A couple of paintjobs on some creatures

So while visiting LA I created a few creatures of my own as well as some for Hollywood.  Ill be leaving here soon but my creatures will stay.  Here are a couple of my personal sculptures.  More to come.

 This one above is made from ceramic then painted in acrylic paint.

This guy above is made from Super Sculpey, baked then painted in the same acrylic paint.  (click on images to see larger)

A quick bust

Here is a bust I whipped up yesterday.  I spent about 2hrs on this guy.  I wasnt in a rush, just wanted to create a creature.  Ive been doing a few things in sculpey and wanted to do a quicky.  This is done in water based clay, which is faster to work with than sculpey.  Now I need a kiln to put these ones into.  

Some Exhibited Sculptures

Well I had an exhibit here in Brisbane a few days ago which was fun.  Here are some of the sculptures from the exhibit and some others that were not in the exhibit. 

Alien bust

Just a sculpey bust I whipped up the other night.  I had gotten a few hundred ball bearings in the post so I wanted to use them.  While I was making it I was thinking that I need to make something totally not human in its make up.  But that everything is head and shoulders and legs n arms.  I will find something else.  A different structure for a being.  I guess Ill have a closer look at aquatic creatures.  Cuttlefish and octopi, sea slugs and caterpillars, shrimp too.  Yes!

Anyway, here is a sculpture.  Im almost ready to start painting them...all.

Mr Damien Brown animation

This was a quick tune banged out one night from Tidy Kid for a buddy.  The animation is of the fellow the song mentions.  The animation tries to capture some of the character of the real person.  The animation was started as a quick project but was left for about 1-2 years.  I finally got around to finishing it. In total it probably took around 40hrs to complete with lot of procrastination in between.

This weeks sculptures

Here are a few sculptures for this week.  I wanted to do some sort of monkey creature with lots of eyes and no ears.  So I did, I drew a few variations first then went in and sculpted the creatures head.  As I was sculpting it I found I didnt know much about how a monkey looks so, I decided to sculpt a chimp.  Using reference images, I created a chimpanzee study which I will, later on, create a body for.
Another day, I did a few drawings of a goblin which I was to sculpt in Zbrush.  I figured I would work it out in clay too as a preliminary.  So, the hooded head you see below is a goblin sculpture which took about 30-45mins to complete.
I also did a little quadruped creature who has some sort of large moth like insect on its bum.

Quick bust

Here is another quick bust.  Took about 1hr 30mins.  Water based clay.

NSP finally!

I have had this block of NSP laying around for a bit now. Finally picked it up and made something from it.

Quick sculpture

This one was done in water based clay, white earthenware its called.  It took 1hr 30min.  I love how fast water clay can be worked.  Im trying to get my speed down to around 45mins to create something decent.  So this week I plan to bang out a pile of water clay sculpts with the aim of speed form and proportion.

A super sculpey bust

So this guy, I didnt know what he was going to be at all through out the whole creation of it. I started out with a coat hanger, bending it around until I said, Ok a bust you will be then. Then I couldnt work out what kind of posture I wanted...then I loaded up some clay and figured I would go with a simple humanoid but with a bit of something going on. I wanted an odd nose, couldnt work out how odd. After a few noses I thought of how bat noses are quite wacky sometimes. So I went with that thought. 

An Odd Limbed Creature

I have begun to explore odd limb creature designs.  I want to make them somewhat believable and functional too.  so not just a ball with nine legs and three arms, although I would like to get that stage where I can see the functionality of all those limbs.  Maybe it would be centipede like or something.
Anyway here is a design, this one is a hanging creature which hangs by its colon. It whips its feces at predators and leaves its waste everywhere it goes.

Not a good pet.

A couple of sculpey sculptures from this week

Here are a couple sculpey sculptures from this week.  Usually spend about 2-5 hours on each one.  I start with no plan and just see what comes from the sculpey.  Most of the time is spent trying to figure out what I see and to create something new.

7 Cyclops over 7 days

Here is another cyclops design.  This one I had insects on my mind while sculpting.

7 cyclops in 7 days

I should have just called these posts on the cyclops, "cyclops studies"...Its gonna make me look like I cant count or something!

Today I drew up a couple of cyclops based of a skull that I was shown to be the original inspiration of the cyclops myth, the mastodon skull.

The muscles are out of control on this guy below...I know.  I just got a little carried away with it.

This next guy I sort of tamed him up a bit.

7 Cyclops over 7 days!

Cyclops #1... I have found that I am not comfortable with the idea of a cyclops.  Something about the idea just doesnt make sense so, I am going to do 7 cyclops over the next 7 days.  With the hopes that I can shake the need to make sense of the cyclops. 

This first posted cyclops is done in Zbrush.  I kind of like him.  I liked the ears and his big mouth full of crooked teeth.  I dont really want to follow the usual style of cyclops which was just a giant man with one eye.  That just never made sense to me.  The whole one eye thing just seems silly.  How could it see depth?  It would have a terrible time navigating about the place. 
Anyway, we shall see what comes next in the cyclops future.

A few Zbrushins

Hope you enjoy these few Zbrush creations.

Sculpey updates

These are my latest Super Sculpey creations.   These would have been done over the last 2 - 3 weeks.  Im trying to focus on proportion, form, anatomy then wrinkle and details.  These will be painted in the future...once I get my air compressor.

Old man head

Alien half body

 Alien head

Goofy alien head

Zombie

Alien demon

Demon

A fresh thingy

Hi, I threw together this thingy today.  I dont know what it is, maybe aquatic...with chicken wings.

Click on the image to see it larger.

Making clean edges in Zbrush

This video shows my technique for creating clean edges. There are two techniques I use, both similar. One is to simply mask, in low subdiv, and pull the geometry over other geometry and then pinch to make the edges close so that after subdiv up they remain close.
The other is to turn off "subdiv smooth modifier" so when subdiv up levels the corners remain.
You will see both techniques in this video.




Making clean edges in Zbrush from Nick McGavern on Vimeo.

Edit existing topology in Zbrush

This is a short demo showing how to take existing geometry and to edit the geometry/topology to better suit your mesh needs.
Load a Zsphere.
Scroll to the "Topology" dropdown.
Click "Select Topo" and choose your geometry to be edited.
Go to the "Rigging" dropdown above and choose "Select Mesh" and choose the mesh your editing (to be used as a surface that you can lay your verts onto).
Click the "Edit Topology" button and begin editing the topo.

Tips.
Hovering over the verts will turn your brush green, you can then click on that vert to use as a starting point.
To reset the beginning point of your vert placement, double click in space, otherwise it will start at the center of your zsphere.
Make your draw size about 1-3 so you are only effecting one vert at a time.
This method can also be used to merge two tools, once they have been merged down to one.
Also great way to add geometry to a sculpture without having to venture out to another program.

Edit topology in Zbrush from Nick McGavern on Vimeo.

Zbrush layers tutorial

I have a tutorial for you all to have a gawk at.
Basically I had created a sculpture in zbrush and posed it before saving it in a neutral pose.  I would usually pose a sculpture on a layer but this time forgot.  So, this is a work around to get the creation back to the neutral pose.   Using layers and importing an early saved version of an exported .obj into a layer at the lowest subdiv on the latest posed sculpture...the video will explain it better.

MutAnteater on top of the mountain

Here I placed the creature on top of a mountain.  Also updated its skin.

MutAnteater

Another creature for the post, this one has a little hair on its back.

 

Just in case you you were wondering, it is female and has 4 eyes.  I like trying to throw in an extra set of eyes, but more so having them so they kind of make sense...unlike spiders.  What do they need so many eyes for??

 

If you click on this one, it will get bigger...just one click, dont get too excited.

Adding a bit of quick color

This is just a quick texture job on an older sculpture done with zbrush.  I then played around a bit with metcaps and lightcap for rendering.

Click the image for a larger size

30 creatures in 30 days final

Ok, so I have been awya from the internet for a while due to moving house.  The internet providers sure do take their time to switch things on.
I have a bunch of stuff I need to upload for this blog but Ill just start with these photos of some of my latest sculpey creations.  Some of these are unfinished, all are unpainted.  I will have to get an airbrush soon to get into the painting side of it.  If anyone would like to donate an airbrush to me, I would be most grateful.
I am really enjoying sculpey these days and have lots of plans for this stuff.   I bought some chavant the other day, it feels pretty good!   I havent done much with it yet.  I need to learn more about casting and molding.
Anyway, have a look and feel free to tell me what you think.
Thanks

 This one is a severed alien head.  Its about the size of my thumb.

 This is an asian girls face.  Its about 7cm high.

 This is a demon marquette.

 This is from a small sketch I had done last year.  Stands around 20cm.

 Some sort of fishman marquette.

 This is unfinished, cant figure out what sort of feet to give him it will come.

 Just playing around with some cat and dog anatomy .

  This is just for the wrinkle on the side.