Adventure of a Z-Brush Virgin

I think I must have installed Z-Brush over 10 times planning to learn how to use it. I played around with it a bit but never really got to doing any tutorials.

My class's week 2 assignment was all in Zbrush... ouch. I figured I'd just learn as I went along. As usual. Well...
That worked out, kinda. There are still a TON of things I don't understand. Methods I need to learn so that I don't waste time starting over and over again. Heck I am not even sure I am saving my files the right way.
But here is the result. Week 2, 75% accomplished:

Seriously, when I compare this to what I was doing yesterday, as in making dents in a Zsphere, I'd give myself an achievement. I am feeling pretty proud of myself right now :) Although I am certain I will look back on this model in 6 months and go.... oh nooooooo.

I wish I had a way of getting that lion a little flatter. I know the flatten tool, but it's not regular enough for my taste. Oh well. I'll keep looking! :)

3D Class - Modern Game Art Weapons

I started a 3D class this week! I've been wanting to do this for so long and the opportunity finally came along, so I jumped it! 

It's one of the CG society workshops about Modern Game Art Weapons and it covers hard surface modelling and ZBrush. This week was week one of three. We had to make our high poly model of the weapon of our choice between 3 concepts provided. I would have loved to do the gun, but it is the most complex model and I am so busy right now I am modeling at night.

Here is the original version of the concept art:

 

I liked everything except the shape of the blade and the simple hilt that give it an army/boot knife look. It's engravings and mechanism inspired me to modify it's shape a bit:

And here is my high poly version of the knife after about 8-10h of work (I had to redo the blade, the mechanism part where the blade starts was really hard since we are not allowed triangles):

 

Can't wait to get some feedback from the teacher. I have several questions as I have no idea what is going to happen to the mesh in week 2. I did my best to keep it clean despite the gazillion required loops for the hard edges. 

Well we'll see on Monday! I can't wait!

Armageddon Art!

I realized I never posted the result of the GGJ !! I guess I was too busy sleeping after the crazy 48h of art and animation madness on my behalf. I did sleep at some point... curled up in a ball under my desk like some devoted Japanese employee on the brink of harakiri.

I didn't mind really. It was the quietest place to sleep and nice and warm due to the PCs running near by. Much better than the lounge that was over crowded and smelled like a zoo. :P

Our team was amazing! Everybody worked so hard and accomplished SO MUCH in just 48h (actually only about 42h since the whole event kicked off really late). I was really impressed. Our game ended up a little buggy due to lack of time to play test, but in all it is pretty fun to play! It's based on the Populous 2 armageddon mechanic and on rock-paper-scissors stats for the army.
In phase 1 you tweak your army depending on what kind of units your opponent has... you do this my bashing the cute little rock, paper, scissors bunnies on the head with a mallet which results in a bloody mess and room to breed for the others.
In phase 2 both armies face off and you win if more of your units survive! Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper... :D

Stuart, James, Tom, Adam, Behrouz and me... happily exhausted geeks! :D

Global Game Jam!

Tonight it begins! Tonight is the start of a 48h challenge! A team of 5 race with other teams to make the most epic, awesome, crazy, fun game one can come up with and put together in 48h.

It's the... 

Global Game Jam

Also for the first time I have something to tweet about so follow Pixel_Fish !!

I have no idea what the theme will be. But I can't wait to find out. I am forcefully keeping myself from formulating any ideas right now so that I have a empty page to start brainstorming on.
I spent the day learning how to make 2D sprites, since I am a 3D artist and have never had the opportunity to do so. So now I am ready!!