More Autumn Tree Dragon

I thought I would post some progress since I haven’t updated in a while. Here are some photos of him before and after the textures. I am still refining the texture a bit more, as well as the shapes of the branches. The final piece will include leaves too as well as a fully detailed base. Still tweaking the pose a bit too, not 100% happy with it. Comments are welcome!

I’ve been working a lot in Maya lately, learning more about modeling and texturing. I am hoping to have more to show soon. I want to finish my model of Dezzi as well as my Heman/Battle Cat zBrush piece. But I will also be modeling the Tree Dragon. It’s going to be a huge project involving some of my coworkers. Mike Corinella has been so kind as to agree to rigging him. Then, I just have to bribe someone else to get him animated. I am really excited about that.

I have really been enjoying working digitally since I started using Maya more. Surprisingly, I like it a lot better than zBrush. I am still waiting to work with zBrush 3.5 though. zSpheres look like they make so much more sense now to us traditional sculptors.

Autumn Spirit

Once again, work has taken over my life. I love my job, but I haven’t had the time to work on my own stuff as much as I’d like to lately. I’ve also been lacking a lot of motivation for it. I feel like I’ve lacked direction since I got back from SDCC. There are so many options and I don’t know what to go with.

SO, I decided to do a little art for me to ground myself. Some of you may remember the forest spirit I did a few years back. One of my coworkers told me I should do a series of them representing the different seasons. Since the equinox is coming up, I decided to do an autumn spirit. I’ve done some concept sketches and built the armature. He’s going to have a bunch of maple leaves on him.

Also, I did a sculpture for our online stuff at work. I was working off a character design by one of my coworkers, Mike Sanborn. He’s a mad scientist type guy, he was fun to make.

More to come eventually!

Yokaiden Update

I am getting close with this! The basket still needs some more texture work. I still need to finish up the little paper umbrella guy who is going to be hiding out behind the skull. I couldn’t leave the back empty! I will probably put another frog or two back there too. And of course everything still needs to be refined and smoothed. I love how this is coming together!

New Website, More Yokaiden Progress

EmilySculpts.com is now officially up and running! Take a look and let me know if you have any technical difficulties. The main design has remained the same. However, I have a new layout for my gallery. I also added an archive that includes the best of my older works for those of you that are curious. Many many thanks to my wonderful and patient husband for setting the whole thing up for me.

I’ve been working a lot on this Yokaiden sculpture. It’s very tricky to work in someone else’s style, especially one so different from my own. I am slowly making it more angular and true to the original design. It’s slow going, but getting there! The hands still need work especially, feet too. It’s been VERY hot in Florida here the past few days so it’s been hard for me to get good work done on this at home. I am mostly working on it in the studio at work where it is an icebox.

Yokaiden!

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately. Most of what I have been doing isn’t all that exciting…getting portfolios printed up for comic-con, researching and contacting companies I am interested in talking to, messing around in Maya trying to get the hang of things, and my day job too of course!

I became impatient and decided to start another sculpture, even though I told myself I would only work on 3D from now until comic-con. I’ve been wanting to do a piece for a friend of mine for a while. Nina Matsumoto/Space Coyote is an awesome artist who is the author of the Yokaiden manga. I am currently sculpting this piece from her book. I love all the little details, colors, and character! I love trying to match someone else’s style with my sculpture so this has been fun thus far.

As usual, sorry for the crappy photos. Even more so this time because the angle is SO off that the skull looks much smaller than it is in real life. I have the scale a lot closer to the drawing than it looks in these photos. Hamachi looks like a frog boy right now, that entertains me But so far, I am just getting the positioning and most basic forms in. Next, I will start layering on the clothing and details.

I Love Molds. But Not Really….

I got to work on my Wolverine mold last night. I used Smooth-On Oomoo30, and ended up using the whole container! Here are some progress photos of how I made the mold.

I make my mold boxes using 1/4″ foam core. I start by measuring out each side of the box, leaving a little space on each side of the sculpture. You don’t want the edges of the box to be too close to the edges of the sculpture or else you will get weak spots in your mold from where the rubber is too thin. I cut the pieces out using a metal straight edge and a box cutter, and tape them together with masking tape. You have to make sure you seal the inside and outside edges with tape so that the rubber doesn’t leak. I actually ran out of masking tape when I was making this so I used a little scotch tape too which ended up working just fine! I then used Super Glue to fix Wolverine in place at the bottom of the mold box. I spray the inside of the mold with Universal Mold Release so it the rubber won’t stick to the figure.

Then the fun starts! The rubber gets mixed 50/50. I use the small cups to measure out each part and then mix them together in a larger cup. Once they are blended, I pour them into another cup to do the final mixing. Then, I pour the rubber into the box. MAGIC! It’s a tiring process. You have to make sure the rubber is mixed very well, and you don’t want to mix too much at one time. So I mixed three batches of rubber for this particular mold….and my neck was screaming at me after wards. FUN!

This morning, the rubber seemed to have cured well. I won’t know for sure until I fully demold, but I am confident that it turned out ok. Here’s hoping the casting goes smoothly!

I also have a photo of all the pages of my 8×10 portfolio. The paper instructions said to let it dry for a week (!!) after printing before putting it in an album. That paper is expensive so I am not taking any chances! I should be able to put them away this weekend!

My kitchen looked like easter after all that colorful rubber going everywhere!!!

3D Learnins!

I’ve been working in Maya today. My coworker, Jessica, has been helping me out a lot and showing me how to use all the tools. I am starting to get into the swing of it, it’s pretty fun! Here is my progress so far. I am modeling Dezzi! I am only going to do his base mesh in Maya and then bring him into zBrush for detailing. I haven’t messed with the face yet yet, mostly the arms and legs. I am glad I learned zBrush before this because it’s helping me to understand the principles behind everything.

Making a mold for Wolverine tonight, photos to come!

Wolverine’s House!

I’ve been trying to come up with a good design for the box that will house my Wolverine mini-busts which I will be giving out at comic con. I am trying to keep with the same theme (colors/fonts/etc.) as the rest of my promo material. I will be using these boxes and will be printing out the labels on 17″ long paper to wrap around the box. Probably will use spray adhesive to get them to stick, I love that stuff.

This is just a mock up as I don’t have the figure cast yet, so I am working with my progress photos. I am still tweaking it, and any suggestions would be much appreciated! Any type of package design is always a struggle for me.

This Has Been a Productive Week!

I finished up Wolverine tonight. He is about 4 inches tall and done in Sculpey Firm. I will be giving out casts at Comic*Con next month. I am going to design boxes for them this month.

I am casting him in resin with nickel powder for a pewter look. I will be using Smooth-On products to cast, used them for years. Here is what the process looks like. And don’t worry, I will do my own step by step photos for this project! My husband will be taking on a lot of the work because I am horribly allergic to casting resins when they are in liquid form. I break out in hives for a month with the tiniest exposure, even fully covered. EW!

I have been working on portfolio stuff the last couple of days. I am printing out a few pages for my large portfolio tonight. I have a good prototype done for my small hand-out portfolios, now I am just waiting on paper samples. I went through 2 types of paper all ready with no luck. I am ordering some top quality stuff from Inkpress.com so hopefully one of those will work out for me.

I worked a little on my website design tonight too. My husband is nearly done coding my new site, yay! Nothing TOO big changing…a few small design elements and a more organized/simplified gallery. I am linking my news updates to my Twitter as well. I feel so modern!

More Progress

Getting close on my Wolverine sculpt. I gotta get him cleaned up and put the fine details in. I will be casting him in resin that will have a faux pewter finish (or adamantium!)

I am going to try to get more painting done on Dexter tomorrow. I love productive weekends.