MerekatCreations.com :: View topic - Another New Face has Arrived! Hello Everyone

Posts: 5 Joined: 15 Mar 2010

Hi everyone!
my names Brian Kenny and like a lot of you, Kristen was kind enough to invite me to her forums after meeting her after Seattles Comic-con along with other members of
Arena Net. Which, I must add, was a really fun experience. Everyone there was a lot of fun to talk to and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do so!

So naturally I had to take up the invite to post something on Kristens forums but at first I didn't know exactly what I should post. From browsing around I saw that most
of the art posted was more concept 2d art art pieces while most of my stuff is 3d character art mixed with more technical rigging work. In the end I decided to post
the 3d art pieces of mine that also had some sort of 2d concept as well. The concept art is very very basic but maybe that just makes the end results look better Laughing

First up is a piece I just recently completed a little over a month ago. This is just a still screenshot but so if you want to see this guy with a bit more action check him
out on the demo reel (which the link should be posted on the quote area on the bottom, assuming I set that up correctly haha)

Then we have the Adventurer Carol: Red Flame of the Sea. Out of everyone she has the most completed concept art and was the first character where I truly got into
using more advanced rigging techniques.

Next is a character WIP I just started a couple days ago. Mostly I'm modeling this guy so I can do a a really stretchy character rig. For those of you who aren't really
into anime this guy is from a show called One Piece and is made of rubber; making him the anime equivalent of Elasti-Girl from Pixars: Incredibles. Most of my rigs up
to now has been more on the realistic side so this should be a really fun challenge for me. Especially when I get to making the face move. I'm already anticipating the
headaches this project will cause! Twisted Evil

Oh hes going to be a lot of fun. I think I'll even be able to get his fingers to stretch! Though the more difficult things like having his body inflate and his arm grow into the
size of a giant will be hard. Not 100% sure how I'm going to pull it off but I have some ideas Smile

If any of you want to see more, I have a couple other characters that didn't have acompaning concept arts on my demo reel (ones based off of an actor and the others
a creature I've had a lot of experience in modeling even before I got into 3d games.)

Hope you guys feel free to comment on anything you see. Even on how bad the Aztec Golems concept is Razz

(Wow, typed a lot more than I thought I would)

Posts: 1 Joined: 13 Feb 2010

Hi Brian, I'm too much of a newb to give any real crit, but I really like your amine character. All he needs is a strand of straw to chew on. Very Happy

What is his background and personality?In your concept art the hat looks like straw, but in the 3D rendering it doesn't have the texture of straw. Also why does he only have one sandal?

Posts: 6 Joined: 17 Mar 2010 Location: Vancouver, BC

Hi Brian,
I watched your character reel. I liked it overall! I think it's a bit long for a reel to shop around, I've been told that something like 2-3 minutes tops is ideal, or even shorter if possible.

The aztec golem had a neat intro animation and I like the head and shield but I think the body was a bit hard to read the design. I know you were taking the hi-res down to a low-res but I think something gets lost in the translation. I didn't really get a good enough look at the priestess low-poly model, so I can't say too much about it.

The Supernatural character was a very impressive technical display. Major props for that. The likeness seemed a bit off and the torso seemed really long. The car was cool, I really liked how the tires looked as they spun, that's something that can easily look too fake but you did a nice job.

Adventurer Carol has a cool design. I think the textures on her shorts and jacket don't seem to be folding following the curves of her body properly. I noticed some nice subtle animations on the hair, scarf and chest especially in the last shot.

I didn't feel the dragon scene had enough power behind it. Something about the pose didn't read like it was smashing the tower. I didn't even notice the smashed top of the tower at first. The large scales on his body texture make him look kind of small, although the tower shows he is supposed to be big.

So far, the One piece model looks good. It's matching the art style pretty closely. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of crazy animations you'll do with him.

Good work man! Seeya around!

Posts: 5 Joined: 15 Mar 2010

Hey Ryan, thanks for the crit payback!

Reel is too long, I'm thinking that once I complete the Luffy rig I'm going to divide my reel into two: one for characters and the other for rigging. That should cut it down a bit.

And your right on the golems body shape getting rather lost. I think its less the low poly and more that its blending into the background scene a bit too much. Maybe I'll try darkening the temple in After Effects and see if it helps.

The supernatural guy though did lose something when I lowered the poly count. Overall the sculpt looks more like him than the model (at least from the front and side, 3 quarters rather off). Thing is I can't do much on it now cus any changes and I'd have to redu the rigging and that's giant load of work I'd really rather not get back into.

The Adventurer Carols holding up better than I thought considering its my first female character. Though I've always had difficulty with sculpting clothing wrinkles. I've always thought the textures on her were way too clean, shiny, so forth but it actually works a bit with the scene shes in.

Didn't have much time for textureing the dragons tower so I tried to make it dark and not too noticeable in the scene. Double edged sword there. Your the first one to mention the scales though. When I started sculpting the Dragon the school computers couldn't even handle enough polys to make smaller scales in the zbrush sculpture.

I got the Luffy rig almost ready so I'll probably post some more stuff on it soon!

--

to MysieB:

Thank you for posting! Hes from a anime TV show already so his personality would be hes an idiot pirate of the sea with a huge appetite that can stretch like rubber and fights to protect his friends/ crew. I'm mostly modeling him instead of designing my own character is because I want to make him able to move like how he does on the show and I'm pretty new to the anime style.

and I haven't done any texturing details on the guy so that would explain the hat. I've pretty much used the 3d equivalent of the photoshop paint bucket tool to rough out the basic colors of the guy. And the shoe I'll just duplicate and mirror it over to the other side once I'm done working on it.

Cheers!

Posts: 359 Joined: 18 Jun 2006

Hey Brian! Whee! Check me out, it's only been about a week for me to get to you. ;} Ish.

Ahem. Saw your demo reel, and I think there's a lot of stuff going for it I like, but there's a few areas that could use some love.

First thing's first: your golem presentation. I think the odd animation of him busting out of the rock is cheesy. The awkwardness of the rocks breaking and flying kinda makes your reel look more amateur than it is. You're not trying to get into environment physics, are you? Then don't put it in unless you're a wizard at it. ;} And him coming out of the fog was so slow and obscured, I think that hurt you too. The dust is far too thick, and there's not much need for that kind of presentation. I mean, he's a rock golem, I get it, but there must be a simpler way of conveying that entrance than something that needs more than you're trying to sell.

The golem himself I like I lot. I was pretty impressed with his poly count, to tell you the truth. I really liked his high res as well. I'm with you on him for most of it, I think I'd have to look closer at his files (particularly the texture) to talk about something more. The gal on top of him I think was weaker. Mostly in the fabric area. I think some structure study of folds would help a lot.

Your James Dean dude is cool, though I admit I like your sculpt of him better than the final. Without the texture and the effects, he looked more believable. But once you got everything in there, he was in that strange Polar Express place that is somewhere between realistic and just creepy. We'll come back to this.

Your cyborg gal has the same troubles, but I don't think she's quite as well pulled off as Jimmy, there. Her face is sunken in and the features are trying to be realistic, trying to be stylized but not really accomplishing either. Again, I like you more inorganic details, but the anatomy is hurtin' a bit.

Finally, I see your One Piece dude. I'm not sure if I am guessing right, but I like the concept work better than the model and I think the concept is straight from the studio, right? Rather, you were trying to model from someone else's picture.

See this is where some anatomy knowledge would help you a lot. I know you must have pulled out the medical books for the sculpt, I can tell in his arms. But overall, the forms are strained and a bit second-guessed. What makes the concept flow better are proportions and flow.

In your model, his eyes at their widest are too big. The mouth is too large and low. Even though I know you have to make him capable of all the different expressions, his most basic form just doesn't look like the expression of the concept.

You've doubled the width of his shoulders. The concept has an a-line shape to it, with the shorts being the base of the candy corn and the shirt tapering from there. But in your model, the shirt is taking dominance, even if it were buttoned up. He's now a rectangle. His stomach is too gaunt. There's no arc to the spine, no weight to his stance. I know part of that comes from the rigging, but at its most basic sense, you need to get a realistic lilt to the body structure and that moves from there, you see?

Also, more fold study. You're not convincing me with that vest at all. ;}

What I will say about him that I like is the upper arm and chest area. He looks pretty tight there. I think you're not too far off, it's more just bringing the pieces together with some gesture and life drawing and proportion work. You've got to be able to look at a character and see the flow of his silhouette, where things match up and why the little nuances are there. He's not just a boy in a vest, after all. ;} He was carefully designed.

Overall, some good work. Life drawing and gesture work will help you a lot. But also some style study, and I can point you to a few artists to *coughcopycough* and learn the lessons they know.

Thanks again for posting. Oh, and next time could you try to keep the files a bit less wide? Stretches the text. ;} Good work. Glad to see ya.

Posts: 5 Joined: 15 Mar 2010

Hey Kristen! Thank you very much for the wonderful critiques. Though it certainly
took me long enough to respond after it took you only a week to reply to my post. I
think we must have our roles reversed here. Smile

Your crits on Luffy (the One Piece dude) have been so helpful. I've been very busy
with a couple contracts and have only recently had found some time to work on him.
In particular thank you for pointing out the width of the shoulders and how stiff the
spine looked. Heres a screenshot of what it looks like now:

Moving on, out of all the characters I receive crits on in my demo reel, my Dean
Winchester likeness receives the most. To tell the truth its a bit frustrating as the
sculpt mostly holds up and the face rigging is one of the most advanced I've done.
While I was considering this problem I came across some old renders of him when I
was doing tests on the driven normal map system and for some reason those old
renders looked a hell of a lot better to me. I'm going to post those renders here so
maybe someone can tell me if I'm just imagining things. Though the hairs pretty
crappy. I swear, for some reason I find texturing hair extremely difficult.

I'm happy to hear you like the Golem itself Smile

The girl on his shoulder I'm afraid I
didn't spend as much time on the textures and, sadly, it is a bit noticeable as your
crit shows.

As to the Golems presentation a lot of people I've shown it to do tend to like it.
Though I think thats more because its something different on a character demo reel
and not so much the quality of the effects. I have been considering dividing my
demo reel into two, one characters, the other rigging. When I do do that maybe I
might just stick my Golems rock slide into the rigging demo reelas it does show soft
body dynamics and particle effects.

Again thank you so much on your comments and I hope you and others continue to
feel welcome in commenting on my work.

Brian

Posts: 5 Joined: 15 Mar 2010

Hi Kristen! Hope things are going well.

I decided it was well overdue for another post on your site! Not as many pretty
pictures this time but if anyone here do want to check out some cool stuff then
check out my new website!

www.3dbriankenny.moonfruit.com

Yay, took freakin forever to get this up but now here it is! Along with that I've also
finished rigging my Luffy character and have now created a completely new Rigging
Demo reel along with my 3d Character one. The rigging reel shows both my Luffy rig
and my Dean Winchester rig. My Luffy one can do some pretty cool stuff so feel free
to take a look:
www.3dbriankenny.moonfruit.com/#/rigging-demo-reel/4542501923

On other news, I recently visited Vancouver for this Gup Gups toy launch that one
of my Vanarts teachers, Nick Tay, got rolling. They are really cute little things:
http://gupgups.wordpress.com/

It was a really fun project that involved many of my fellow students at Vanarts as
well as many senior artists. For my part, I did the modeling, rigging, and main
textures for the little guys. Nicks really been helping me in getting work since I
graduated and I'm very grateful for him spending the time to help me achieve my
career goals.

That's it for this post, hope things are going good at Arena Net.

Brian