnt have as much pop as I thought it would. I took it into photoshop and PaintTool SAI, giving the edges a slight line, almost as if to show the metal panelling. I also added in some small people to help with the scale, along with its name 'Wild Moon'.

I think it could have had a slightly better and more detailed background, as this looks rather basic, although the focus is definately the starship. I think I could texture it better too, and make this a much prettier machine. I am hoping to take it further and actually finish it comepletely, with animated parts and a full texturing.

For this assignment we had to box model a minotaur, following a tutorial by Glen Southern. I started from a simple cube, slicing off a face and instance-mirroring it to help us model it in better proportion. Using edge loops and exturding, with a bit of polygon adjustments, I got the main body shape sorted easily. It was only by the thired video that I was getting confused, yet through the tutorial I learned a lot about fixing geometry, and adding more geometry without resorting to multiple edge loops which would create uneeded geometry. It was a really good tutorial on effcient box modelling.

For this brief we were asked to design an underwater creature. This could be any sort, be it squid, fish, balloon fish... I already had one small idea, from the top left most creature. Yet I wanted to try and make it look more similar to a real fish. I started looking at squid and lamprey for inspiration, ending up with two designs I really liked.

I also had a go at an almost reptile-like mer-person, trying to give it a more aggressive look. This design wasnt exactly my favourite, and it was scrapped.

After a bit of thinking, I decided on the top left design, of the squid-fish. It was simple, yet was not exactly.. normal in a sense. I started out by making a 3D sculpt of the fish, to get its shadows and basic structure done right.

The mouth was designed like a lamprey's, and would have sharp teeth along the edges (I had issues trying to get the teeth working right in the sculpt). I also shortened the tentacles, and removed most of the fins (which I felt looked a bit out of place).

I then did a simple paintover of it in the program, almost shark like in colours.

This then was taken into PaintTool SAI and used on a Lumi-shade layer to provide an extra layer of shading after I painted the fish underneath.

Im pretty happy with the final result, yet I believe I could have added a bit more detail with things such as textures, and maybe a bit stronger lighting. Yet Im happy with the overall design of the creature.