Dan's Art Things

concepts and dragons and mechs

2012-06-02T01:36:00.000-04:00

This post is gonna be all about 2D. Me and a few friends decided to re-open our old sketch blog. Which is pretty much art jams we do in our spare time. http://letsjustdraw.blogspot.ca/
At the moment all artists are welcome to join. The More the merrier

So the first jam is based on story and to basically sketch out something based on that storyline and the characters. The 2nd Jam is pretty much the same concept but different story and characters. But somehow sub consciously while drawing, i made a connection between the two different story.
So because of that i drew the 3rd picture with the dragon in it.

Lastly the mech is just a random concept. i just wanted to make a mech haha ..
I have been thinking of making a 3D mech, just don't have a clear concept for it right now.

Story : The girl is going through a time portal to save her grandfather.

Story: An agent who was suppose to get intel on some secret weapon from a enemy base was caught and 2 mercenaries chased after him.

This one is the merge between the two story line, where the girl warps through time to save the dude.
Originally this wasn't the idea, but somehow kind of connected haha..

Mech concept, with two power shields.

Firebird with textures

2012-05-29T17:00:00.000-04:00

Finished up my Firebird. The textures are 2048, and i used xoliul shader 2 to see my model in real time. There are a few things i want to test but i guess for now i am calling this done.
Tri count : 4,465

Beast zbrush scuplt

2012-05-24T18:10:00.001-04:00

Another sculpt done in zbrush to learn and experiment with brushes. The dynamesh feature works really well and makes sculpting more fun =)

zbrush headbust

2012-05-20T19:07:00.000-04:00

Just playing around in zbrush and testing out dynamesh , insert brushes etc. I wanted to do some character modeling, so here is the result. I guess sort of inspired by the game "orcs must die" .

Update on Firebird and ...

2012-04-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

Worked on my Firebird a bit. Changed some smoothing area, and damaged it up in zbrush. At least now it tells some kind of story. Also tried out 3ds max retopo tool, which was quite helpful during the retopo-ing phase. Its located near graphite modeling tab.
For quite some time now, when i am driving and stop at the red light. I tend to look at the other cars beside mine for any details, such as rust marks, scratches etc. Even though i haven't started the texturing phase, i am just imagining some colors , details for my firebird. As far as the unwrapping process goes, the main body is done and a bit of the front. So i got a little bit more to do. I am excited to see how this gonna turn out , with xoliul shader.
Another i am excited about is Tomorrow ! Why tomorrow ?
Well, because of a new mmo that i will be playing, which is pretty much competing with Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2. Its called, Tera. A friend of mine told me about it, so i gave it a shot last weekend for the open beta. The art in that game is awesome. I spent equally as much time staring at the in-game props and taking pictures as i have playing the game. Another thing i noticed that the game is running using unreal engine. The main hype that's built around this game is for its game-play. Its an action mmo driven game, which is different from the usual auto targeting game-play. Where you target a monster, and just spam your keys for spells etc. Its complete opposite of that, its very monster hunter-ish gameplay. Everything is all manual, you gotta manually dodge, aim attacks etc. There's tons of other things to look forward in this game as well. Anyways i highly recommend taking a look at this game and trying it out. Meanwhile, i am going to play some epic music in the background and get my game face ready !

low res model

High res model

Firebird

2012-04-17T16:17:00.000-04:00

WIP of my current model, Firebird. My first attempt at modeling a high poly car.
I still got some fixing up to do before i can call this done. But after its finished, my next stage is to get a game model of this ready and hopefully a new portfolio piece.
Lately i have been playing a new game, another rpg. Its called Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning.
Its pretty much fable + skyrim. I think overall it has a nice visual and gameplay. I prefer the gameplay over skyrim. Here's how i see it, in Skyrim, you got a bow and arrow and well all you do is shoot arrow and hit and run or something like that. In Reckoning, as a archer its not just shoot arrow at your enemies. You can instead fire a volley, where its raining arrows and arrows. You can also place mines in front of you. So now if there are any surviving enemies that come after you shot your volley, they got another obstacle to pass through before they can even touch you. I think just those little things make a difference in gameplay. Shooting arrows all day can get very repetitive but if you mix skills like volley shots , mines , etc . Its makes it more fun.
Also played a couple of other games like Ridge racer for pc and some jrpg's on wii.
Apart from all the gaming and modeling, i started going to the gym. I guess there's only so much sitting down on a chair and sitting in-front of a computer my body can take. Plus its pretty much summer weather down here. And time for golf again...

PS3 Sideways New York

2011-12-14T06:15:00.000-05:00

Soo..here it is, Stuff i worked on for the PS3 Sideways New York.
If you want more info on this game, this is the website http://www.playbrains.com/sideway/
Of-course you can you-tube it as well. Its been out for some time now and just recently it was released for PC, Steam.

In this game i worked as a prop artist and level decorator. Basically building the props as i get them and from time to time, i would go in the game engine and populate the level. I did that newspaper and stuff that you see in the first picture lol. I also placed some of the 2d posters and graffiti, but i did not make them.

Along with some in game screens shots, i posted some of the props i made. As you can tell its very low poly, with simple textures. I think the highest polycount was for the bonsai tree i made. Around 700 poly. Sometimes i would reuse the same models and create different textures. Like for example, the taxi and the police car share the same model but have different textures on them.

Other than that, i have been playing a few new games now. One of them bieng nds game, Radiant Historia. I really like the concept in that game. I think i play more portable games than pc games lol.

Anyways, hope you liked this post.
Oh, almost forgot.. i hid some easter eggs ( Golden Statues) in different levels. If you have the game, see how many you can find ^^

The Pineapple Plant

2011-09-15T17:47:00.000-04:00

Hey ! hey !
So a lot of things have happened since my last post. Well first , here is the finished version of my pineapple plant. I used 3Ds Max, Zbrush and photoshop. The original concept for this was from a MoD i used to work on. Anyways, The screen caps are taken directly from Max, i used Xoliul shader and 3 omni light set up.
One of the comments i got for this prop was, " its a pineapple with a bonzai tree on top"

Asides from this i got the chance to work on a PSN game called Sideways. Maybe in the future,i will post up some of the props i made and levels i decorated for that game.
And in other news, i recently took part in a Starcraft 2 tournament, it was fun !
If you want to watch it, it happens every Tuesday after 6pm http://www.twitch.tv/bigpietv

2010-10-25T19:46:00.000-04:00

So been working on a plant like object ...slowly. The picture below is just a low poly with normal map on it.
Still gotta tweak a lot since i have to lower the poly count. Anyways i am just texturing this at the moment. I wanted to get some sort of fake reflection / spec on the edges on those triangular shapes. So instead of painting it all by hand, i found a much better and faster solution. Of-course something like this would be more ideal to set up for your spec map. Which is what i plan on doing it later when i reach that stage. But for the moment, just doing some test runs.

Anyways posted picture below, showing the technique i used to create a fast reflection/ spec.

Starcraft 2 and new enviornment project

2010-08-30T01:01:00.002-04:00

Been playing starcraft quite a lot these days. Well only ..when friends say the magic word ( Friend : "SC 2? " Me : "Sure !" ) . And then play for like hrs.. maybe. But still my rank is like bronze, and winning ratio ranges between 50 - 55%. I saw some trailers and videos of custom games that users have been working on using the sc2 editor. All i can say is wow.. keep it up ! Links / videos of those custom games are below... watch it =)

Some concept sketches and a new personal environment project i am working on. I was trying to get ambient occlusion with mental ray to work in max 2011 but apparently its not supported. It works fine on the older version. So instead i got my AO using light tracer, which does the job too. Sometimes when i cant get things to work, i think to myself if i forgot how to do it. Which was the case here for AO... Anyways hoping to get this finished , so i can start on something new.

My fav one so far , kept watching it so many times.

Something about this one, made me laugh too much.. a sc2 ums racing game , sounds fun .

2010-07-23T14:53:00.002-04:00

hmmmm....icecream. Normally i don't eat ice cream but for some reason eating ice cream in summer feels good. Strawberry is good flavor. Anyways the screen caps taken below are from UDK, testing it out with my previous environment model. I made it in 3ds max, pretty simple shapes. Then i just put it together using props that came with udk like those big rocks, tree etc. Actually at first i put it together in unreal engine 3 editor. Then just recently i imported it in udk. Of-course at first things didn't turn out too well. So i had to play around with it and this is the result i got from it. I find it convenient that u can make new separate uv's for light mapping in udk instead of making it in max then importing in the engine. Still playing around with the lights and trying to understand it. But overall udk is neat.

Ohhh thought i'd share some stuff that friends showed to me. First this video
Inspirational Artists: Pascal Campion from Onyx Cinema, Inc. on Vimeo.

And second this site http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/popular . Its a online music player, with a lot of songs.
On another note, a new game came out on steam called alien swarm and its free to download.It also comes with the level editor to make your custom maps. Everyone is talking about it, there's even a article on polycount about it. I have yet to try it though.... I have been playing a little bit of l4d2 , league of legends and Monster Hunter Tri !!

A video of alien swarm.

UDK

Unreal 3 editor


UDK

Unreal 3 editor

UDK


UDK


3ds max

2010-06-06T17:13:00.005-04:00

(´･ω･`) my muscles are kinda of sore right now from playing tennis and soccer. But at least i can still surf the net and work on my computer haha... Anyways i wanted to share my updated model of my pilot. Did a lot of tweaking's on the textures and especially the face part.
The old pilot model > http://ingeniusartskill.blogspot.com/2009/12/mr-pilot.html

The screen shots below are taken directly from max viewport. I used a shader called xoliul shader. here is the link> http://www.laurenscorijn.com/viewportshader
I am still playing around with the shader, but these are the results i got so far from using it.

Btw.. i wonder what it would be like if life drawing became a Olympic sport ............ (＾▽＾)

2010-05-26T18:49:00.007-04:00

So... got like a bunch of new stuff to update on here. Thought i'd start with this. If anyone knows of monster hunter you might know of this contest that took place 2 months ago maybe ? Anyways Monster hunter Tri for wii came out, not to long ago. And i decided to enter this art contest of sort. I made this model long time ago using 3ds max and textured on photoshop. So it was pretty convenient for me, and just made a small animation etc and entered it in the comp.

Oh btw watched a new movie ... other than iron man 2. The movie is called Ip Man2. The first time i read that movie title .. i read it as " Internet provider Man 2" >.<

http://news.deviantart.com/article/118049/
(Art contest for fantasy earth zero )

Mod Project concept paintings

2010-02-21T13:23:00.005-05:00

Some early concepts for a group mod project. Its gonna be a bar scene with sci-fi elements. My concepts were mainly for color and mood purpose. And how sun light would affect a dark environment. I will be doing one of the character designs and modeling it for the mod project, along with some assets.
This is random but while i am trying to type this..i can't see that blinky line that usually appears when you type. Don't even know what its called... Anyways Still checking now and then to see when Fantasy Earth Zero will come out in beta. Speaking of beta, starcraft 2 beta looks pretty neat. I love some of the new units they got like THor. Did you know .. when u click on Thor, he or it ..makes sound impressions like arnold. So Arnold ( the terminator) drives Thor. The thought on Arnold driving a Thor makes me laugh. Some people on JustinTv are streaming sc2. So if you want to watch Thor in action.. you can see it there. Oh yeah, Thor is btw the new goliath. Its pretty badass and big. Although Blizzard made some nifty improvements, i kind of did prefer the old voice clips. My favorite quote's are the one Dragoons say from sc1 " For vengeance " "I have returned". If i ever model a badass robot ..it will have those two quotes as its voice clips. But yeah..can't wait for the final sc2 to be released. For now i'll just play sc1 and mass effect 2.

And here check these two sites out. one is about concept ships and the other is basically the fundamentals in drawing. Its always nice to get a refresher on the fundamentals or basics.

1) http://conceptships.blogspot.com/

2) http://www.autodestruct.com/thumbwar.htm

Concept paintings for group Mod project.

2010-01-20T11:43:00.011-05:00

So now i am in final semester...Its going by soo fast >.<
Anyways this semester i have a new course now called mo cap. It looks like fun, just started last week so i can't tell u anything more than that. From what i know u get to wear these black outfits with sensors attached to it. So your motions will be captures on to the computer and then later you use a software to clean up an bring it in one of the 3d packages and put it on your character. I have only done cleaning up so far on existing captured motion. I guess it saves time...
Also started this 3d mod project which me and classmates will be working together on, Right now we are still deciding on the setting, looking at examples from other games. Once we are done all that, we'll move to concept stage etc etc..
At the moment i am working on my creature project, got some concepts for it and then soon gonna model it. Except this time, i will be using maya. Learning maya, getting the hang of the basics.

This work below is very low poly. The task was too make the most of our texture and light it properly. This is from my last semester. I was trying something with the wall...mixing two different wall textures. I try to just experiment to see what i can get away with at times lol..
Oh and its suppose to be a outdoor scene, a guild like place where elite hunters gather. At the left side of the wall, i stuck a pic of from monster hunter haha .... i Like that game ^^

The character designs below are from my 2nd year, i was designing some of the characters for a group story board assignment. There was just soo many ideas poping into my head at the time, of course i had tons of refs and inspiration from various sources. The story board assignment went pretty good in the end, i can still remember ..when me and my friends got soo into it, even added music from metal gear for our final lieca reel. It was tons of fun !

Oh btw ...there is this new mmo ...well its 4yrs old but its coming out in english for beta testing. Its by square enix and its gonna be free if its like the jp version. Its a 50 vs 50 pvp like game on a battle field with mage's, warriors , dragons etc .. here's the link
http://fez.gamepotusa.com/

Can't wait ^^

Environment Model etc

2009-12-30T15:32:00.002-05:00

So just wanted to share with everyone the environment model i had done. Later i imported it into unreal engine and used unreal assets to make the trees , rocks , fog effect, lighting and water. The actual tent model was done using 3ds max. I also made the ground in 3ds max and just imported in unreal. Below is a video of it. Hope you like ^^

Ahh i recorded it and streamed it live earlier using procaster. Its very easy to use. Right now i am just using it to stream and record the games i am playing. If you scroll down and look to the right, you might notice a large square box that says "Turn on" or something like that. If you turn it on, you'll find the current game i am playing or recorded video of it. If it says "Live"
then its probably me playing at that moment haha.... Well now i am playing The last remnant and Borderlands. I just beat the last boss on borderlands few days ago with a friend online. Btw i highly recommend using game ranger to play any pc games online that is supported by game ranger. If you are trying to play borderlands online for the pc , then use it lol. Its simple to use.

This is where i stream > http://www.livestream.com/ninkuex
Also watch and listen to this opening if you like old school anime, Escalfowne ^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3SeOBRNXm4

Btw avatar is a nice movie, everything is nice about it even though it has few cheezy moments. The story is cool too but i guess for the most part it feels like its already been done but never the less must watch movie.

I just remembered, just yesterday.. there was a live performance by all the kpop artists for the end of the year event ? i guess. Anyways it was up on the web being streamed and wow so many ppl were watching it. It seems kpop is more popular than jpop ?

Mr Pilot

2009-12-18T19:33:00.023-05:00

So here's my character model. Part of it came out pretty nicely. But some things need to be re-worked, like the fur... which is kinda shiny etc etc. But here it is... The poly count on this model is like 3k or so.

Anyways Now i am playing borderlands... I was playing batman ..till weird stuff started happening in the game..glitches etc.

Diffuse Map

*notice how the eyeball looks like a pokeball .... ^^

The concepts for my character

other concepts

2009-11-08T21:59:00.010-05:00

Sharkie Model with cheezy bg. ^^ And animation below..

Added displacement map for this one

Diffuse map
I have a animation due next week and this is the shark model i used, with the displacement.
Going to add more sounds, if i find something good. And yeah tweak up the animation a bit ...
The thing that pops up out from the chest is a fish cracker.

2009-09-28T01:04:00.005-04:00

Thought this music was nice ^^ . It's amusing to hear ppl say how happy happy i am maybe its bc of the type of music i listen to .. i don't know. anyways watch this music video >

2009-09-28T00:35:00.011-04:00

It's been 3 weeks so far in gaming and learned a lot so far ^^. It's also nice to work and talk with new ppl from other ani groups. The castle is for upcoming ani project.

Dino for organic modeling, although my dino isn't so organic.. i spent a lot of time on the harness lol just extruding and stuff..

Lol simple stuff but fun and learned a little big unwrapping. For texturing class our next assignment is to model a simple cannon and unwrap and texture it if we want to for practice.

Mr robot here was for first assignment called snowman modeling, its not suppose to a snowman but we just take simple primitives shapes and model with it. Couple of us while modeling in class got so into it that we started adding lighting lol. It's always fun to work with others in the studio.

concept Metroid

2009-07-25T10:34:00.002-04:00

Just playing around in ps as usual lol.. wanted to create a mech Concept with samus metroid's color pattern. Part of the inspiration comes from armored core series as well. I was listening to armored core music while working on this ... the music is pretty epic.
Took me a lil over an hr.

ToLoveRu

2009-07-24T01:23:00.005-04:00

Character is from a manga called ToLoveRu. It's funny ^^
Trying out different coloring style.

2009-07-19T17:10:00.004-04:00

I bought a pair of new shoes few days ago ...it looks like my old shoes but this time its converse ^^ and its comfortable lol. My shoes aren't purple at the bottom....
sketch and colored in ps.

2009-07-15T15:00:00.007-04:00

Old stuff i guess but might be new to some ^^. The first one is my concept design and i did what i could to give it a 3d feel. 2nd one is a fan art of a light novel, there is still much to learn about colors...and the bottom 2 pictures are speed paintings.

From Crows Zero, a jp movie.

2008-06-12T19:56:00.013-04:00

Found this old drawing of mine ^-^ Did this When final fantasy advent children first got released, i was soo excited for the movie that time. I watched it like 7 or 8 times. I'd watch it again....

Random concepts, the first two are copied from the skillful huntsman book. I used the silhouette images from the book and desinged the rest of the characters. As for my vehicle concepts, drew w.e popped into my head. Just noticed this .. the underwater machine looks like its shooting a kamehameha !! ( had to check on google to spell it properly =D )

>.< align="center">

My reference for Andy

This painting below ... while i was painting it .. i noticed i was painting on another layer and then when i turned that layer off, this was the result lol. It looks pretty cool to me =) The face makes me laugh , its soo wierd.

Been life drawing through a online life drawing website lol, its pretty good =) 45 seconds for each pose.