Artstation Formatting

 Artstation is the main online portfolio website for artists. Other industries expect your portfolio to be printed out or be it's own custom website. Artists have an advantage in this aspect but by gathering all the artists into one platform, the competition has the same advantage you do. That raises the question, How can you distinguish yourself from all the other artists?

My Sculpting Process

Mr. Dunning–Kruger says I should just jump into sculpting, no need to take things slow when I already know what to do. But we gotta go by the rules, we have to know the entire checklist before we can skip steps. 

Step One: Concept

For this project, I wanted to practice sculpting a compelling and stylized female head. I really enjoyed Vainglory and one of my favorite characters in that game was Malene. Despite my intentions just being to sculpt a face, I think her design has a bunch of little elements that might make for good practice, I'll go over those in the next step. Malene has her ghostly form but I'll be ignoring that aspect for the purpose of simplicity. It might make for a good texturing project, though.

Step Two: Concept Art

Wait, didn't I just go over concept? Isn't that the same as this step? Nah...

What was shown above was the character's Splash Screen, a very flashy and beautiful illustration but it isn't the only reference the 3d modeler would have received. Behold, turn arounds!

A lot goes into making accurate and usable references for 3d artists, I won't go too in depth into it. All you need to know is this:

• Turnarounds must be consistent. Major body landmarks, such as the knees, chin, shoulders, elbows, etc. should align across all drawings. For example, if you trace a straight line from the knees of the leftmost drawing to the rightmost, it should intersect the knees of every drawing in between.
• The reference sheet should have a frontal view, profile view and back view at minimum. Some artists add a three-quarter view but that isn't as necessary for 3d artists down the pipeline.
• Costume elements should be clear and readable. You'll notice how the character's arms are separate in the profile views, this is to maintain readability and not block and of the jacket/holster elements.

The turnaround above is a great example of a good reference concept artists should be handing down to 3d artists. Sadly, official game character turnarounds aren't really posted on the internet often. However, Malene's artist was kind enough to post the head studies they made during the splash art process.

These weren't made to serve as reference for a 3d artist which is why it doesn't include a side profile view but we can work with the frontal view, which is the most important. This is what I'll be using as the main reference. That doesn't mean I won't use more, though.

This one is a great reference to use for texturing and poly painting plus it was made by the original character designer, Justin Murray. I'm also lucky enough to have picked a character with an already existing 3d model. I could take a look at it if I ever get stumped and see how the 3d modelers tackled the same challenge.

Step 3: Breakdown

Sculpting a character is a little more complex than drawing it but the initial process is very similar. When doing a study, a 2d artist might start with laying down guidelines, we can do something similar in 3d by boiling down the character's components to their most basic shapes (Which 3d artists call "primitives"). Let's go back to our main reference and see how we can split up the head into different shapes. 

 

Excluding the head, eyeballs and neck for now, we have SIX components

• Red: Is for the Pink bangs on the sides of her head.
• Aqua: Her front bang.
• Yellow: Is the rest of her hair.
• Blue is for her pointy ears.
• Pink is for the flowers on her head.
• Emerald: Her earrings and face studs. 

Why split them up in the first place? It makes it easier to tackle things if they're separated into manageable chunks. Going from 'I need to sculpt a character bust' to 'I need to make this character's front bang' is less daunting and it give me small victories as the process goes on.

Step 4: Modeling and Sculpting

I'll be using Zbrush for sculpting and PureRef to keep the references on top. This is what my set up looked like at the start of the project.

This won't be a tutorial or guide on how to properly sculpt a character, it's a breakdown of how I personally sculpt but put under a magnifying glass for documentation's sake. It will most likely change as I keep improving but it's how I've learned and been taught.

Step 4.1: The Block Out or Sketch

I'll start at the head, duh. There are many ways of making a head in 3d but the one i like the most is the Andrew Loomis Method. It takes the head (which starts as a ball in this case) and splits it into even more manageable chunks.

I'll be the first to admit it looks a little funny at this stage. Such are the woes of digital sculpting, your character will look like doo-doo at first. However this basic sketch is still using the reference as uh... reference. 

As we start going up in resolution and adding details, the model should really start coming together. Right now, it’s in a pretty low-res state, so the details are still rough and hard to see. The block-out stage is all about getting the main landmarks of the face and body in the right spots. This is the 3d equivalent of something like this:

Step 4.2: Fleshing Out the Details

The main landmarks of the face are roughly in place, now we'll raise up the document resolution and start carving out the details like nose, lips, eyelids, etc.

Now, I'll be focusing in the hair, usually one of the more important aspects of any character. Malene has a big, blocky bang on the front, two long, pink bangs on each side of her face and a shoulder length bob. The amount of volume and curl her hair has varies from ref to ref but I'll be using the main reference we took a look at first. It's more sleek and straight than the original design from Justin Murray but it's more faithful to the splash art and in game model. 

Hair is a notorious thing to render in both 2d and 3d. For the latter, people can take a sphere and stretch it out into a rough hair shape (Like I've done in the image above) and then sculpting in the hair details. I don't like this method as the end result for me tends to like a Lego minifigure hair piece. It can be done, I'm just not very interested in learning that method at this time. Instead, I'll be doing the more tedious method of sculpting out the hair strands individually. This is the method most collectable figure sculptors use. It isn't super practical as the polygon amount will quickly shoot up which isn't ideal for videogame characters. Nor is it realistic, this approach is very similar to the stylized hair clumps anime art styles tend to have.

Using a curve brush, we can insert tubes that snap to the scalp topology. Editing the curve we can have it so it has a WIDE start (serving as the hair strand root) and have the ends be THIN (so it serves the strand's tip). After eleven of these curves we have Malene's front bang! That's one out of six bits done.

Next I, I block out the side bangs, they're still relatively low-res at this state but once we go up in polygons, I'll be able to sculpt in some details. I also started on Malene's face studs.

Malene has some flowers on top of her head, these were handled by using IMM (Insert Multi-Mesh) Brush. It's very similar to the curve brush but it allows for more complex and not just wormy-tubes. I did not sculpt or model the flowers (shocker!) and opted for an IMM pack from Artstation. The only thing that is left is to make the rest of the hair. It isn't a particularly difficult or complicated process, just a little tedious and slow. I'll be going around the head, placing wormy-tubes on the scalp.

Low Poly Tubes are placed in order to fill out any gaps that might show the scalp. The way I'm going about things means Malene will have a bald spot on  the top of her head, where the crown will be placed.

The model still looks a little uncanny, that's mostly due to the blank eyes, lack of eyebrows and eye lashes. 

 

wip


 

References:

Malene Splash Art and Concept Art: Mushk Rizvi
Malene Concept Design: Justin Murray
Turn Around: James "Red" Tadlock

Portfolio Main Project Planning

 I would like to make more high-poly models using Zbrush, I feel most of my work in university has been low-poly game ready models and I have not practiced sculpting as much as I'd like to. So for the main project I was hoping to tackle a task that would challenge me in every aspect of the 3d pipeline, sans animation. An arcane style character (be it bust or full body)

Dice and Decks: Breaking Down the Main Mechanics

The concept for the board game is set, now it's time to establish the more nitty gritty aspects of the game. I'll be talking about dice, probabilities, cards, failing how to win, how to fail and degrees of success.

Board Game Design Contest

My university is hosting a game design contest where students (myself included) will design, playtest, and prototype a board game. As a big fan of board games and tabletop gaming, this is exactly what I needed to break out of the creative rut I’ve been in.

Here’s the concept I’ll be exploring for the contest.

What does it mean to board games?

Ooh, pretty pretentious right off the bat, no? But being serious for a second, I think it's important to establish what board games are, not just traditionally but what modern board games are. When most people hear 'board game,' they think of classics like Monopoly, Uno, or Jenga. However, the board game industry is currently experiencing a renaissance. More immersive, complex and ambitious games have hit the market and have been picked up by many play groups (mine included!).

The resurgence of these games is due to many reasons but the most relevant right now is the COVID-19 lockdown. Being quarantined at home with the rest of the family made game nights a bit more appealing for most people. My enjoyment of board games began a bit earlier, though. Hurricane Maria left the island of Puerto Rico without electricity for months, this meant board games were my outlet. I couldn't count how many nights I spent playing Monopoly at a friend's house, with nothing but  a few candles and solar powered lantern keeping the board illuminated. Needless to say, I like boardgames.

Let's talk about concept

The best part of any creative endeavor is the concept stage. It’s where I can focus purely on unrestrained creativity without worrying about feasibility or the time and effort it will take to bring the idea to life. I have a habit of getting ahead of myself and making projects way too big in scope, so let's take things step by step. 

The instructions for the challenge are:

1. Choose a Video game or story you are familiar with (preferably one that doesn't have a tabletop adaptation.)
2. Analyze what makes the game unique (Story), mechanics, etc.)
3. Design the art (Logo, backgrounds, characters, etc.)
4. Design the experience (mechanics, board, card Ul, etc.)
5. Design the assets (tokens, chips, minis, etc.)

Most people will pick a game or story to adapt and go for there but I'll be weird and work backwards. Starting from the concept and looking for an IP that can fit that concept. Is that cheating? Dunno but I'm doing it anyways.

Cooperative, Procedural Generated, Class Based Dungeon Crawler With Deck Building Mechanics and Can Support Boss Fights!

Mouthful ain't it? Now, that might sound crazy and super ambitious (and it kinda is?) BUT it has been sorta done before!

Inspiration from existing games

I'll be stealing drawing inspiration from already existing games and see if can make a more digestible and accessible version for me and my illiterate friends. The main inspirations are Resident Evil Board Game, Massive Darkness 2, Old School D&D, Monster Hunter Board Game and Pathfinder 2e. I'll be taking what i like from all of them, tossing em in a big ole blender and (hopefully) make a decent and fun game. So what am I pilfering?

From Resident Evil I'm nabbing the reaction dice and the map deck. I like custom dice with my games so we'll be making some fun designs for that later.

From Monster Hunter I'm swiping the monster behavior deck for boss fights, they're easy and intuitive to run. I'll just baby proof the instructions a bit. 

From Massive Darkness I'm appropriating the little player hub thingy. It's great for user experience and it keeps everything nice and tidy. This system also does exploration very well.

From Pathfinder I'll purloin the 3 action economy and feat design. Love how it makes combat feels and it easier to remember than the action, bonus action, reaction mess 5e has going on.
 

I won't go over old school d&d because I ran out of synonyms for stealing.

What game or story will fit best?

Darkest Dungeon, it's Darkest Dungeon. I love Lovecraft's setting (NOT THE AUTHOR), the dark fantasy aesthetic and the character design is very inspiring to me. Life is cheap in Darkest Dungeon and that fits the fast paced nature I want to achieve with the game an-

There's already a Darkest Dungeon boardgame adaptation... So that's out of the question. BUT I did fall in love with the idea of a rag-tag group of heroes delving into an eldritch dungeon and fighting off horrors from beyond the stars, so let's recalibrate and pick a very very niche story. 

Subterror in The Hidden City

Y'all every heard of Yu-Gi-Oh? There's this one archetype called 'Subterror' The archetype revolves around a ragtag group of heroes who find themselves exploring an eldritch dungeon called The Hidden city and battle cosmic horrors known as Behemoths. They don't have the great dark fantasy aesthetic but we can't win em all!

This is what I'll be working with going forward. The Subterror archetype has 5 good hero designs, a few monster designs and The Hidden City is a great setting for a face paced dungeon crawler. 

Now that I have a direction, the game mechanics can finally be fleshed out. But that will be something discussed on the next post.

In Search of Competence

In order to tackle this project, I need to establish a few things about myself as an artist. I have not practiced sculpting or art properly before, not really. However, I have consumed a lot of art in the time I could’ve been practicing. As a result my standards are higher than what my current skill level allows me to execute. So how can I improve when I know my best kinda sucks?