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Sketchbook: Zwebbie

polycounter lvl 18
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Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
I always imagine that I'll work hard all summer and be awesome afterwards, and I always waste summer by doing nothing. So this year, I'm having you people to kick my ass if I don't get stuff done. And a sketchbook is also a good excuse to post stuff that's unfinished or crap. I decided to go to university after summer instead of job hunting, so there's no pressure for finished pieces, which is great.

I'm doing this all just to get better, so any advice or criticism is more than welcome.

Everything is done in Blender, Photoshop or both.

Old-WWIIGI.jpg
Some guy I started after the DomWar and I wanted to do some crazy detail, but it never got far. WWII + Space Marine armour was so clich

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  • Elhrrah
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    Elhrrah polycounter lvl 8
    There is another answer for motivation; mod crew.

    Some great looking stuff in here.
  • Mechadus
    Nice work Zwebbie!

    I particularly like the space nazi ;) Im actually playing Max Payne 1 right now, and I totally recognized the best before I even read your description. I think you have the general expression pretty much down, but I think if you moved the eyebrows closer together over the nose it would be a little more like the game - I noticed while playing that Max's expressions usually form a pretty harsh V shape blended nicely with the constipation face. Awesome stuff tho

    -N!
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Elhrrah: Thanks. That's actually not a bad idea, but I won't be able to fulfill any obligations after August anyway and I like how I can keep switching between different areas of CG now.

    Mechadus: Thank you. Not sure if I'll be going back to Max, since he was just the evening's practice, but it's definitely noted :) .

    Some quick-ish studies from today (well, it's yesterday by now, but whatever):

    7-3-TorsoStudy.jpg
    3rd of July: Torso study.

    7-3-BouguereauStudy.jpg
    3rd of July: Study after Bourguereau's portrait of Gabrielle Cot. Lots of fun and very educational, so I'll be doing more of that in the future.
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    7-5-BouguereauStudy2.jpg

    5th of July: Another Bouguereau study, this time la Tricoteuse. It's not the best, but it's 2:16 AM and I'd like to get some sleep :) .
  • Rens
    bouguereau uses alot of soft tints and key highlights,

    your works are missing the highlights quite a bit
    you do desaturate the examples before working from it right, color to black and white doesnt work well

    see wich highlights you are missing, and try and add those, they will spark up your drawings alot!

    bouguereau should also be studied with real paint! ;)
    its a great way to relax and get into lighting on a nice pace,
    you will focus alot more on what you do with a real brush :D

    anyway, what ive learned myself is not always to go for alot of pieces quick quick one a day.
    stick to one for a bit, work it out into details, that way you reall break it down and get a much better understanding about how its build up,

    moar!
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Rens: Thank you very much! That's definitely some useful advice. One day, when I'm awesome, I'll actually paint for real, but as long as I'm just fiddling around, I'll stick to cheap digital paint ;) .

    I'm not too sure about working on a piece for a longer time. At this point, I think learning about the construction and the lighting is a priority and that detail can come later when I've got a solid grasp on the basics. Studying different angles and lighting once a day sounds more educational to me than drawing every individual hair strand. It's also easier to keep motivation up if you know that you're actually going to get some real results the same day. That said, I already put a bit more time into my drawing today and maybe I'll try a really long piece one of these days.

    7-6-BouguereauStudy3.jpg

    6th of July: You guessed it. Psych
  • Rens
    Its not about drawing every hair, its about sticking more time in tweaking proportions and lighting. If you put more time in those, you will find out alot more imo then that you try and paint one a day, there is just too much stuff going on wich you skip in order to finish one up

    for instance, the skin under her eyes is missing alot of values, wich makes it look flat

    i use the liquify tool in photoshop alot to pulling things into place, try it, see what happens :)
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    I see what you're getting at, Rens, but I'm doing them all in one day to keep my motivation up; with all the next-gen modeling and such, it's nice to finish something within a couple of hours after starting it. That said, I'm putting more time into fixing the proportions and looking at the pictures from a distance, because I'm making some huge mistakes.

    Update:

    7-8-BouguereauStudy4.jpg
    8th of July: Another Bouguereau study. Ir
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    I'm totally neglecting this Sketchbook, just when I was off to such a good start.

    So here's some more stuff then:

    ExplosivePersonalities-3D-sculpting-ExplosivePersonalities-137-img_09c9e27d4.jpg

    18th of July (or somewhere in that neighbourhood): entry for GameArtisans' Explosive Personalities mini comp. I tried to make an homage to Dr. Strangelove, but there's very little sculpting for a sculpting mini. On top of that, I still regret not changing the eye brows, they're the poorest part of the piece.



    MG08Front.jpg
    MG08Back.jpg

    22nd of July: A German MG08, the blatant copy of the Maxim they used in the First World War. I dare say half of the time spent making it was gathering and interpreting reference. NOT AS MUCH FUN AS IT LOOKS!



    8-23-SteampunkInventorGuy.jpg

    23rd of August: A Steampunk guy. Good practice.
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Ohnoes, after all that while, an update!

    Firstly, I joined the LPC2 and got in fourth! Very happy with that, even if it may have more to do with quantity than quality.

    Only after the competition did I actually buy Watchmen, so I was able to make some changes afterwards, most notably on the environment, which was completely redone. Comparison:

    LPC2_F_NiteOwl_SilkSpectre.jpg
    WatchmenIngameMockup.jpg

    (Of course I don't think iPhones can handle Catmull-Rom anti-aliasing, but who cares :D ?)

    Secondly, a new and improved portfolio. The old one wasn't designed for more than the original six pieces I had, and it was hard to expand because the index and pictures were on the same page. This one should be able to host an infinite amount of projects, which is good since I'll be less strict about adding stuff - it's not for a job anymore after all, so if it's cool, it goes on the website.
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Long timey no updatey, but I've got a sculpt:

    SpeedGuy1.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Nothing new here, just updating this with things I've made recently(ish).

    Entry for GameArtisans' Return to Oz competition:
    3dminiReturntoOz-3D-mini3d-3dminiReturntoOz-151-img_90e6ebaf7.jpg

    A couple of quick sculpts. Need to do more.
    2-10-Sculpt.jpg
    SpeedGuy2.jpg

    'Fancy collar girl':
    CollargirlInMarmosetPose2.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Oh no! It's been a year and ten days since this thread was started. And a long while since it's been updated. Busy, busy.

    Anyway, some stuff that everybody has seen by now:

    Two (rather disappointing) entries for the Polycount Pack contest.
    Soldier
    Heavy

    And some 2D studies of busts by Bernini:


    2D_Bernini_GregoriusXV.jpg


    2D_Bernini_UrbanusVIII.jpg


    2D_Bernini_ScipioneBorghese.jpg


    2D_Bernini_InnocentiusX.jpg
  • gibson543
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    gibson543 polycounter lvl 13
    Wow man these studies look awesome. And all of the models are done in blender? Man that's just wild to me, probably the best quality blender art I've seen.
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    *blush!*

    I like to think of myself as an artist who just happens to use Blender though, rather than as a Blender artist, so I always think it's a bit pointless to compare only to people who use the same software.

    -

    Here are some more Bernini studies, as seen in the WAYWO thread:

    2D_Bernini_ThomasBaker.jpg

    2D_Bernini_Longinus.jpg
  • conte
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    conte polycounter lvl 18
    love your stuff, Zwebbie :D
  • Makkon
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    Makkon polycounter
    Your mastery of value astounds me. How do you do it, man. Genius!

    Seriously, tell us. :O
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Makkon wrote:
    Your mastery of value astounds me. How do you do it, man. Genius!
    It's in the subject matter; statues rely purely on value, then someone places it in nice lighting, then someone takes a nice photograph. I make a cheap and incorrect copy.

    -

    Well, I promised myself to post stuff even when it's bad, so here goes. To finally use some colour, I took a screengrab from the first scene of a Beautiful Mind and tried to recreate it. It became pretty clear after a minute that the colour picker was essential. Good practice, though, and I'll have at it again soon.

    ABM.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    I think no explanation is needed by now.

    2D_Bernini_LouisXIV.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Moth clothing!

    Mothlady.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Ohnoes, almost pushed to page 2! Time to update!

    First, this is a couple of days older, from the Concept Tag thread. Tagged after Ferg

    ConceptTagFerg.jpg


    Furthermore, another study from A Beautiful Mind. This time without comparison, because that just brings me down.

    ABM2.jpg


    I also wanted to do some drawing from life, but alas, nobody around but me. So here are two self portraits. Now you know why nobody guesses me at the 22 years that I am ( :( ).

    Moi.jpg

    Moi2.jpg
  • DarkStar
    Hehe, that's right you look like 12 ( no offense ... ) and your Drawing skill's are really good and improving! Good Job!!! :)
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Zwebbalicious, you have a beautiful mug, regardless of age appearance :D

    One thing I would say though-- don't cheat yourself by using the color picker on reference images. It can work in the short term, but it's a handicap. Being able to eyeball color values is one of the most important tools for an artist, and you need to develop it. I know, because there was a time once when I too was in that dark, dark hole of reference color picking... BUT NO MORE!!! What I find to be most helpful is to lay down some big swatches of 3 or 4 colors that are most dominant in an image and then blend them and color pick from the new combinations on the canvas. You end up with a much more natural looking painting that way.

    Cool stuff man.
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    DarkStar: Err, thanks...

    wake: Thanks. You're being quite an asset to the Sketchbook forum as of late. Concerning the colour picker, as I'm rather new to this whole 2D thing, I didn't want to tackle too many things at once. But I suppose that colour is more important than the subtleties of composition and all that, so I'll focus more on that :) .

    -

    Another self portrait. Especially for DarkStar, I put on an angry face and used harsh lighting to make me look older. Especially for wake, it's in colour.

    Moi3.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    More 2D junk:

    This was fun until I realised that I'm nowhere near experienced enough to do complex poses.

    Aerogirl.jpg



    From some magazine about retiring or something.

    Eigentijd.jpg



    This was for Conceptart.org's Character of the Week, it's even finished, but I forgot to enter. You can blame Victoria 2 for that.

    CHOW209WIP2.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    OK, this was just too much fun not to show. I started too late, and because the sun was setting, I constantly had to revise the lighting.

    Moi4.jpg
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Long time no update!

    For ConceptArt's Self Portrait day.
    November1SelfPortrait.jpg

    Abandoned Dominance War Mini entry.
    DWVMiniWIP4.jpg

    A priest guy with whom I plan to do a game comic/game.
    Priestguy.jpg

    Busy, busy!
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Posted this a while back in P&P, now I'll add it to this thread as the last thing I did in 2010:

    P.jpg

    It's Philip the Good!
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Hello!

    Today marks my one year anniversary of leaving Polycount. I figure it's as good a day to come back as any; the original plan was only for a couple of months, that quickly became half a year and when that went by I decided to lengthen it to a year. And that year's over! I might as well put my newfound social skills to the test, right?

    I'm sorry I don't have a spectacular art dump like Makkon had after he returned, but pretty much everything I made in the meanwhile has been bad in one way or another. However, here are two SDKs from Release the heads that I was rather pleased with:

    Zwebbie_SpaceChick_Render.jpg
    Zwebbie_Hood_Render.jpg
  • Blaisoid
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    Blaisoid polycounter lvl 7
    those heads look pretty cool, but gray parts of helmet are possibly too desaturated.
    pinkish parts could use some complementary colors.

    lighting on the hat seems less defined than lighting on guy's face.
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    @Blaisoid: Apologies for the late reply! I have a habit of only answering when I've got something to show too, and that's not too often. Anyway, you're right about those things, and while I'll leave these textures as they are, I'll try to keep those things in mind next time.

    -

    Ok, new things then.

    The highpoly of this was posted in WAYWO, as were the eyes, but now I'm working on a lowpoly in the Marmoset Toolbag trial.

    Zwebbie_Franciscan.jpg

    Zwebbie_Franciscus_1.jpg


    This was abandoned, also posted in WAYWO:

    Zwebbie_Vest.jpg


    This was posted in the Speed Modeling thread, but this is a newer version, made with critique from Muzz in mind:

    Zwebbie_Sculpt070312-2.jpg


    Here's something I ditched because I didn't like the design I had for the body, but I'm not entirely displeased with how the quick texture worked out when rendered in Marmoset.

    Zwebbie_Suit_Head.jpg


    Let's see, what else...

    Oh, here's a collection of Zwebbies I've painted over the last year. They're all supposed to be the same person, believe it or not.

    Zwebbie_SP.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    welcome back Zwebbie, some nice stuff. The sp's are especially telling-- major improvement over the year on your grasp of facial structure and lighting. Keep painting that beautiful face bro
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Cheers, Wake. The scary part about painting so many self portraits, though, is that I've become fixed on the idea that my lock of hair flows to the left of my face, because I always see it mirrored - when IRL it flows to the right. So when I look at photographs of myself, it's as if that's a shadow-Zwebbie from the bizarro dimension or something and it's quite awkward.

    -

    Anyway! Sort of finished that aforementioned model. I was considering a thread for the next model, but nobody really cared in WAYWO and I'm not really prepared to make big changes either.

    I was a bit tired that most characters, including a fair few of my own, were somehow involved in violence in one way or another. So I made the complete opposite: a portrait bust of Saint Francis of Assisi, one of the nicest persons ever to have walked the earth.

    Some fun facts about St. Francis:
    - All people and places named Francis, including the city of San Francisco, are named after him, as it wasn't actually a real name before.
    - He invented the Nativity scene.
    - He once convinced a wolf to stop attacking a city.
    - He was canonised a mere two years after his death.
    - He was completely awesome all the time.
    - Nobody knows what he looked like, except that he had a beard.

    Some fun facts about the model:
    - 5198 triangles, though that includes a mouth that I didn't bother to texture.
    - 1024*1024 Diffuse, normal and specular, with transparency.
    - Rendered in Marmoset.


    Zwebbie_Franciscus_5.jpg

    Zwebbie_Franciscus_4.jpg
  • innervision961
    I really love your work, and your characters have some of the best looking eyes I've seen! :)
  • Zwebbie
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    Zwebbie polycounter lvl 18
    Thank you, innvervision. There was a discussion in Poop's next-gen eyes thread, though, and we came to the conclusion that the eyes I make aren't very next-gen. They don't hold up as well under extreme angles or crazy lighting, because they're just regular 'ol spheres.

    -

    Here are some things that were previously posted in WAYWO:

    Zwebbie_Hugo.jpg

    Zwebbie_Violin.jpg

    Violins are remarkably difficult, way moreso than firearms in my opinion. It's a good thing the sloppiness is hard to notice.
  • butt_sahib
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    butt_sahib polycounter lvl 11
    you are aweseome and i love you
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