Gossamer Gypsy Studios Updated
20080318
It’s been long overdue, but we put together a bunch of updates for Gossamer Gypsy Studios.
Art
The Making of Corruption in 3DS Max
20080204
Corruption.avi (320×240, 1.1MB, MPEG4 video)
Now:
Corruption was essentially my effort at something like a fine art sculpture, but with 3DS Max instead of ceramics. Saved file versions and test renders from along the way make up this visual roadmap to how I achieved the final sculpture and image effects.
Valentine
20080110
Now:
Fresh off my vacation, I thought it would be a good time to post this image. Especially since she is now my wife! I may have had a naive approach to image manipulation, but I don’t regret for a moment choosing to spend my life with Valerie.
Dynamics Demo
20071125
Download the animation:
dynamics.avi (400×225, 3.3MB, MPEG4)
-or-
dynamics.mpg (352×198 5.6MB MPEG1)
Now:
This was my first attempt to inject realism into my 3d animation, leading to my discovery that it’s not easy to do.
Labyrinthine
20071114
Now:
While I feel less than happy with many of my previous images, this one still pleases me. Probably my favorite aspect is the texturing, achieved almost entirely by lighting rather than traditional texture mapping.
Lighting (and texturing) is something I’ve traditionally struggled with, and it may not be perfect but the lighting here did accomplish much of what I wanted it to do; flaws are more in the realm of design than technique. Anyway, don’t you just love the contrast from shadow to highlights, and the soft bloom those highlights give off? I do.
Hot Line
20071105
Now:
The bad is easily the texture on the circuit tracing shapes and the dark beveling that doesn’t look right.
The good is the fairly intense glow and light vs. dark values, plus the sort of shiny scratches among the dark areas. Almost as if old copper was being scratched to reveal fresh-bright redness underneath.
Corruption
20071015
Update: see The Making of Corruption!
Now:
During my early sculpting days, when I sat in on a few of Valerie’s art classes, I developed an interest in making my own 3d digital sculpture pieces. This is perhaps my most literal attempt, the lighting and depth of field and little details were all intended to produce the effect of realism while still obviously describing an art piece sculpture.
Der Gruntlig
20071014
Now:
Sometimes I’ll still find myself ready to draw but nowhere near my computer. Though at the time of posting this it’s more that I haven’t actually done any drawing in a long time, digital or otherwise. Speed of life I suppose. Back on topic, this is one example of a traditional pencil drawing I enjoyed doing. It was much more about the inspiration than the medium.
Shackles
20071013
Now:
Here’s a dark one, and I’m not just talking about theme. The thing I remember most about making this image is that it was the reason I began to think about monitor calibration.
This was probably around the time I started working the graveyard shift for a part-time job, and I hung up towels and blankets over the blinds in my room to block out as much light from the windows as possible. Having created, for the first time, a truly dark environment for myself (really just to be able to sleep when I got home in the morning), it started having an effect on the way I used my computer.
Delilah: Contemporary Elf Chick Drawing
20071011
Now:
Drawing Delilah (no, not Running Delilah, though that may have been where I got the name) was fun. At this stage in my artistic development I was starting to do a few things right, like drawing from photo reference for a (meta)human figure, and drawing at a larger size (higher resolution) than the final version shown here.
Dawn Eye Sketch
20071010
Now:
As this was something like the second drawing I made with my Wacom tablet and Corel Photo-Paint, I fell into a trap that snares many new digital artists. The final presentation of the art is the same resolution as the original working copy. I drew it at 1:1 of the final size. Or put another way, I didn’t realize I could have been drawing at a very large size and then reducing it for the final presentation.
This is important for essentially the same reason that drawing instructors tell students to draw big (not that I ever spent time in art classes, to my detriment). It’s a way to let the small shakes and defects blend and get smoothed out as you resample the image down to presentation size.
Creature Face Sketch
20071009
Now:
The neat thing about trying out my then-new Wacom tablet in Corel Photo-Paint was that it made drawing both familiar and completely new at the same time. It wasn’t until some time after this sketch that I arrived at pencil settings I liked, yet the experimental settings used in this piece were fun.
Drawing on the tablet but looking at the results on screen took a little getting used to, but once I got over that I realized it offers one big advantage: I never had to worry about my drawing hand obscuring some part of what I was working on (let alone smudging it unintentionally).
Widget Autospork 350
20071007
Now:
Somebody once told me that this looks clearly like a glue gun. The amusing thing is that I think the person who told me that was interviewing me for a job, something with CAD and 3d visualization of industrial design pieces.
Morph and Explode Animation Tests
20071004
Download the animation test videos:
morph.avi (320×240, 388KB, MPEG4)
explode.mpg (240×180, 1.01MB, MPEG1)
Now:
Simple tests I did while getting the hang of basic animation tasks within 3DS Max.
Demon Hand: 3D Modeling Project
20071003
Now:
It seems like this was a point in my artistic development that I was just beginning to gain some confidence working in 3d, and suddenly started biting off more than I could chew. I can remember some very ambitious plans for characters that were simply hands, fighting each other with all manner of Asian weaponry like kusari-gama, nunchuku, etc. They were going to be animated pivoting and kicking as if fingers were legs, all the while performing complicated manuevers with chain weapons. No wonder I never finished such a project.
Then:
Demon hand is simply a working title for this modeling project, where my current goal is to make a fairly life-like hand. To begin the model I used the technique of box modeling, extruding and scaling faces on a primitive mesh to get the rough shape down. The hand will be modeled in a relatively neutral pose, for easier animation setup later.
Plasm
20071002
Now:
It seems strange to me how an image made so simply can still captivate the eye, if briefly.
This image definitely falls under the category of “happy accidents”; some people think that term applied to digital art is akin to stating an oxymoron as everything in digital art is precise and controlled. In fact, that’s not always the case.
Vortex
20071001
Now:
My favorite aspect of this piece must be the funky greenish texture of the walls, everwhere the circuit traces are not etched. It’s both blockish and nicely grungy and tarnished, like metal with some sort of fungus growing on it. If only I had come up with textures as inventive for the rest of the materials, this might have more appeal overall.
After Hallway, this is the second in what is essentially a series of mine in “corridors”. I guess I just enjoy the long perspective shots (or have compositional stutters).
Occum’s Razor
20070930
Now:
The modeling has its problems, but what bugs me most is the lighting on this piece. The sky is pretty great, but the guillotine itself is rather poorly lit. Hindsight, I suppose.
Then:
Spines
20070927
Now:
I can still enjoy this piece as a 3d doodle. The simplicity and reasonable textures feel more forgivable than some of my overworked and under-designed 3d images. A part of me, seeing this again, wants to develop more simple, iconic 3d images and achieve better results on such a low level of complexity, before attempting more involved scenes again.
Female Face Drawing
20070925
Now:
I remember this as one of the early drawings where I made use of reference. Drawing from a reference photo (probably a magazine) was a new thing for me at the time; it felt like it had to be cheating somehow. Nevertheless I had trouble getting proportions correct, and obviously the hair was a disaster. Then there was my inexplicable choice of presentation; it probably seemed like a good idea at the time to use some Photo-Paint effects.
I do feel that this piece works to show my skills progression, compared to others before and after it in my timeline.
