Summer Begins

And so the summer has begun and so have some of the personal projects I've started and will keep progressing on for the duration of the holiday. While I have some lined up for later on in the summer I  have 2 large projects running at the moment.

The first of these projects is to actually redo the years work over the summer holiday because it ensures I constantly do work keeping my skills up allowing me to not fall behind. The traditional exercises take me through the principles of art like perspective, line work and rendering/values. I really want to get some of these most crucial aspects of art down during the summer so I can build it up by doing more complex works in the future that rely on the more technical aspects of design work.

So far I have found that I have improved in my quality of work and the speed its produced these are both of critical importance in the creative industry because even if your work is amazing (which it has to be) it doesn't matter at all if you can't produce the volumes needed to flesh out the ideas. In one week I have managed to do five of the projects that we would have been given a week each to complete during the year, whilst still doing the other major project on the side. Iv'e redone the Canal, Archway, 2-Point, Dino Bones and Still Life projects in the time required. I really happy with the improvements I've made and I realise that I am continuing to get better this year.

The other major project for the beginning of the summer is a group project with my fellow students Denzil Forde and Kieren Burke. We are creating a Warhammer 40k level with a team of 4 Orks and 4 Space Marines. We have all been given something to concept and model, I am concepting the ork squad.

Later on in the project I'm going have to model them in 3DS max and sculpt them in Zbrush.

Even though I have done a faire amount of work I still feel like I haven't actually been working hard enough. I know I'm nearly at that level of dedication and I will get there eventually it's just that I'm not there yet. Hey I still have the whole summer to improve dramatically.

My year in a video

This is a video showcasing some of the Visual Design work I have done this year.

 Now that the year is over and I've had a little more time I've been able to practice flash and follow my own projects. I've also began redoing the years projects which is fun and plan to have redone all the work over the summer.

I'll also use this post as an opportunity to dump my sketchfab uploads aswell in chronological order so you can see some of the 3D objects I've made this year and the improvements I made.

Branch-practice by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

prickly_pear_tree by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

Bush_tree by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

junk_pile by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

fence by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

van by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

gladiator by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

Low poly woman by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab

Exam and Hand In: The End is Nigh Part 3 of 3

On Friday 16th of May 2014 I finally handed in all my files for Visual Design this academic year totalling at 541 images of work it seems I have done lots and even though I am happy in the knowledge I have completed my first year and probably won't fail and be kicked off. I still feel slightly disappointed in myself for the lack of work I did the first 3 months and how lazy I was before I joined the course, The amount my work ethic and who I am has still changed and I feel that I've grown through my experiences this year and cannot wait to start the next.

Before the day of the hand-in I had to do a 2 hour art exam in the New Walk Museum in Leicester to show of my skills and how much my work has improved over the course of the year. I scoped out the place before the day of the exam to choose what I wanted to draw and choose to draw the turkey skeleton because it was complex but I could still push with the rendering to get the best drawing possible in the allocated time.

Overall I had the best year of my life so far at this course. Meeting new people, seeing new places, new possibilities, learning new skills and growing as a person has changed my views on so many aspects of my life. At times I got tired and a little sick of the stress but I would never regret it and even the worst of it is somehow also the best when it all pays off.

Me, thinking hard about the future

Now the summer is approaching and I'm going to keep up the work load and keep pushing myself to be the best. I'll start this by redoing some of the projects and working on a group project with one of my fellow students. I will be setting my own projects too so that when September arrives I'm ready and haven't lost a beat. I have one thing to say about next year....

....Bring it on!

Masters: The End Is Nigh part 2 of 3

This is now the last last week of term and we have finished the 3D projects, so all that Is left to cover in this blog for the academic year is the masters project and the final exam. Seeing as it's nearly the end I got a lot of time to put towards this project. I still had to sort out my scans throughout the year and prepare for the exam but I still had fun doing this project. I choose to use the cintiqs because I'm still not 100% on the graphics tablets which was my problem with the finals on the Chicago project I thought it would be good to not let that get in the way.

And here they are. Both are Rembrandt studies of his portraits. I rushed the second one a little on the face but the coat he is wearing came out brilliantly. The helmet on the first study was tricky at first and I was nervous about the colours when trying to make it chrome like.

20's Chicago: The End Is Nigh part 1 of 3

While I was doing the 3D Project I was also starting and completing the last 2 Visual Design Sections of the course. The first of which is the 1920's Chicago project where you could concept anything you like from Chicago in that time period. Being the silly person I am decided to design an indoor environment which was going to eventually end up as  speak-easy/bar/vaudeville theatre.

I started doing the basic sketches and building it up from there. I also looked into all the types of bar or theatre and the kind of acts, props and characters it would contain. I really enjoyed exploring the options and went for a classy underground bar that would have everything the upper-class would need to survive the prohibition days with plenty of booze and music to enjoy but still have a dangerous feel.

After concepting themes I started doing layout pages to plan in orthographic and the floors so I knew where things would actually go. I then built the actual area in 3DS max and rendered some images that I could use for my finals.

In the end I wasn't happy with my finals because I struggled with them on Photoshop which I seem to be very hit or miss with and need to get it so I'm consistently good. I did enjoy the concepting stage and did a fair amount of work planning the awesome environment which was why it was a shame the finals didn't turn out to my liking. It's a problem that can only be solved through hard work and persistence in the face of failure.

Texturing Project

We recently got set an intense 3D project for one week for us noobs. To unwrap, texture and rig 2 models supplied to us by the Uni. This was a project focusing on the texturing mainly which happened to be something I struggled with in my other projects focusing more on things like modelling and rigging and in a recent assessment the texturing was what really let me down so I wanted to commit to this project, give 120% effort and create some awesome textures. I would still go for it on the rig as well because I enjoy that but the main test for me was to make good textures and enjoy it.

I decided because these were quite stylised models that I was going to paint the textures myself which completely paid off. I had a blast learning new tools in Photoshop and new techniques to enhance the textures. On of the most useful was how to make cloth textures and then pattern overlay them onto my texture sheet to create the illusion of jeans and patterns on the jackets. I also had loads of fun using different types of layers (mainly overlays and soft light) to create folds and creases in the clothes which made an amazing effect when the bumpmaps and speculars were applied.

My characters were inspired by the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution game with small augments on their bodies and arms where I looked at how muscles looked in real arms to create nice organic structures in the augments.

Here are videos of the models doing fairy dances which test the rigs really well but because each model is 1500 tris it still has some major deformation.                                                                                                            

Here are the models in the sketchfab 3D viewer which I have finally found out how to embed.

Low poly dude by Max_Bostock on Sketchfab