Ideas, Sketches and Tutorials

'XYZ symmetry in 3D-Coat

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 05 May 2026 18:08:00 +0000

Hi, I just published a new video 'XYZ symmetry in 3D-Coat' - Learn a simple but powerful symmetry‑modelling technique inside the 3D‑Coat Modelling Room. In this tutorial, we start with a basic cube primitive, mirror it across the X, Y, and Z axes, and keep the topology clean with minimal geometry.

You’ll see how to maintain full control of your mesh while working symmetrically, and we’ll also cover a few common pitfalls to avoid so your mirrored surfaces stay perfectly aligned. A great workflow tip for anyone looking to speed up their modelling process in 3D‑Coat.
https://lnkd.in/edSqjsPd

Tutorial - Using 3D-Coat Instances for Design

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 10:06:00 +0000

In this episode, I start with a pre existing modular character in 3D Coat, which has been poly painted and create instances for a fully editable turnaround. Any adjustments made to the character instantly propagate across all views, keeping the workflow fast and flexible.

I then take the rendered turnaround into Leonardo.ai to generate fresh clothing designs that maintain the character’s proportions, giving me a clean concepts to bring back into 3D Coat for modelling.

Free Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0000

8+ hours of free tutorials!

Yes its been a while posting in here, but I'm back.

Most of these posts will point to YouTube for the video tutorials.

Also, I have a blog spot on my website with more tips and tricks which you might be interested in. If you'd prefer to see them in here let me know and I'll paste the information here too.

Pilgway have just released Episodes 46, 47, and 48 of my Beginner’s Guide to Modelling in 3D‑Coat.

In these new episodes, you will learn how to bake maps for the dinosaur we’ve been building and prepare it fully, ready for texturing! If you’re curious about 3D‑Coat or want a clear, no‑nonsense path into 3D modelling, the full playlist is free. Jump in and start creating.

Link to the series >> https://lnkd.in/eKJeyfD4

Tutorial: Sketching and Idea Generation - Archive Sketches

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 23:46:00 +0000

When sketching it is important to archive and save your work. Try to get into the habit of saving all work whether you think it’s good or bad. In this video I look through a few of my archived sketches and make comments about them. Don’t forget to subscribe and and be notified of new videos. Tutorial

Zeyno

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 23:29:00 +0000

A project from a while back... I'm going to start blogging more, so if people are looking...Hi!

Tutorial: Sketching Silhouettes

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:44:00 +0000

Change from the norm... I’ve posted a video on Sketching Silhouettes which is part of my free tutorials demonstrating how I sketch and generate ideas. The series is aimed at beginners, but maybe intermediates will find it useful too. I’m building the series slowly, starting with basics and finally creating some weird and wacky creatures or whatever pops into my head.

Tutorial - Sketching Silhouettes

Hope you find it useful.

Tutorial: Sketching and Idea Generation

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 22:39:00 +0000

Hi all, I have created a series of free tutorials which show how I sketch and generate ideas. The series is aimed at beginners, but maybe intermediates will find it useful too. These tutorials will eventually build into a full course, but there is enough currently published, to get you started. Check out the tutorials on my YouTube channel. Hope you find it useful.

Sketching and Idea Generation

Plant Creature 03/04

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 22:21:00 +0000

Next stage was to add back 'legs' to the creature and get a little more descriptive with the surface/texture. With the back section I wanted to keep with the creepy crawly feeling so I created a set of spider type legs to support the mid section.

The idea was that the front arms provided the power to move forward and the mid section would swing forward while being supported by the front two hands and the spidery legs at the back. The mid section would flex and bend and give the creature the agility to change direction, twist and turn to snap with those huge teeth.

The creature could stand on the mid section but only to gain momuntary height to see prey. It would then drop back down onto the front two hands to continue. The creature would be a night stalker that waited and ambushed prey rather than chasing it down. The three eyes were added to help the creature see in low light.

The strange thing at this stage is that I didn't have much idea about the size of this creature. I initially had just imagined, assumed it would be about the size of a crawling man. With much larger hands than that of a normal sized male. It was something I'd have to think about and quick because this was beginning to come together as a concept.

I wanted the surface to be fibrous, like tendons that grow and hold the creature together, but mixed in there with dense bone. I called it Plant Creature because of the initial thumbnails and I liked the transparency of the sketch in the previous post. I indicated this here in foreground hand where you can see its darker in colour. However it had started to look more like it was made of flesh and bone which I didn't want, because it reminded me of a Resident Evil type design.

Light played a role in the predatory role this creature used to catch its prey, it used its transparent skin to bend light helping it to blend into its environment. I used a simple filter in Photoshop to produce the slimy look (Plastic Wrap) it gives nice specular hits to sell the surface texture. Thats all for now... Thanks for reading!

The whole illustration was done in Photoshop using a wacom tablet.

Plant Creature 02/04

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 22:05:00 +0000

Taking the design to the next stage I wanted to flesh out the creature. I was trying not only to give more volume, but I was also experimenting with the surface texture as I was sketching. Using the brushes in Photoshop I started to experiment with the blending modes. I find the technique useful because it gives a translusence effect, rather like that of a bug where you can see all its bits moving around inside.

At this stage I was only really concerned with the front section of the creature, the back was added later. I wanted the long creepy fingers to remain from the thumbnails. I added the three eyes imagining them to be fixed on a movable fleshy part of the head. No mouth was indicated and the boney spine curved back into a pelvis type area which was under developed. Thanks for viewing...

Plant Creature 01/04

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 22:02:00 +0000

The first of 4 images showing the progression of a plant creature design. The sketches were very basic however the image on the left caught my attention. The reason for choosing this one I think came from the movie Poltergeist - the ghostly spirit at the top of the stairs in the original movie, was very cool. So I decided to go with this one.

The other designs were OK, I liked the 2nd from the Right because it had no particular definition, just out of control growth reaching out in all directions. So this maybe something I come back to in another project. These were created in SketchBook Pro using the BallPoint Pen Tool. The grey hint of a shadow really helps to ground the design with very little effort. Thanks for viewing, I'll get the next development post out quickly.

Mascot Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 21:24:00 +0000

So busy recently and a lot of things up in the air after moving, been a crazy few months! However I found this sketch from a while back and thought it looked cool. I did these when asked to come up with some ideas for a football/soccer mascot. Quite a few things wrong with these but a good starting point and push them as a 3D sculpt in the future.

The mascot had to be strong in physical appearance to intimidate the opposition, but also have an appeal to young fans. They were created in SketchBook Pro initially and then taken into Painter for line work and colouring. I worked on a range of expressions for each concept. However these 3 concepts and the initial brief were dropped in favour of the 'Star' concept which was created later. You can see the final concept and design HERE at the bottom of the page. There are also more characters complete with development sketches in the link... Hope you find it useful.

Buzz vs Alien

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 21:47:00 +0000

Buzz vs Alien

Moving on from the previous post with a similar theme I created this idea of Buzz Lightyear meeting an Alien. Again I was thinking of a more gritty image trying to bring Buzz into the world of Alien, maybe landing on the planet and discovering the species himself.

There's not enough energy in this initial sketch, I wanted the alien to be thrashing while pinned to the floor by Buzz's foot. He's logging the information on his communication device and covering the alien with his laser weapon. In the background is the alien ship can be seen.

The composition needs some work but as an initial sketch it gave me ideas to take it forward... Thanks for viewing...

Emperor Zurg Idea

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 18:58:00 +0000

Emperor Zurg Idea

Back again... bit of a break from posting as I've been busy, however I thought I'd post this old idea of Zurg from Toy Story. I wanted the sketch of Zurg to be a scary version of the movie character. It was an interesting idea because I tried to use the key elements of Zurg and try to push a little realism into them.

The left side of the image shows the original sketch which certainly had a menacing look with those teeth, but the next version on the right (3D) didn't really capture what I was looking for. I think the reason for this was because I tried to jump into a 3D sketch model too soon.

So my plan here is to take it back a step, work on the sketch and then take it into 3D-Coat for voxel sculpting. I want the final to be a 3D model that I can texture, the aim being to mix organic elements with hard surface modelling. The over-riding idea being a scary version of Emperor Zurg - a kind of what happens if you mix Gigers Alien with Pixar approach. Thanks for viewing...

BEDOUIN TRACKER HELMET DETAIL

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 21:24:00 +0000

Helmet Detail

An important element of the sketch was trying to make the character look more alien or at least not from our planet. I set about working on the helmet design focusing on the shapes, the idea here was to make the helmet itself a sensing device, filtering the air and sampling changes in temperature, light etc.

This was created in Photoshop using my own custom brushes, I then painted in the details from the generated shapes. The green visor was added at the end to give the helmet a tech feel. Nasal sensors and an oral filtration unit were added over the mouth to taste the air, as well as listening probes mounted high on head frame.

Although I imply the character wears a high tech body suit, the main emphasis was the helmet in terms of tracking ability. Whether the character is to be biological or a robot is something I'm still thinking about. However having this high tech character wrapped in the flowing desert cloth does work well and is something I'll keep in the final piece.

I think what needs to be addressed is the composition and the pose of the character, I lost something in the translation from initial thumbnail sketch to the current version in terms of pose. The hand holding the sand has no gesture and you don't feel the character is examining the sand, which is important. Another element that needs to improve is the story behind the artwork, it should be easy to read the artwork and the events within the scene. This will be addressed in the further revisions. Thanks for viewing...

Bedouin Tracker Concept

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 16:21:00 +0000

The left image shows the original sketches, which started the whole idea. Very simple but enough to start the trail of thinking mentioned in previous post. I actually liked the black figure more as the pose implied a character with more energy. I opted for the other because the character seemed a more seasoned, experienced hunter.

The image on the right shows a later development sketch of the costume. I liked the flowing tails on the costume and kept this in, but I wanted the design to be more alien or at least not like something of our planet. All sketching was done in Photoshop, some custom brushes were used to give more texture. The left hand was originally intended to hold a spear like the black & white sketch. This changed later to the idea of a sand storm shield. The right hand also lacks the interesting hand pose of the sketch when the character examines the sand... next post...

Bedouin Tracker

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 09:04:00 +0000

Bedouin Tracker

This sketch was result of a few influences such as the movies Lawrence of Arabia, Pitch Black and Dune. One of the aspects of the movie Dune, which I really liked was the Stillsuit worn by the Freeman. This design concept in the movie itself was really well executed and I wanted to combine this idea of a special suit with the more traditional clothes worn by those seen in Lawrence of Arabia. The long flowing clothes gives a sense drama and helps to identify with the harsh environment of our own deserts here on earth.

In the movie Pitch Black the characters crash land on a planet that was really interesting in terms of lighting, the intense lighting used in the movie gave a sense of how another world could possibly look. With these things in mind I set about designing a costume for the main character.

The initial thoughts for the sketch was the idea of a ship crash landing on a desolate planet and the occupants survived. Wandering off into the desert, little did they know that they were being tracked.
The Bedouin is seen scanning the sand and holding what was originally intended as a sandstorm shield. I decided later to change this into a piece of wreckage from the ship - this needs improving to read better as wreckage.

I tried to make the planet look alien by creating some strange rock formations also including the twin suns and large distant planet. This all needs working on. The main focus which again needs improving was the head gear, costume design and how the costume flows in the sand storm. The wreckage distracts the viewer at the moment and the whole composition is flat needing more depth and attention to what I want the viewer to see first, second etc... Thats all for now... thanks for viewing.

Space Helmet (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 21:06:00 +0000

Space Helmet Design Detail

Continuing from the previous post, I worked on this design further detailing design elements. I don't think the design itself works particulaly well, but there are elements which I liked. What interests me here is the mixture of the hard surface shell and the glass visor, however the angle of the helmet would be very uncomfortable.

Also the seal of the helmet is not addressed and is obviously very important to maintain pressure. So there is much more work on this design that needs to be done. Hopefully I'll get some time to work on this, but I think my strategy would be to revert to the previous sketches rather than try to rescue this version.

I pasted a Poser character's head into this illustration to show some scale and position of the head inside the helmet design. Its interesting because it immediately forces you to reconsider and re-evaluate the design from a ergonomic perspective... ah well back to the drawing board, literally!

Space Helmet Concept

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 06:39:00 +0000

Space Helmet Development Sketches

A selection of sketches showing the development of a space helmet concept. This one started of with some random brush strokes using various Photoshop brushes, I wasn't to sure of the direction of the design at the beginning. It was a case of figuring out the visor direction as a way orientating the design. Once that was done the rest started to fall into place.

I think with this concept however the above sketches had something dynamic which I lost in the next, more detailed sketch ( I'll post the detail sketch next ). I may take this design back a few stages before I progress any further.

As you can probably see from these 3 the design elements were driven by the shapes from the Photoshop brushes. Once you orientate your eye to the apparent 'mess' created by the brushes then it becomes more of a decision making process of "OK this shape could be the backpack, this shape is a breathing tube." etc... Those decisions can be good or bad in terms of design choices, with my design being the latter :)

Cyborg paint over

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 20:15:00 +0000

Cyborg paint over

One of the things I find interesting as an exercise is to listen to movies for inspiration. Movies can give a very strong visual cues for artwork, we see this all the time with fan art. I've got nothing against fan art of course, but what I like to experiment with are the more subtle cues from the movie dialogue itself.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. I'm not quoting word for word here (there are many that can I'm sure) but in the original Terminator movie the character Reese explains to Sarah Conner about the Terminator. He explains to her that underneath the skin there is a heavily armoured combat chassis and we finally get to see it later in the movie. The key word for me here is chassis, because it has interesting connotations when thinking about design. The Terminator has an endoskeleton chassis. My sketch was based on an exoskeleton and the thought of this cyborg hunting a person down with this aggressive, light-weight chassis was interesting. The lack of emotion is helped by reducing the head to something without facial detail or expression.

There are elements in my design of course which are lifted directly from Stan Winston's superb Predator (the shoulder mounted tracking weapon) and again the lack of facial details which I explained in my earlier post being West World inspired. The left arm shows some skin to remind the viewer of the human parts used when this cyborg was created.

So the technique here is very simple, I used a photograph as reference for the pose and did a paint over job to explain the concept of the chassis. It's only at a development stage, but I have enough information in this sketch to take it forward. The goal is to create a 3D model in LightWave 3D and create a final render. Hope you found it interesting.

Development from Poser to Concept

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 20:32:00 +0000

Development stages from Poser to Concept

This is a breakdown of the previous post. Beginning with the Poser Render, 3 lights were setup, 2 intense white lights either side of the head and a central negative light. The render is taken into Photoshop and ran through filters, with layer blend modes. I looked for interesting shapes and forms and then started to paint in and erase. Towards the end of the process its a bit like sculpting.

The interesting thing about working like this is using black and white to begin with, because it eliminates a lot of information, forcing you to focus on the design early on in the process. The concept of using lights to sculpt form is the key ( especially the negative lights ) to getting the random results with the filters.

Ultimately you have to look for those visual clues in the development stages which take you on the journey to developing the character, costume etc. Hope you find it useful, comments, questions, general chat welcome.

Anohter Head Helmet

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 05:23:00 +0000

Costume / Helmet Design

This design is an old one which started off as a render in Poser. I used a succession of filters in Photoshop then to distort and warp the original to look for shapes. I then cut and pasted some photographic elements, which were painted over and worked into the design.

Helmet Design Test

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Thompson) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 20:38:00 +0000

Helmet design sketches using Photoshop and Poser

This was an experiment using Poser and Photoshop. Its a technique that uses Photoshop brushes to block in shapes from a series of images I generate in Poser. The manual paint over at the end just refines the result of playing with the brush shapes. The one on the right is a little too Predator-ish, but its good fun. The left image is more interesting to me because of the lack facial detail, which always freaks me out. I think its from when I saw West World as a kid, the cowboy robot without a face. Oh the mental scars do surface when drawing...