Zbrush - SGT Slaughter

Over the past year, I’ve gone back and forth when deciding to use traditional clay modeling or jump all into a product like Zbrush or Mudbox.  I’ve tried all of them.  I have really enjoyed the speed at which I’ve been able to create digitally and the precision of my results. I hope to create an action figure model that can be printed and later painted.  My ultimate goal is to print an action figure that can be constructed into a fully articulated figure.  SGT Slaughter was one of my favorite characters on GI Joe as a kid and remains so today.  He was a WWF wrestler who’s character was adopted by the cartoon.  He voiced the cartoon character and had an action figure made out of him.  I’m so excited to be able to make him in 3D.

See all images here.

Cobra H.I.S.S. Tank

This was a fun an addictive model to make.  I started making it with the idea of just making one side of it so that it would work as a background to another drawing.  However, I kept adding more detail and decided to complete the whole thing.  It was made purely in Sketchup.

Learning to Texture in 3ds Max

Over the past few weeks, I spent quite a bit of time getting to know UV’ing and Texturing in Max. I’ve done so in other programs like Lightwave and Sketchup but have never enjoyed the results so much.

I cannot wait to apply this new ability to future projects…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the amount of control that I can have over my 3D objects.  All the way from coloring their image maps in Photoshop to actually placing them on the model in 3D space.  The sky is the limit.

Frank

Digital Art: Finding the Holy Grail in Tablet Illustration

Never have I been so obsessed with any technology like I’ve been with the idea of being able to draw anywhere I go.  A while back (click here for previous post), I wrote an article that asked the question “Should Artists Adopt the iPad?”  Well, I’ve come a long way since that post.  In addition, much has changed and I’ve learned so much that I’d like to share here.

One of my professional associates said that it is important to determine if a tablet is a consumption device or a content creation device.  To clarify, one must ask if the tablet was intended for the consumption of entertainment or was it also made for creating content.  While I still think that iPads are fantastic devices and have even found ways to draw on them with pressure sensitivity using a “Jot Pro” pen, they do not easily support my most used drawing and animation applications.

I’ve had the pleasure of testing several devices.  Some were good and some were not so good.  I learned a lot about Active and Passive display/pen technology.  As a previous Wacom Bamboo user, I wanted something that would utilize the various levels of pen pressure sensitivity that I use and that would allow me to draw directly on the tablet.  I have been able to test and use the first two generations of the Microsoft Surface Pro.  The first Surface did not immediately support Win tab drivers (I believe that is what they are called).  So, for quite a while, I was unable to draw on it in Photoshop.  However, I hung on with the promise that they are developing drivers and they did!

 

 

Using the Surface Pro was so liberating for me.  I could now go to places like Starbucks and digitally draw while sipping a fun drink.  I found the first Surface Pro very capable of doing what I needed without bogging down very often.  About a year ago, I was able to upgrade to the Surface Pro 2!  Not much changed here accept for more power.  I’ve had no problems with it at all.  If I’m in the office, I’ll always choose the Cintiq HD. But on the go, the Surface Pro 2 is my choice.  I am looking forward to upgrading to the Surface Pro 3 with its bigger screen but until then, I’ll continue to happily draw on the Surface Pro 2!

Happy Drawing!  ~Frank~

In these videos, I use a combination of Photoshop CS 5.5 and Google Sketchup 8 to create a 2D cutout character to be placed on my 3D set.  I combined a few online tutorials to figure this out and thought I'd share my process in action!  Please note that I use a combination of my mouse and a Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet but you can simply use a mouse.  Oh and I know, I kept saying "Pound" # key instead of Space Bar to get the selection tool.  Sorry XD!  Anyways, I hope you enjoy this little tut and please visit me on facebook and you can find out more information about my animated production there as well.

Part 1

Part 2