Z-Brush Horned Green Dragon

Screen grab of Zbrush sculpt with polypaint.

I've been thinking about making a dragon model for a very long time and actually started doing something about it. I decided to just open up Zbrush and go at it. I think sketching in 3d is sometimes easier than on paper. You need to put more effort in to get a decent looking 3d model. However a drawing  can give the illusion of a nice form with out true substance. You find the flaws of the drawing only when you try to build it.

 Inspiration For The Dragon's Head

I've painted dragons here before and read up on descriptions of what dragons look like. They are described as having elements of the horse, camel and dog. A very broad mix to play with and part of why I enjoy making fantasy creatures so much. I have some pictures that live in my head when I think of dragons, I can remember seeing Smaug by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt on the cover of the Hobbit when I was probably 8 or so. Strange to see two brothers credited for the same picture, I had no idea it was by two artists. That picture echoes round the web as well as the inside of my head so I expect many of you will recognize it.

Another big influence for me was lead figures for fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons. I actually went looking for some of the miniatures I used to have and found The Great Fire Dragon, there's clearly an influence there. I couldn't find the artists name but it's fair to say that the artists who made those figures had a big influence on me and I learned a good deal of what I know about painting from painting miniatures. More recently I saw the cover art of John Jude Palencar for the novel Eragon and that stuck too.

 Making The Dragon's Head

I screen grabbed the dragons head at intervals as I was working so you can see how the dragon developed. The dragon started as a poly sphere and I remeshed round about every time I did a screen grab. Remeshing prevents the polygons from being overstretched when you are putting detail into an area which  lacks the required number of polygons.

This model was intended to develop ideas and have fun. I would normally build a base mesh in Maya with a low polycount with the intention of having a fully poseable skinned model. I may still do this but I enjoyed just focusing on sculpting for a change. Low poly modeling is a very different process and not as good for developing ideas. Zbrush has a much more organic feel which very much suits pulling around fantasy creatures.

 

 I start with basic shapes which I pull around using the move tool.

 Once I had the head shape looking the way I wanted I put the details in.

Scales are quite easy and fun to do using Zbrush.

If you have a nice form to start with the scales almost draw themselves.

That was where I stopped on the sculpt.

Early polypaint, I experimented with some materials too.

Almost there, this is an outliner material that helped the texturing.

Painting The Dragon's Head

I painted the model using polypaint in Zbrush. It's probably the first time I've used it so much and it worked out quite well. Because I  painted directly onto the model in the same way I sculpt, it's much easier than painting an unfolded map in photoshop. I did use photoshop to tweak a little but for the most part it's polypaint. The best part is not having to guess how it's going to look. When you're painting the flat map what you're looking at is a peculiar pancake version of your dragon that looks like it has been skinned ready for stuffing. This is not a rendered model, all the images are just screen grabs so this model could look even nicer with the right lighting.

If I develop this model further (which depends on how much attention it gets) I think I would start thinking about more of a crest of horns and a larger mouth with more prominent teeth. I would also texture the eyes as they are currently just placeholder spheres with a material applied.

If you would like me to develop the dragon further please like, +1 and/or share this post and I will get the message. Thanks to all the plussers on my last post I very much appreciate active readers, this blog welcomes and needs your support.

Zombies or Aliens Which are better?

It's reader participation time again here at Deranged Scratchings! The question is Which is better aliens or zombies?.....but only because the real question I am bringing to your attention was just too damn big to fit in the title. That's right this is one of those big questions, the sort of question theologians and adepts of science have turned their backs on from fear of losing themselves to it's complexity. I know that readers of Deranged Scratchings are a rare breed who breakfast on the dilemmas other mortals dread, so hear it is in it's awesome entirety: Which is better?

• Aliens(in a jar with cyborg bodies)
• Insect Men
• Gelatinous Goop Aliens
• Lion Men 
• Steam Punk Cooker
• Robots
• Space Troopers
• Zombies

Insect men can of course have more than one set of eyes, antenna and segmented external skeletons are also very in next year.

Alien gelatinous goop could be due a come back, you herd it here first

Erm...... it all went a bit Thunder Cats (what ever happened to the movie?)

Steam punk stove robot, can kick your ass while making a nice cup of tea for afters.

 Robot? Any takers? Formerly owned by Captain Antilles. No faulty motivators as standard.

Space trooper.... a soldier in space not terribly original but it seems I had to do it. (yes of course he gets a laser gun)

Lastly but no means leastly it's the video game and internet phenomenon that is the zombie! Bath salts be damned better look out or he'll have your eye out!

I have been busy rendering a cyber punk laser battle which will be my next post. While my main computer was busy with the render job, I got into my character concept painting. It's been great fun, now all I need to do is pick one to be taken into polygons. 

So Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves choosing a concept idea from the above for me to turn into my next character model. Here are your choices again:

• Alien (in a jar with cyborg body)
• Insect Man
• Gelatinous Goop Alien
• Lion Man
• Steam Punk Cooker
• Robot
• Space Trooper
• Zombie

Stick your choice in a comment and which ever gets the most votes before I get a chance to start building, will be made into a character model, the same way the cyborg was done last time.

Cyborg #1 Concept

 I have been working on some cyborg concept, these were created with my graphics tablet in photoshop. 

I wanted to throw some ideas around before I start a new 3d poly model. I may try losing the little finger from this character, that way I can use the joints I save to create animatable pistons or other mechanical gubbins for my human machine hybrid. The idea is that this model will work with the same skeleton as the cyber punk from my last entry and so be able to play the same animations and use the same props. I'm planning to keep the team colour ideas as with the cyber punk. I have stuck with just the torso arms and head being mechanized, I did consider going further but any more and I think I might as well just make a robot (I probably will at some point). I also should have a cool bit of 2d work coming up and wanted to get my drawing head on. 

 My idea of a cyborg is someone who doesn't know when to quit. A character who really should take some time out after losing some fairly important parts of himself but no, not this fella he will just head down to his local Cyber Cyborgs 'R' Us and buy some replacement parts. Something like the Black Knight from Monty 

Python's The Holy Grail but with the perks of science fiction.

 It's all gone a bit dark and twisted, I guess the Borg from Star Trek are shuffling around in my subconscious, that along with Mean Machine from 2000ad, he pretty much fits the mould for how I see a cyborg, not a character that would ever sit out a fight. There are some much older influences creeping in from things like Frankenstein and all those science gone bad cautionary tales. Also recently I bumbled onto the world of Transhumanism and the idea of septic cyborgs seems to have taken root. Apparently if you're the sort that takes a practical approach to recreating yourself as man-machine or human 2.0 a major stumbling block is making sure your body doesn't reject your up grades (yes that is as yucky as it sounds). If you fancy giving it a go there is some handy how to stuff here. I wont be trying it any time soon as I'm sure it would play havoc with my RSI.

I would be interested to know which of the three I've painted you think would win in a fight, or alternatively which one is the most pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

Sorceress character model #2 concept

Back with the Sorceress and I've added some colour. There's a bit of a feathers and scales theme at the moment and I kept the stripey tights and boots. The cloak will need to be less chaotic and stiffer for a games

character with a limited number of joints to give the effect of cloth. I might lean more towards a Batfink direction with the cloak if I make this one (my wings are like a shield of steel!)

To the left is my initial sketch that I built this painting up from, I moved the arms, shoulders and neck around a good deal while I was painting the Sorceress, but I've not gone too far from the initial drawing. It's also pretty close to the monochrome version I did in my last post. Perhaps my inner witch is set in her ways.

She is quite a big boned magic user. I bet Witches don't eat special K, I figure them for more of a chocolate eclairs with rum diet.

 In other news my tablet died while I was painting the Sorceress. It had been going for months but eventually just became unusable. For ages it had been suffering from a loose connection which meant I had to shake the pen to get it to work, reminded me of when I used to work with a rotring ink pen. It seemed like a very old tablet, the pen was battery operated and the design made it look kind of 80s. Still after over 3 years service to me I think it deserves  an honorary mention and photo for the blog. I did all the textures and painting shown on Deranged Scratchings using this old thing some of the better examples would be Digital Desperado and The Nine Dragons.

Note elastic band holding case together on pen.

 Farewell old tablet 2008-2012...... not sure whether to bury it in the garden now.

I finished up the Sorceress on my new tablet which is a swanky brand new Intuos4. I read good thing about it and I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Sorceress character model #1 concept

For my next character model I'm thinking along the lines of a witch or Sorceress. I quite like the idea of getting some sort of poly based magic effects working. Seeing as I haven't made any female characters for TurboSquid I thought I might give it a go. There are all ready quite a few wizards although that might be another fun project for the future.

I'm not sure J.K. Rowling would approve of my Witch, probably not a good look for Helga Hufflepuff. More what Wonder Woman would look like if she turned to the dark side, but with out the handcuffs and rope for tying people up (Wonder Woman going to the dark side would probably be worth taking seriously). There's something of a Flash Gordon look to her too, although I could probably push the shoulder pads further.

I've done the concept sketch monochrome just to get quick idea of the model. I'm thinking for the colours deep purples and reds, or maybe a liquorish green similar to Aragorn in Peter Jackson's version of Lord of the Rings.

For the metals (choker and shoulder pads) I'm currently thinking a kind of a ghostly light silver and the skin tones also very pale verging on the blue or green. Not sure about the cloak, it would be a proper pain to animate and set up, on the other hand it will look cool. What do you reckon is this something you would like to see me put together? if so please press the like or +1 button and I will know to get my polygons on.

Orc Warrior #2 Concept Armoured Orc

I've been continuing with my orc character. Still painting with the graphics tablet, I've been thinking more along the lines of heavy plate armour. My thinking at the moment is to have both a leather armour and plate armour version, the leather armour version wont have a helmet, so I have an excuse to model the orcs face.

Orc head in black and white

I didn't keep the WIPs this time, I got three quarters through the painting before it occurred to me. There's some preparatory sketches to show instead, in black and white with the tablet. I did try moving over to pencil and paper as I said I would in my last post but in the end, having got back into the swing with the tablet I decided to stick with it.

 Here is a version of the armoured orc I did before the colour version at the top of the page. It's not that different but you can see how the stance and pose are much better in the final colour version.

 A rough sketch I did where I was thinking about having a larger torso and arms for the orc. I quite like the sketch but I decided against going further and painting armour on it. What ever I'm working on I always have working drawings, even for animations. Mostly in biro on lined paper. The cannon fodder of the artistic project missing in action or round filed.








I also had some ideas for orc helmets which I painted separately, again in black and white. I found it quite fun to paint these up roughly with the tablet, in the past I would have done all this kind of work with a pencil and sketch book. To get this sort of look on paper I would have to use charcoal or ink which is a lot of fuss and mess and if your not that accurate, you can quickly go from smart looking sketch, to smudgy smeary black splodge.

I used a template orc head and painted a few variant helmets over it. When it comes to building it, I will probably have some more ideas. At the moment I'm liking the below version or the one in the colour version at the top of the page.

Probably will be with the polygons in the next post.

Ninja post #1

 I've decided to start work on a new character and decided to go for the old tried and tested Ninja. A stock badguy for many arcade and console games over the years. I've started by doing some research and doing some drawing to get an idea of what I'm aiming for.

The plan is to get a rigged and textured version together, and then do an in game set for my showreel. I think these two are about the best of the sketches so I will be working towards a Ninja that looks like this. I will post up my progress here so you can see how I get along.