"Gorgon Sister"

This is the start for a new project for a class Techniques of Surface Painting. The basis of this class was to learn the traditional painting techniques that emulate real textures (fur, sand, etc.) and then translate them to a digital format: Photoshop or other like programs. This project is the final project that is create a composition of our choice and emulate 5 textures with in the composition from any of the techniques learned. Those 5 textures will be transferred into a digital format and manipulated into the composition.

For my piece I have decided to stick with a concept of a creature: a Gorgon. Unlike the traditional snake lady look, I will take the artistic license and have the lizard look only shown in the hair styling. Instead of a snake body, I will be creating a full body female figure. The planned textures so far are to be stone, scales, metal, cloth. A fifth texture needs to be applied before the end of the project.

Above are a few 'hairstyle' choices that were quickly whipped up. The first concept's idea was to slick the hair back and fan it out as it drapes down for a cobra hood look and later splits into to large snakes like ponytails. Second concept was to completely ignore the hair styling and favor 4 large snakes that are longer than her body. Huge dread snakes! The third concept is a slight spin from #2 with two snakes but much much smaller coming from the ears. The hair will the traditional smaller snake dreads but pulled back up to a ponytail and then drapes down to individual snakes. :P And you can see below what choice was made for the hairstyle.

Depending on time, I may attempt to squeeze in a back view of the Gorgon for the project. If not, it will be done at a later date.

"Paradise Plant" part 4

Yet another fancy update for the plant! Minor tweeks have been made. The normals on the leaves and the "feather" petals (ones with the bands) have been reduced a little.

Coloring for the bands have also been changed on those petals as well as some work done to the stem and vines for the flower. Maybe a few more tweaks to come but beauty renders should be coming soon.

"Paradise Plant" part 3

More updates! Did only a few readjustments for the day. The normal mapping of the leaves for the plant were not showing up as much as I had wanted them to. The diffuse map had to be adjusted and now they are popping! Also the watermelon stripes on the fruit have been redeveloped and now are more visible than before.

 

"Paradise Plant" part 2

Now with normal maps attached! I have also decided on using #1 from the previous entry for the fruit texture for the final diffuse map of the plant. Also did a quick and dirty turn around shots in Marmoset Toolbag to enhance the normal map visibility.

These remaining shots were taken in Maya 2011 using mental ray. Only a single light has been added to enhance the normal map visibility. No shadows were added when taking these preview renders.

There is still more work to be done for the project (still). Certain details need to be enhanced or reduced from where they are now. I would also like to play around with adding in an emissive map for the fruit lining to glow. Also to fix up the stem texture since it did not tile very well. Better renders will be made available later.

"Fanged Tiger" part 2

Start of the week update on the "Fanged Tiger" colored concept. More shadowing has been developed on the body and marking is still being played with in how it would wrap upon the body. The poor kitty got declawed for a more relaxed look.

"Paradise Plant"

This is an update on a current project for a course at the Art Institute. This is the second asset of two concepted, modeled, textured, rigged and placed into a game engine for the entire project. These updates are referencing towards the texturing portion of the project. The normal mapping of this baby is still being done but the diffuse is pretty much 90% complete to my satisfaction.

Here is where most of the work has gone into: the fruit of the flower. Several different texture passes of various fruits have been applied in deciding which one would work the best for the project. Still a bit indecisive.

Next update on this will have the normal and a better spec map available for it.

"Fanged Tiger"

An update on the "Fanged Tiger" colored concept. More details have been added into the body for more depth and play with different markings to see what would work for the animal. More updates later (possibly just quick thumbs with markings on them). Yes, the color reference photo is still on there, still pulling more depth colors for the image before it will be removed.