Neneuche Land

Steampunk work-in-progress

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 11:13 PM, 1/1/2009 } { 0 comments } { Link }

There's yet another Challenge going on over at CGTalk, and the theme for this one is Steampunk. I am actually a judge for this Challenge and am inelligible to win, but I've been working on a piece for it anyhow, just because it's a fun theme and I like all of the great feedback I get when working on pieces for their contests. Here are some shots of how it's been coming along:

layout sketch

Still tons of detailing to go, but at least it's coming along...!

Happy New Year!

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 11:02 AM, 12/24/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

A portrait of my son Zachary for the holidays. He's almost two and just loves being naked!

Zachary happy 2009

Happy holidays and a good New Year to you all!

Quick Sketch

{ Posted by Vinny K. Krotchy }
{ 14h05, 12.7.2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Just a quick sketch today. This guy was walking down the street outside my house, grooving to his iPod.

Post Something!

{ Posted by Vinny K. Krotchy }
{ 13h38, 11.27.2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Do it! Post something I dare you!

Man things have been busy around here. I have a few months of stuff to post now, so I'll try and post again next week. For today, it's a third into their season and I'm finally posting these - this year's Blades program covers. We went with a different style this year to mix things up. This program flowed a lot better through the inside pages with the style continuing from cover to cover. So these covers may not show as well by themselves as last years, but as a package I believe they're superior, and it's a totally different style so they're hard to compare... different strokes...

The sketch of the first one:

And the final covers:

Dirge of the Underworld

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 1:39 PM, 11/8/2008 } { 2 comments } { Link }

Another 3D contest entry for GameArtisans, this one a Halloween challenge to create a Zombie version of a videogame character. I went with my favorite hero, Link for the Legend of Zelda series, though as he looks different in every installment, I tried to really make this my own link, not the design specifically ties to "Twilight Princess" or "Wind-Waker" or any of the others. Here's my finished model, which won first place in the contest:

Zombie Link

Max Bigguns and his Chihuahuabot

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 8:16 PM, 10/27/2008 } { 2 comments } { Link }

The December 2008 issue (#037) of ImagineFX is out now, and featured therein is a a new article I wrote. This one is on combining 3D into your 2d painting workflow. Several months ago, I was working on some concepts for space-faring military cats (see earlier entries) and along the way, designed some canine enemies for them to fight. Among these was Maximillian Bigguns, pilot of a large walking Chihuahua-shaped robot. This is the concept piece I did for him:

Chihuahuabot

Ultimate Pokemon

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 10:07 PM, 10/14/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Another contest over at GameArtisans.org, this one to come up with an "ultimate" Pokemon 3D model in 1250 tris. The challenging part is that Pokemon all tend to be completely flat-shaded... but that makes for a boring texture. So how much detail can you add to make it a nice, interesting texture but still keep it flattish to fit the Pokemon style? Here's what I came up with, a Fire Pokemon based on a crocodile, named "Crocodoom." Here are some color tests:

Here's the model:
Crocodoom model

The texture in progress:
Crocodoom texture Work in Progress

And the final sheet with the render and all:
Crocodoom sheet

You sunk my battleship!

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 9:48 PM, 10/9/2008 } { 1 comments } { Link }

Over at GameArtisans.org, there's a contest going on to design a space-faring battleship. Here's my work:

Thumbail sketches

Battlecruisers and alien cities

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 8:43 PM, 9/29/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Two different challenges going on over at GameArtisans.org righ now: One for environment art involving coming up with an "good" (as opposed to evil") unearthly set piece, and the other to design a battleship. Here are rough sketches for both works in progress:

battleships!

I'm trying to incorporate lots of alien flora into the environment design because it could really help it look otherworldly.

Ahhhrrrrrrrrrrr!

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 9:19 AM, 9/19/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Har! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day today!
So in honor of the event, here's me dressed as a pirate:

Mike as a pirate

and a song appropriate for the occasion:

Island Trees

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 11:03 PM, 9/8/2008 } { 1 comments } { Link }

Another speed-paint:

island trees

Grot, Table Tennis champion of Rh�n

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 3:22 PM, 9/8/2008 } { 1 comments } { Link }

This is another 3D model that I built and textured for a competition over at GameArtisans.org:
The competition involved creating a low-poly model of a fantasy character participating in the Summer Olympics. Grot is the champion from Rhûn, which is a westward nation from Middle Earth (it's north-east of Mordor.) I modeled, textured and rigged Grot here in a few days. There is one 512x512 diffuse map and a 512x512 alpha map for the teeth, net, and drool(!). Everything in the scene is 1500-triangles, including the ball, paddle, and what you see of the table and net. The entire texture was painted by hand, with no use of overlaid photographic textures or patterns.

Yesterday my one-and-half-year-old son Zachary came in to watch me work and when I zoomed in on the face of the model, Zach got really scared and started backing away from my office. So I shrunk Grot down in size and Zach calmed down. We spend the next 10 minutes playing little games with Grot: I'd just move him around the screen; I pushed him back in space to make him small and made him dance and bounce around the screen. I made Grot respond to being tickled, and flipped him upside-down... Then we played a game where Grot would get really close and then Zach would push out his hand to push Grot away and Grot would go flying back in space. Fun with translation. Anyhow, it was really cute!

Two Trees

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 2:21 PM, 9/5/2008 } { 1 comments } { Link }

Here's a tree on a cliff
Cliff Tree

and a tree at night:

Oooo, spooky!

Meteora

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 11:16 PM, 9/4/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

After seeing my various paintings based loosely on photos, a friend on another forum (hi, Baka!) offered me a bunch of photos from a vacation to Meteora in Greece, where monasteries are built perched high atop the rocky peaks. Here is my take on some of the pictures:

Meteora

A cheerful cabin in the woods

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 12:30 AM, 9/4/2008 } { 3 comments } { Link }

This afternoon's environment painting:

Forest cabin

various nature speedpaintings

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 11:14 PM, 9/2/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

A speedpaint I did tonight of a rainforest grotto with a small run-off waterfall.

And another one of a forest path:

Here's one of a secluded temple:

rocky temple

Talon

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 9:59 AM, 9/2/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

This week I built a 3D low-poly fantasy warrior character just for fun. I've been doing low-poly stuff at Meez but it's all been necessarily light and cartoony, so I thought it would be nice to show off some more detailed painted textures. So here he is, just a few days worth of work.

Talon

As for the technical specs: He's about 2700 triangles, 1024x1024 diffuse and specular maps and a 64x128 diffuse map with alpha for the hair on the top of the head. All of the textures were hand-painted by me, no photo-referencing or overlayed textures used at all.

Dr. Eugenius Smitten silhouettes

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 3:44 PM, 8/26/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

Here's some development work on what the Evil Genius' full body will look like: I knew I wanted him to be tall and lanky, but there are all different ways to achieve that. It's important to have a strong silhouette. I took my earlier sketches and reworked them 'til I had something I liked. But it's also important to see how all the characters work together. My last Scarface (lower right) looks too meaty in the hands and legs and doesn't look like he even lives in the same universe as these pics of the Doc. So I reworked him 'til they all look right together.

Dr. Eugenius Smitten silhouettes

(Apologies to those JoCo fans who have noted that they envisioned Scarface being smaller. I didn't. But thanks for looking anyhow!)

Grimwald the Dour

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 8:42 PM, 8/25/2008 } { 1 comments } { Link }

I don't normally post 3D work here, but what the heck: As a break from painting and drawing (well, sort of) I joined a contest over on GameArtisans.org to come up with a texture for an already-built low-poly model. I hadn't done any serious texture work in several years (the very cartoony work at Meez doesn't quite count) so I really had fun with this... All my practice painting digital illustrations really applied itself well to this. So here's how it came out:

Grimwald the Dour

The texture is 512x512, though I painted it at twice that size. And I do mean painted: It's all hand-done, no overlaid textures or patterns or anything.

Landscape speedpaintings

{ Posted by walrus }
{ 12:06 PM, 8/22/2008 } { 0 comments } { Link }

I did some speeedpaintings based on photos of exotic locales that I had lying around. These were all done in Photoshop and took 1 to 2 hours each.

Somewhere around Mount Batur, Bali, Indonesia (from a photo taken on my honeymoon):

Bali

From a kayaking trip outside of Nelson, New Zealand:

...And a pic from a drive down scenic Highway 24 in lovely Orinda, California, about 10 or 15 minutes from my house:

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