Hedgehogs!

I love hedgehogs! I created some quick sketches of hedgehogs with different expressions just for fun. There so cute! I wanted to try and give them as much personality as possible as there such playful animals. I can't wait to get my own some day!

Timmy the T-Rex Model

Just a quick update of what I've been working on recently. I've gone back to one of the images I created a while ago and I've been making him into a 3D model. I was attempting to create a turnaround for Timmy but I was finding it hard so I took him into Zbrush and sculpted him up. This was great as it really helped me pinpoint the flaws I had in my initial design and although I really liked it and it worked in a 3/4 view there was something odd about him when I turned him to the front. I still think he isn't quite right and this is a work in progress. One of the things I wasn't sure about where the legs, there really far apart and small making him look as though he is going to fall over, but in a way I quite like that. I looked at T-Rex skeletons for comparison and there legs are also quite far apart, although they are a lot longer. This means they would have had more stability that my character will lack but as he is a toddler I quite like the idea of him waddling around and falling over all the time, as though he is trying to learn to walk. In my initial design I used an S shape through the body. I like the way this flows through the character and gives him soft round curves like a chubby little child. I'm going to continue to add texture and refine the design as at the moment he looks a little rubbery and unfinished. I also think he's lost a little bit of his cute ness and perhaps the jaw is too square making him look older and like a bully. If I soften the chin and make it more round I think this will add more appeal and bring him back to the original design.

 

The Cheese Moon of Hillsville Bible

This is the final bible I produced for my Cheese Moon of Hillsville concept. I really wanted to put a large background running behind all the 5 panels on the top side of the leaflet but I didn't have time to finish it so I had to leave it out. I definitely learned how to get something finished in a short space of time, having goals and stretch goals. I feel the characters work a lot better on this because they don't seem as thought they are floating in mid air. I also like the front and back covers and how they show contrast in colour. Overall I was fairly happy, but if I had more time to produce the final work it would have been to a much better standard.

Elder Character Design

I really like the design of this character. I like his big pink nose tiny little glasses and plump body. I don't like the position of the hand in the pocket, it doesn't look like a natural pose and the hand adjusting his glasses seems to come from no where, even thought you can see a slither of his sleeve appearing below his neck. Overall I think the pose really lets the character down, and even though I think my posing has improved this is one area I need to really focus on. The feet look odd but I think the lack of shadow, floor or background could be the reason for this. In future I need to consider grounding my characters.

Griffin Character Design

Below is my character Griffin from 'The Cheese Moon of Hillsville' project I've been working on. I'm not happy with the hand on the right I feel it is at a strange angle and looks quite flat. I really like the face and the clothes. The feet are in an odd position and I feel like because there is no shadow or background the character/chair doesn't really look grounded. The colours really reflect the 1800's feel I was going for, and the textures work really well.

Cadi Final Character Design

I finalised Cadi's design and this is what I have now. I'm not keen on the facial expression, although I quite like the hair and jumper. I like the way the fabric falls in this image, but I think the feet are a little off. I also think the hair is hanging strangely, I could possibly have added a curve in the hair to show more movement as if she had just turned her head in shock.

Chef Character Design

Here is a chef character pairing I did the other day. I think it needs tightening up especially around the face. It's not quite as sharp or as sculpted as I would have liked and I'm not keen on the left hand. I also think I need to work on my fabric painting in future. Other than that I like the colours I used and I'm fairly happy with the design and pose.

Cadi Final Zbrush Model

Here is the final turnaround of my character Cadi that I've been working on over the last few weeks. I've learnt a lot in Zbrush and I know I need to improve in areas mainly the hair and expressions. I would also like to look more into adding colour to the model next time as I feel that would improve the quality and finish of my final character. I need to look at adding texture as well to add more depth to my model and learn how to light it to show off the textures. Considering I've only used Zbrush a handful of times before I feel I've come a long way. I feel confident that Zbrush was the right software for the job, especially for me coming from a traditional background and moving into 3D was a lot easier using Zbrush. Companies such as Laika using the software also compounds my feeling that this was the right software for the job especially when doing 3D printing. I think I now need to focus on practicing in the software and improving my knowledge of the technology, 3D terminology and 3D pipelines.

Zbrush Expressions

After finalizing my model to a point I was reasonably happy with I began creating my expressions. I first clicked the sub tool that I wanted to use which was the face. I then went into the layers panel and created a new layer naming it original. I would never change this layer as it would be my base layer and it would always remain on zero, meaning that it would never change position. To create the expressions I copied the original layer, renamed it with as detailed name as possible so I didn't get confused using the name button and then pressed the record button next to the layer. This allowed me to sculpt onto the model to change the expression using the brushes such as move, clay, smooth and once I had finished I pressed record again to stop it recording. This seems a fairly simple process but I often found myself sculpting when I hadn't pressed record and then having to undo and repeat the process with the record button turned on. Now when the slider was at 0 the expression was the same as the original layer, but when I moved the slider up to 1 this gave me a new expression using the position that I had just sculpted. I created different sliders repeating the above process and doing one for each side of the mouth separately for a smile, each side of the mouth separately for a frown, each eyebrow separately and so on until I had a range of sliders. I could then use a combination of these sliders to create the expressions moving some of them only part way, as the expressions I had created were very extreme for this purpose. I had also created an open mouth slider, but this posed a problem as it opened the mouth, but since the teeth were on a different layer they stayed in the same place. To correct this I had to go into the teeth sub tool and create another slider just for the them, which was easy enough, but when it came to producing the expressions I had to keep going back and forth between sub tools which became tedious. Below are the range of expressions that I created in Zbrush. I ran out of time to do any more which was disappointing and some of them haven't worked as well as others. Another problem I encountered was when sliding the layers some of the in-between positions were really strange probably because I hadn't re-topologised my model. I hadn't done this due to time constraints, but also I didn't think it would matter as 3D printed models don't necessarily need re-topologising. If I had had more time I would have done this but overall I'm still fairly happy with the results.