Work in progress sculpt

I am currently working on sculpting an old man's face, trying to work quickly while still achieving a good level of detail. I am unsure where this will end up and whether I will turn this into a full character, but at the moment it is purely for the practice of creating wrinkles, folds and fine detail in the skin.

2011 Showreel

3D Character Modelling and Animation Showreel 2011 from John Wendels on Vimeo.

Business Card Design.

As part of my Employability Pack I have been requested to create a brand for myself and include this on documents. Here is a business card design I put together using my logo and branding.

Front

 
I wanted to keep the front of the card as simple and clean as possible, with just my logo design. I chose this design as I feel it effectively simplifies my physical appearance into one element, which I think is important for making the business card memorable and unique, with a personal touch. I also incorporated a wireframe element into the logo to suggest the 3D element of my work.

Back (Details)

I went for a smarter look for the back, carrying through the grey element from the front and with a subtle repeat of the logo. I added a 3D rendition of my name while attempting to keep a balance between creative and professional.

I'm aware I probably refer to the front and back wrongly but I like to think that the design/identity element would be presented first, much like your face is the first thing presented to people in real life.

I am interested to see how these look printed professionally, so I will be ordering some through Vistaprint.

Crowe - Diffuse Texture Completed

Crowe is now fully textured, complete with his weapons. I am very happy with how the texture has turned out and when looking back at the initial concept I drew up, I feel it is a very good representation. There are some minor differences however. For example, we decided due to a cut in the storyboard Crowe no longer needed the large knife on his leg, which avoided issues where it might intersect with other areas when rigging and animating. The hood is perhaps not as effective as I had hoped, as Crowe's face is quite clearly visible and I would have liked his eyes to have been shadowed, however this may be something we can add through the use of good lighting. His hair may be retouched as I am still unsure about it, but as it is only visible in one scene this is not too much of a pressing issue.


Crowe concept art:

Crowe – Yet another texture update

Another diffuse texture update, this time with subtle material texture detail added as well as a dirt layer to all elements of the texture, including the face. The shoulders are perhaps still looking a little too smooth and plain, so I will experiment with adding some subtle detail to reduce this effect.





Comments and feedback greatly appreciated as always :)

Crowe – Eye Texture

The eye texture as it stands at the moment, created using a 'double-decking' technique, where one sphere is slightly indented to create the iris and the pupil, with another slightly larger, almost transparent but high specularity sphere encompassing it to act as the cornea. This is very effective for replicating the eyes at angles.

Crowe – Diffuse Texture Update – WIP

A further update to the face diffuse texture. I have been concentrating primarily on the lips, facial hair, and working some blemishes and subtle pores into the skin. The eyes are still untouched at this stage.

Crowe – Diffuse Texture – WIP

Began adding detail to the diffuse texture today as we will soon be close to the rendering stages and this needs to be completed.

This is how the diffuse texture is looking on the face at the moment, though it will likely go through a lot of changes before it is completed. For example, I am looking to add an element of dirt/griminess which will also carry through to his clothing to make him fit his environment more convincingly.





Any feedback and suggestions will be appreciated :)

Snake - Finished Sequence

Final Sequence Renders

Crowe – Rigging

With the rig very close to completion (with the exception of the hood and weapons) I decided to create a few renders to show the deformation of the mesh.

Some overlayed elements of the mesh proved rather difficult, such as the shoulder leather, the belts and the leg armour. To overcome this I hid all overlayed elements and rigged the main mesh, I then unhid the elements one by one and rigged them as well as possible.

Rigging is not necessarily my strongest skill, and this has not been without it's challenges but I have given it my best attempt and I'm rather pleased with the results.

Here are some of the poses I was using throughout the rigging process as a means of easily seeing how well each area was deforming.







At the moment Crowe has a basic temporary diffuse texture applied, but this will be replaced with a more detailed one at a later date. At this stage however, we are running very late so our main priority is to get started on the animation.