Tank modelling

Finally got back to my panzer IV modelling. I'm taking my time about figuring out the main shapes, because if those are wrong, nothing else will be right. It's still hard to figure out which components I should make separate, and which I should build as a single mesh, because in the manufacturing process, the tank started as many many separate pieces, but of course they were welded together, which is difficult to do cleanly digitally. So I'm trying to plan ahead, but that's also difficult to do without much hard surface modelling experience.

And I started on the drive sprocket (the powered wheel), because it was a little more fun.

Later,
Stuart

The "Bad Sketch" Series #3-4/1000

It's been a while since I posted any "bad sketches", my self-imposed discipline to keep practicing without fear of failure (semi-successful). I tried putting together zspheres to create a little creature I had in my head, but when I created the adaptive skin, I just couldn't put any form in it that I liked. So here is just the zsketch, and the lesson learned is to at least create a pencil sketch to work from.

I also painted a goose from one of my many photos that are not presentable as photographs, but work alright as reference. These are just half an hour to an hour.

There's been a couple of reasons why it's been so long since I last posted. I took a trip to Quebec city to visit the Centre for Neurophotonics and the researchers for whom I will be creating my Masters Research Project. It was an incredible experience, and it really restructured my focus for how I imagine the final product. Definitely need to keep on with the Unity tutorials.

I also attended the 67th Annual Meeting of the Association for Medical Illustrators. It was also very interesting and educational, and I enjoyed hearing from the speakers their perspectives, backgrounds, and ideas. E. O. Wilson and James Gurney were among the talented presenters, and I ended up buying James Gurney's latest book "Color and Light" which I hope will be helpful for my experimentation in digital painting.

I also acquired a record player and some very nice speakers, so I've been having great fun with that. I felt all cool as I laid out speaker wire and connected everything up. Looking forward to doing more sketches and some work on my egg scene and tank, and I hope you are too.

Later,
Stuart

The "Bad Sketch" series: #2/1000

Here's another sketch from ZBrush, just a few hours invested. Another alien creature (bullsquid) from half-life and this time I experimented with ZSpheres and polypainting on the mesh.

Later,
Stuart

The "Bad Sketch" series: #1/1000

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of my goals this summer is to produce a large number of sketches, without worrying about the end results. Some will be finished-ish, others will be very rough and incomplete. Not worrying about how "good" they may be frees me up to experiment, stay loose, learn a broader variety of techniques, be creative, and most importantly, have fun. So without further ado, here's a couple screenies from my first sketch in Z. Based on the scary barnacles in the half-life video games.

This last image is called an "alpha" and it's used to pull out surface detail on sculptures. I drew it in PS to make the little barnacle shells on the big barnacle. You'll notice that white gets pulled out, and black is left at the same depth.

Later,
Stuart

June Update

Really can't believe it's been so long since I've updated my blog. Time just screams by. I've been keeping busy, but sometimes it's difficult to see what I've accomplished. I guess that's what blogs are for. So here we go: the past month in a nutshell.

I've been working on several simple line illustrations for Toronto Notes, which I may be able to share in the future, but not quite yet. Although classes for Business Practice and Research Methods are finished, there are a couple projects just wrapping up this week. My MRP proposal is now finished, and I created a bunch of business docs too. So, mostly written stuff and very little imagery, although here's my new(er) logo:

and the tag line I'm going to go with for the time being is "Animating the Components of Life". I also registered Biocinematics as a business in Ontario, so that was kind of exciting.

I'm working on a PPE PSA Poster with Olivia. This is one of the sketches I did for that:

I finished ZBrush 3 Essentials and am getting close to finishing ZBrush 4 Essentials over at Lynda.com. My goodness, ZBrush is the most unintuitive, hardest to learn program I've ever encountered. Seriously, even the instructors keep saying "I know this doesn't really make much sense, but you'll get used to it." For everything! And to make matters worse, the program changes so much from version to version. I have 4R2 (version 4 release 2) so after the frantic googling that accompanied the ZBrush 3 course, I thought the version 4 training would make more sense. Not so, the buttons and options just keep disappearing and moving around the interface. Very hard to find stuff. And several of the brushes are gone! At least to my eye they're gone. What kind of developer removes brushes? I suppose in the long run it's a good idea to not let the program stagnate and bloat up, but by the SAME token, why are meshes still called tools because the program was first developed to paint in 2D using 3D objects? /Rant. In the end, it's really rather fun, which is why I've done more tutorials on ZBrush than on Photoshop or Unity. My aim is to get past the bewilderment phase of learning ZBrush ASAP so I can start generating sketches.

Which brings me to my next goal. I've been wanting to get in the habit of doing many smallish sketches in PS and ZBrush, and that's slowly starting to happen. That means that I should have lots of crummy artwork to post in the next weeks. One of my professors' professors said something along the lines of this "You need to shake a thousand bad drawings out of your sleeves before the good ones start coming out" and there was another quote about making lots and lots of bad art and then you'll start getting good. But I can't remember who said it or enough of the words to google it, so oh well.

I also read a whole textbook on fiber optics. And bought some juggling clubs so I would have an excuse to maybe go outside and get a bit of exercise. So there you go, I guess June did have rather a lot going on.

And finally, cause you made it all the way to the bottom, I can share my updated journal cover that I've submitted to the AMI 2012 salon. Thanks for reading.

Later,
Stuart

Master Collection

I just got myself Adobe CS6 Master Collection. Master means you have to be very good to use it. No not really, it just includes everything and the kitchen sink. Except for some things. Like Lightroom 4.
After opening each program once, here are my initial impressions.

Some pros:
- The splash screens are cool! Very trippy.
- Photoshop doesn't turn off my mouse wheel settings
- The apps finally work with Aero snap
- Illustrator is 64-bit... hopefully that will solve an export memory issue I was having
- Finally have access to InDesign, Acrobat, and umm... SpeedGrade?

Some neutral, literally:
- Photoshop is dark!
- Illustrator is black!
- Flash is still pale grey.

Some cons:
- Photoshop said it would import all my "presets"... but my preferences did not get imported.
- The apps still don't look cohesive... quite diverse in fact.


This time Adobe won't come out with a new version immediately after I buy it. Ha, take that Adobe. I'll post an image next time... maybe something I created with CS6!

Later,
Stuart

Promotional page

For our business practice class, we are required to design a promotional "tearsheet" for something like the AMI source book that circulates. A full page advertisement is something around 1500 bucks for a year, so I'm unlikely to be doing that very soon, but it's a good thing to work on.

Instead of using 2D illustrations that I've created for the program so far, I wanted to make a new, single image page that highlights the animation process. So far I've blocked out the design, but there's lots of work to do to get the kind of rendering styles I have in my head. I still need to come up with a sleek logo too. Comments are appreciated.

Incidentally, the process of a bacteriophage injecting DNA into a bacterium was the first (very simple) scientific animation I ever created as far as I can remember, using Macromedia Flash in about 2003 maybe?

The tank is in progress, albeit slowly.

Later,
Stuart

Summer projects

I thought it would be good to update with semester end notes and my plans for the summer.

I officially finished spring courses last week with an 'Evolution of Medical Illustration' presentation and critique where I presented my artwork to faculty. My evolution presentation was on software use in the biomedical animation industry, and I think it went well. The critique was helpful and I got several ideas and solutions for improving my pieces from this semester. The good thing about digital media (although it's a double-edged sword) is that it is comparatively easy to go back in and correct problems, work up certain areas, and generally polish pieces for my portfolio.

This summer I've got a couple courses: Business Practice and Research Methods. I'll be creating promotional and administrative materials for myself (tearsheets, invoices, business cards, logos, cover letters, CVs - actually just one of each most likely). And I'll be doing background research for my master's research project (MRP), which I will elaborate on in the future.

A lot of my time will also be dedicated to self-directed learning in the software that I will be using for my MRP. Maya, Unity, Photoshop, and maybe some ZBrush just for kicks.

For Maya, I've started modelling a German WWII tank, the Panzer IV (Ausf.F2 to be precise).

For Unity, I've started going through this learning path: http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/learning_path.php?lpid=18

For Photoshop, I'd like to work on a series of sketches and digital paintings to improve my wacom skills and painting technique.

For ZBrush, well I'd like to at least get through this course: http://www.lynda.com/Zbrush-3-tutorials/for-windows-essential-training/642-2.html and then we'll see what happens. Hopefully some quick sculpts on a semi-regular basis to get my hand in.

It's always a risk publishing my goals, especially with so much going on. I know that the reality is that I won't get as far as I want in each of these areas, but maybe with some encouragement from my readers, I'll be able to keep all the balls in the air.

Later,
Stuart

Surgical Final

Back to back illustrations! Incroyable!

Clicken to embiggen.

Again, I'll probably rework some stuff over the summer to improve this illustration for portfolio purposes, but I'm fairly pleased with it at the moment. Considering how tough this course was, I think I learned a decent amount.

Oh, the more I look at, the more visual problems I see... ha, gonna sign off now. Wouldn't it be nice to finish something and then weeks later come back and say "Yes. Yes, it's perfect."?

Later,
Stuart

Neuro thus far

It's actually been a while since "Neuroanatomy Illustration" finished, but I'm only now uploading my "final" illustration because the semester is officially finished! Which is to say I've still got one project to finish and hand in today, and one project to start and present before the next round of classes begins. I'd like to rework this illustration when I get a chance (in the summer perhaps) after I get some more practice in digital painting.

I haven't received any email from the contact form on my website, which is fine, unless someone's tried, because then I haven't got it. So let me know if you've already tried that form of communication.

Later,
Stuart