Back in Canada

I haven't posted anything in a while, and I guess that's just how it goes sometimes. Part of the reason for my lack of updates includes leaving Provo and getting situated up in Calgary, as well as struggling to get ZBrush and xNormal to cooperate. Another excuse is lots of video games, watching all three seasons of Community, and general mismanagement of time.

Either way, I want to finish this project before moving on to another portfolio project. These shots came after retopologizing, laying out UV's, and baking out normal maps from the hi-poly to the low-poly. Next up will be creating the diffuse and specular maps.

what i've been working on lately

So I saw this (http://www.arena.net/blog/arenanet-is-hiring-character-artists) and I got excited. But then I noticed that it had already been posted for a week. So here I am, late to the party, and slow as poop when it comes to zBrush. These images are very much "works in progress", so feel free to critique away.

Updates:

walking and hopping along

Updates:

more ear action reaction

less crappy walk

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Original Post:

crappy walk

hoppity hoppity

smore animations

goblin idle update

idle

react

Here's an update on my goblin animations. Based on some feedback I've gotten here and on Polycount, I've made a true idle cycle, and the previous animation now updated as a "react" animation with more secondary movement on the loincloth and throughout the spine and shoulders.

Also, these images are getting weird compression issues, so make sure to click on them to view them in their native resolution.

Adventure Time x Star Wars Sketch

Adventure Time is really great. Original Series Star Wars is super amazing. For some reason my brain mashed the two together, and I felt like making a little sketch of Finn and Jake as Han and Chewie.

When asked to describe the premise of Adventure Time, I usually say "It's all about being a young kid and having an awesome imagination."

idle goblin animation

Here's my latest, a fully rigged goblin character with his lil' sword and shield all textured up. Right now he's doing his "idle" animation loop, and soon I'll be adding more (ie. walk, run, attack, block, death... that kind of thing). Any animation peeps willing to give me some feedback? I'm feeling a bit rusty on some of the finer points of animation, but the weight feels like it moves pretty nice.

Oh, and in other news, I got turned down by Blizzard. Sad day.

wow a blog post

Here's what I've been working on lately. It's for an art test. If you can guess which studio it's for, you win bonus nerd points.

And in case you missed my other update on my portfolio site, check this out:

Thanks for looking! Wish me luck on my art test, cuz I really need it!

zbrush head studies

This is potentially the first in a series of zBrush head studies that I'm planning on. I probably shouldn't have picked a person with such difficult hair on my first entry.

Andy Samberg

now in color!

Here's some of the reference I used, just for fun

this kind of research makes me feel like a stalker...

goblin update!

I've been adding my wip images to my previous post, but I think I've made enough progress to make a new post! Check it! Zbrush is super fun now that I've got some basics down. And I learned a bunch from working on my Darksiders hammer. Unfortunately, I didn't make the cut, but congrats to the super talented dudes who did!

This is how the retopologized low-poly looks with just the normal map applied. xNormal wasn't being the most cooperative, and ZBrush was acting weird and exporting the obj files at different scales and positions, so this stage took me a bit longer than I was planning on. Either way, I went from over 6 million points on the high-poly (after a hefty Decimation Master pass) to about 4,500 tris on the low-poly. Next stage will be the diffuse map with color and stuff.

Maya default viewport screen-grabs 

darksiders final image!

I've finished my Darksiders 2 Polycount weapon contest entry! Woo hoo!

If you wanted to see what else the Polycount community has been working on, here are the links to the submission pages:
Mace category, Axe category, Hammer category

darksiders 2 polycount competition!

Latest Update: Here's the link to my post with my Final Presentation image
http://ezralau.blogspot.com/2012/03/darksiders-final-image.html
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Before I write anything, here's the contest details: Polycount: Darksiders II ‘Create a Weapon’ Contest. I'll be updating this post as I make progress.

And here's concept art for my "Angelic Hammer":

3d blocking

some other spike ideas... pulled the reference images from Google Image Search

scale/proportion test

redesign time

refined the redesign

figure sketchings

I went to a figure drawing session recently, and these are the pieces that are at least somewhat decent. I used Prismacolor pencil and markers for these.