Portfolio Piece 03_High Res Model Preview

Original Concept

Portfolio Piece 02 Update

Finished the typo which worth 3 days work. I realize that I need to make the quad draw grids bigger next time. 

High Res model snapshot

Final Texture Paint in Substance Painter

Glowing and shining eyes in UE4 Material

How it looks like in UE4:

Second Portfolio Piece Update

                                                     Portfolio piece 02_Mid point check.
So this time I'm trying to make armor set. I was trying to learn and see if I can use the hard surface tools in Zbrush to do it, I tried couple of times with the Zsphere -> topology method, but it didn't turn out well. So eventually I decided to stick with the original plan and started to build it in Maya. This is where I am currently, I'm blocking out the big shape pieces, and all the details will be sculpted in Zbrush later. All the burning eyes, and very tiny metal details on the armor will be painted in texture.

Second portfolio piece concept

For the second portfolio piece meanwhile I'm also working on the previous one, I'm going to build an armor set for a character ( since the previous piece was mainly organic, I feel I need to learn and practice how to do more complicated hard surface for characters.) I started from Zbrush last time, so this time I will start from building it in Maya ( meanwhile I'm also interested in keep learning hard surface in ZBrush). My goal for each portfolio piece is to do what I can to learn something new and explore the tools, and eventually figure out a workflow and system which suits me. 

Art itself is an endless journey of growing and exploring ~ very proud of being an artist!! 

Final Portfolio Piece Preview

So far I'm in the stage of finishing the Topology for low res model. Although it's very challenging in every step of making this character, I have been learning tremendously of making organic in ZBrush. The most challenging part for Topology right now is how to get the poly shape right at those very hard to reach areas such as behind the ears, behind the neck in-between the skin and the hair, and the hair itself. Made a set of armor in Maya then imported into ZBrush, I will have to redo the armor during the break, also I will finish the bottom body part for this characters including legs, feet, and a tail. The final in-game character will be render in Substance Painter. The final render for the entire character as concept work will be in Keyshot.

Here's a version of what the final model would look like. I did a Photoshop paint over on the 3D model to show my plan for texturing: Skin color, skin details, hair color, horn color, eyes color, and the dragon burning mark. 

 The ancient pre-historical Chinese characters on the top left means: Old Dragon. This character is a very old god dragon long lived back to the pre-historical time in ancient Chinese legend. During the war of gods before the world was created in chaos, there was only darkness. When there was light, this old Dragon pushed the sky and earth apart so later on all creatures on earth can never reach to where god lives, ever since then the mystery of the world has never been known. 

I know he's still somewhere, probably in another cosmos other than ours beyond our capability of intelligence and understanding. And I know there are billions other worlds and universes outside of ours without the definition of time and space goes on alive endlessly. 

And yes, for a character like this, for the cosmos we are living in, and for many other dimensions beyond our wisdom,   

forever is not long enough.

     

 Below are some snapshots from ZBrush:

Overall body: 

 Front face view:

Facial details 

Hair

Hand Detail

Body detail:

Topology it. 

Final Portfolio Concept

For my first highly polished portfolio piece, I choose this guy as my character. The challenge for this one is how to make his hair, and how to render his skin and muscle as real as possible. I'm going to do the upper half ( from his waist and above, including both of his arms, but no wings for now. I do want to make this character complete later.)