CGhub has a modeling competition, I thought I’d work on one element a day and see how far i get.

I’ve wrapped up another demo reel and I’m getting back into doing some modeling. I’m trying to loosen up with some fast doodles. Rendered in Zbrush with BPR passes and comped in Photoshop. BPR passes are turning out to be a lot of fun. I think the whole image took 5-10 minutes to light and put together. Mental Ray’s great but I get stuck in a time vacuum, hours and day’s will go by fiddling with lighting and materials before i have anything to show. It’ll be nice to explore zbrush rendering more and try to establish a workflow for visualizing 3d concepts.

I keep forgetting hair and render settings so i’m putting these up here.

If the hair shadow is too noisy, on the light increase Resolution, softness or Bias (2048, .1, .05)

Thanks to Master Zap and djx!

http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/2007/10/hot-fuzz-hair-revisited.html

http://www.djx.com.au/blog/2008/06/29/tips-for-rendering-maya-fur-with-mentalray/

p_Hair

http://www.djx.com.au/blog/2009/04/14/p_hairtk-p_hairtk_shadow-p_shader_replacer/

aaaaaand I’m done, and I know I’m done because I’m not going to work on it anymore. Unless, I wake up tomorrow morning and see the image and something bugs me enough to change it.




Full size image >> here << (middle click, open in new tab or window whatever)

I’m back in america now after taking a 4 month vacation in Tokyo. I’m very sad to leave but I’ve been keeping myself busy with some small projects. I’m staying in Flagstaff Arizona for awhile until I get some new work done to, HOPEFULLY, transition into film. I started a gun earlier this week and it came together pretty well. I’d like to model the laser sight attachment but i’ll have to come back for that. I’d like to try some other render assignments for now.

I’m working in ZB4 now. Some cool updates but inverse smooth is broken. I’m trying to do a bit everyday. These are 2~3 hours.

http://www.mikefudge.com/

I’ve just finished updating my site and i’ve added a new reel. It’s been a lot of fun creating characters for work and in my free time. But, from here on out, I’ll be shifting my focus. I won’t do any more full animation ready characters, rigged, etc. in my free time. For a long time I’ve been very interested in learning illustration. I’m going to start down the long road of shitty drawings, but in the end, something goods bound to happen. As for 3d, when i feel the urge I’ll approach it from a 3d concepting/statue sculpting direction instead, no more t-pose and skeleton setup tedium …unless it’s for a fun project. It’ll be awhile before i update this again and,  until then, a couple that I’ve liked.

*update*

Some marmoset previewing, a great tool.

In a book i read a long time ago about armor i remember it says that knights near coastal positions coated their armor with oil or something else that would make it look very dark. I always thought this looked cool and grungy so i’m trying to reproduce it. My textures here are a little rough, i’m trying to figure out which nobs to turn to get it to look right. Eventually I’d like to have it be a golden color armor with black suit covering it all except for the edges and scratches.

I painted this guy blue originally. I think a warm color is the usual go-to for this kinda thing but i wanted to try something a little different. I got stuck so i decided to work on the armor so i can see how the body color fits with the armor. The body and armor textures were painted in zbrush.