Compliment Sandwich

Stewie: Now, I’m going to do something I like to call the ‘Compliment Sandwich' Where I say something good, talk about where you need improvement, and then end with something good.

That's on of my favorite scene from Family Guy where Stewie starts his own company in his small room :D
Well It's been a long time since I posted some *sandwiches* on this blog.I've been very busy and lazy to put up a new post. But I've been active on the Facebook page of this blog. So make sure you subscribe to my Facebook page too [even if you don't like it]. I got myself a new laptop with a little better config compared to my MeaN-ManchinE. i5 processors does a pretty good job with ZBrush and Mental Ray rendering. I also got a job as a Web Designer, and lets hope things work out <3

Ok let me warm up:

1. Deadly Sun:

Deadly Sun. Very Initial Image

Deadly Son

I made two wallpapers. Both of the illustrate the concept of "Deadly Sun". The one in red, i named it as "Deadly Son". Huh! not much of a difference in name but the son one is more bloody. That orange like thing [son] in the middle is surrounded by alien like tentacles, which signify as the rays from the Sun.

T'was a pretty easy to made it in ZBrush and took me only half hour to build the base model of the concept I had in mind.

Following, I made a facebook cover for my profile, where I used this model:

Limelight

I named it 'Limelight' [since I'm under the influence of two son <3 ]

Hmmm...This gives me an idea, I think it's time for redecorate this blog.

2. Err...A Frog ?? As an *Angel*! Lmao :P

Frog Angel. I gotta find a better name for this masterpiece.

Pathetic right? :P

I Guess I Made Him Lil' Young

I'll start by showing off the sculpt first.:

Finally!

You know what I'm a useless creature. I elongate the production time. This sculpt should have completed in one week, and I took more like a month! Well, I have been learning new feature and some old techniques for sculpting, so shut your mouth and gulp it as an excuse from my side.

If you look at the sculpt, you would find some reasonable defects in the model. Like the chin. It's weird. Everybody told me it's... awful. But I like it, the way it is, even if it's not right. I didn't tried to keep the norms while making it. My main concern was detailing, and keeping it realistic.

I was supposed to sculpt an old person, and I hope 'it' is looking like an old man to you all. You can assume the fact that the person tries to keep his personality younger :P

For now the problem, the feats that lack to make it realistic, [technically speaking] the MatCap, the texture of hair [although I'm pretty impressed by facial hairs, which includes the eyebrow], facial structure, the realism of eyes.

Used it as my facebook profile pic :P

I have not researched upon making MatCaps [here's the link :D], and was hard for me to set the right skin color. Even the material used for the hair is the same as for the skin :( All I had was the gorilla MatCap I used in innOnster which was not good for hair).

Another thing I would like to mention and talk about the Renderer(s) in ZBrush. ZBrush 4R2 additionally has one new renderer by the name of BPR [Best Preview Renderer]

Personally, I felt Best Preview [Render-> Best] better than BPR. Probably I must be doing something wrong, but my personal experience implied me to this conclusion.
Here are some comparisons:

BPR vs. Best Preveiw (with WaxPreview ON)

BPR vs. Best Preview (with WaxPreview OFF)

I used layers too, and Layers are way different than I expected them to be. You can animate the transition. Actually they are called 3D Layers in ZBrush.

Check this out:

'3D' Layer Transitions

3D Layer did "way to easy way" to animate, and let's you save details separately and are editable. You can edit the intensity of the details you made through them. Just check out the link for thorough details.

A Little Update Upon the Old Man

Got the problem solved, but with little loss. But I took care of it. I had to delete the higher sub division level and  then remodel the details.
Working hours are really small these days, like 2-3 hours. Trying to keep myself in a normal "daytime alive" bio-cycle. Most of the time I'm watching videos about occupy movement or reading about it. Also I came across a movie based upon the best fictional novel of all time: Atlas Shrugged, Part I.

Oh! Lastly, here's what I did in last two hours, completed the ear.:

InnOnster!

Remember Bane!?

Figuratively, I created a monster. He's innocent and made into monster, not by choice.
My innOnster :P is not as strong as bane but goes around. I made it in one sitting, in two hours, that too when I got frustrated by complexities I was facing in the old man tutorial.

Check this out:

Front

Back

Rear-Front-Rear

Edge Loops Menace

Suddenly out of nowhere ZBrush stuck on a very well placed bomb. While working on the old man face, I was supposed to work on making edge loops between some poly groups, and this is what happened!

Edge Loop Menace

Well let not go into detail, but it's a real mess. I don't know how to skip it and would have to wait for ZBrushCentral to respond to my problem.

I searched on net and found this video. Luckily, that guy has resolved his problem[I just checked]:

Let's hope he's right.

Back On Z

Phew...long month ehh!
Well, for the whole month played Dragon age. I wanted to complete the game with a warrior and all the DLCs and expansions. Finally done with it. I reached level 35 at the end :) and now back to the business.

I was working on a small tutorial where I was supposed to make an alien ant using ZSphere. As I reached the end of the tutorial, I was supposed to rebuild the topology of the structure. This is because it "Remove Polygon Stretching and adjust the edge flow of your model".

Pixologic released their new version, ZBrush 4R2 which has developed a *system* name Dynamesh [yeah, ZClassroom was pretty particular while mentioning it as a *system* and not a *feature*]. This new feature helps you work on the mesh without worrying about rebuilding the topology.

So I was like WTF! Why should I waste my time just to learn to connect those dots [It was pretty tiring for connecting those point on the surface of the ant and rebuilding it]. Although [worth mentioning] I had wasted my time on it, but the results were awful. I had lost a lot of detailing in this process. I felt pathetic to redo the detailing again just for completing that tutorial.

So I felt to learn something new. I check my drives for other tutorials for working on ZBrush which *do not* waste time on topology.

Now this is what I'm learning right now.

Front View

It's not complete! I just uploaded for the sake of updating the blog.

It will be a sculpt of an old man. I think it will take me a little time to complete it through, unless I don't get distracted :P

Any argument would be appreciated.

Front Right View

Low-Right View

Front Left View

It's Jelly-Khan

Damn No comments! Fuck!! Too much solitude! Ok Moving On...

The idea didn't started from jelly fish, but it got involved as I worked.I showed the screenshot in the previous post to my mom, and she described the sculpt as crab :P ,and those tentacles under the main body resembles the tentacles of a crab.

The tentacles on the head denotes more like horns on a bull, implying it as a head, i.e. king.
The face is not much detailed. I require to provide more detail over the eyes, below it and mustache region.

Well the pink structure looks more like a carpet [too thick!], rather than jelly. I wanted to merge an animal body with jellyfish. From inside, the surface I was meant to animal skin, and as you move to the ends, it should be jelly.
FYI, it's a cape!

The rear ends of the creature are broken bones. Over the broken bones, I have given a algae look and spot for making it more deep sea friendly. I consider it more like a dead part of the creature.
[It must be funny to admit that the dead part is a very colorful and lively]

The skin like tentacles under the main body, are supposed to be the tentacles of a jelly wish through which they move. Although I have made them small, they are strong.

What I don't like about the creature than it's round. From the sides, I gotta move in the vertices to just narrow down the shape.

Scrapwork, Untitled

Guess what is it. Comment what you think it is.

Hint : Those black ends are tentacles.

P.S. : The color are not definite and don't get confused. For the first time I painted something on computer.

Component, True Friend

This is another sculpt name "True Friend". One of the *components* of the side project [referred earlier]. It's incomplete for now.

The name says it all.

Hypocricy :X

It's a *prototype*. Cause, lmao, neither I'm totally sure I want to mean it :P There is some elements I haven't expressed [finding idea to express it visually, cause it's a painting not an audio log :P, of course] and finding idea to do.