Nassa the Gnome - Double Bounce Walk

This animation was just a rig test using my Nassa character.  I wanted to try out a double-bounce walk, just because I hadn't done one in the past.  It was quite fun doing the arms from this camera.

Working on a Video Game

Usually I'd accompany all of my posts with pictures, but this can be an exception.  Today, not only was Grapple chosen as one of the five games to continue production, I was selected as the lead artist of another game, called Intrepid.  Needless to say, it's pretty exciting, and I'll be looking forward to the next months.  We have 2 months (starting January) to prove to the faculty that the game is worth making, and if we get greenlit, we get the next 6 months to develop it.  Pretty cool stuff.

Grapple Concepts

Matte paintings I made for a game called Grapple, to be presented to the FIEA faculty and students as a potential 8-month production.  I used a combination of photographs and digital painting.

Midna Redesign - Final Concept

This is the final painting of the True-Form Midna concept.  I enjoyed this painting style, and I might try to employ it again in the future.

Midna Redesign - Clothing Permutations

Initially, I came up with 8 body designs for my Midna redesign.  I ended up (as well as the other students) picking the chubby Midna design.  I thought it was the most interesting, considering her proportions as the imp.

This piece was 8 more permutations, this time, addressing clothing.  I didn't want to lose the concept that she as no human gentials, with the clothes being sort of a formality (after all, she is of another race.)  I also didn't want to lose her magic abilites and her hair, both of which sort of get ignored when she turns into True-Form at the end of the game.

Metroid 3D Environment

Metroid-style 3D environment in Maya's Viewport 2.0.

Link to the Past Church Concept

This painting came from a level in Zelda: A Link to the Past.  Early on in the game, the player comes out from a hidden passagway in the back of the church.  This is a 3D realized version of the 16-bit game with dramatic lighting.

Metroid Ship Redesign - Final Concept

This was the final concept, fully rendered out with details.  I chose the colors based on a split complimentary scheme, and wanted to keep the colors saturated.

Nassa the Gnome Character Model

I just completed my Nassa the Gnome model.  One of the upcoming assignments is to take a character model and rig, animate, and mocap with it.  We were given the option to make our own character model, which I jumped on (after complaining to my friends that I don't have any time.)  Not having any other character designs available, I went with Nassa the Gnome from our D&D campaign, since I had several drawings of her already, as well as an image fleshed out in my mind.

This is technically my first complete character model that I built from start to finish without anyone else handling it in-between.  I tried to focus on making it low-poly, both as a challenge and to save painting-weights work.  I ended up at 1243 tris, 243 over my 1k tri limit.  I could easily cut it down by removing from the head and hands, but it was only a soft goal.  The head ended up getting about 1/3 of the tri's, since the head and hair were important for identifying the character.  I also modeled the whole thing without orthos to see how it would feel.

The outfit on the model is slightly different from the sketches I had drawn before, as she got a new set of armor towards the last few sessions, and it gives me an excuse to not have to deal with cloth.  I may come back and add textures, but the point of the piece was the model and animation, and less on finishing the model.

Metroid-Style Ship Model

Like the missle, we were given a concept before-hand, though the concept we were given was a silhouette, and we had to fill in the details ourselves.  After several redesigns, I finally ended up with the following ship.  I also have a much greater appreciation for using specular maps to make things look cool.