New Stuff!

Some personal work, I wanted to do a futuristic scene. Something quite different from my personal work. Of course I wanted to complete it! Which meant textures. Something I shied away from on previous personal project. I started this on a Wednesday and finished it the following Tuesday. So less than a week to complete!

Texture Tedium...

So I'm in the process of applying textures to my colossus model. I am pretty much creating all of my textures in zbrush with some photoshop adjustments. This is a relatively new technique to me (as of 3 months ago). So I'm getting better with each one.

I still have loads more to do. But I'm getting closer to finishing each day! I've been looking at Shadow of the Colossus A LOT, and I'm trying to replicate the symbols and patterns used in the game.

Making progress

I'm juggling two projects at the moment. But I decided to really sink my teeth into my Shadow of the Colossus model. I've finished most of the modeling, I just have to make some vegetation cards and do some destruction detail. Then it's on to textures.




Today I worked on the the zbrush sculpt for the main body. Nothing too crazy just some muscle definition and texture.
Oh and just for full disclosure I did use the base male from zbrush to sculpt over.


The other project I am working on needs some re-work I didn't like how the main character was turning out... I fell back on my comfort zone of muscular heroic proportions (it's ok for the colossus, he's carrying a castle on his back).

So I'm going to start over from scratch. The head scarf I like, but I got the idea from a concept I found on the web and I modeled from that..... I want to make something original, so I'm scraping it.

Influence Map

So quite a few artists I know did this so I thought I'd give it a shot. It was actually really fun!

Uncharted 3

The last thing I worked on at Naughty Dog was the reveal trailer for the new game. A LOT of different people worked on this... concept, animation, effects, lighting, texture, props etc.

My small part was modeling the sand dunes...

Better late than never!

What with the new job and all I didn't have time to finish my Dominance War mini challenge before the deadline (even with an extension). I was so close to finishing though I just had to see it through. The base is a little too derivative of a Xenosaga concept I found, but I just didn't have the mental energy to come up with something totally original. The technical mandate for this is that the character had to be no more than 3000 polygons, and use one 1024x1024 texture for each map (diffuse, spec, glow) I split my textures into 4 512x512 maps.

Uncharted 3

The last assignment I had at Naughty Dog before I left was modeling the sand dunes for the trailer. This was one of my most difficult challenges. To create something so randomly generated in nature yet with a distinct look everyone recognizes. There was a lot of iterations on this and ultimately it was handed off to be finished by another artist. I am proud of the final result and everyone involved did a kick ass job. The lighting, textures, effects, animation, all spot on.

Almost there!

So the deadline for the Dominance War 5 mini challenge has been extended 2 days, which means I have a chance to finish! All I have left is the base textures and presentation shots.

Tangled

Holy crap! I just got back from Tangled, and I can say without any hyperbole that it is one of my favorite CG movies, up there with Incredibles, and Wall-E. Not only was it gorgeous, but it was hysterical and moving. Disney finally hit it's stride with CG.

Anyway right before I left Planet Moon I worked on the video game for the Nintendo Wii. I got to model, texture, and light the Tower and valley. Now after seeing the movie my rendition hardly does it justice, but I still feel it turned out well.

When I was working on the game the movie was still called "Rapunzel"

Dominance War 5!

So I'm doing Dominance War again, and for the pre-main event the challenge is to model a mmo resolution character. So 3000 polygons is the limit.

This is what I came up with.

The wall and floor are not part of the character and thus exempt from the poly limit.

I'm bringing the pain-ya!

Like CASTLEVANIA!

So I played the newest Castlevania, Lords of Shadow. While it is not a perfect game by any means. I really enjoyed it. So much so that when I finished it I wanted to make my own Belmont character.
Now I'm also very much obsessed with iphone gaming. I love the ps-one retro look.

So take one and add the other, and I decided to make a iphone Castlevania character.

I originally was only going to make just the character, which quickly spiraled into the character plus a base, which became the character, plus a base, plus Medusa heads (woefully absent from the new game).

I had a lot of fun on this and it really allowed me to learn a lot. I practiced my painting skills which have woefully atrophied in the past year. I keep the main character; Conrad Belmont at about 1000 polygons, and no texture is larger than 256x256.

Pelican Machine Head

I went to Kinokuniya book store in LA's little Tokyo yesterday and i found this cool book called Hyper Weapon 2008. It's all over the place with rad pictures of miniatures and concept art for games. Anyway I cam across this rad image....


It got me really inspired to model it. Something about the old world vibe with the surrealistic nature of it. It also reminded me of "The end of time" from Chrono Trigger.

So I spent more than a few hour modeling it today. Next I'll take it into zbrush, and detail it out.

COLOSSUS!

Shadow of the Colossus is one of my favorite games of all time. With the announcement of the the HD re-release I'm all jazzed up on it again.

I've wanted to model my own take on the unique look of the colossi in the game. So I came up with the "Slave King"

I have loads more to do, but I feel like I am over the hump of it looking so shitty that I don't want to work on it.




The fur at this point is very temp, and I need to do a lot o detailing and think about what needs to be modeled and what can be z-brushed.

Tangled

This was the last title that I worked on at Planet Moon Studios. You can see one of the environments I worked on in the very first shot. I did the modeling, textures, and lighting!

New Oldie

It's been a while since I posted anything "new"

We Were...

Another oldie... my demo reel from when I graduated college in 2003. It even won best portfolio! I can't believe it's been 7 years. Looking back at it I can see so many things wrong with it! Anyway the reason I am posting this is because it is yet another example of how Type O Negative and Peter Steele influenced me and my art.

Rest in Peace Peter Steele...

As I listen to Type O, I think of all of the influences it has had on me. Peter Steele was even the inspiration for a character I created for the game battle of the bands

Going to Hollywood!

Hey everyone. So after almost 4 years in San Francisco and at Planet Moon Studios. I am going to move on to Santa Monica. To work at Naughty Dog. You might have heard of them, or the kick ass games they make.

Uncharted 2

The Land of Koz

Hey everybody (anybody?) My new portfolio website just went live! My good friend Dan Pratt built it for me and he did a kick ass job!

Land of Koz

Most people think Time is like a river...

On a roll! Another concept based off of Prince of Persia (the newest 360/PS3). I think there are definite things I can add to this. The concept is pretty vague in various spots. The main purpose of these exercises though is merely to have fun and not worry about the things that I normally have to address in a production environment.


The Concept: