A Weekly Type Update – March 4, 2015

Posted on March 4, 2015 by SusanG

I’m thinking I may need to start posting weekly updates. It seems there are some weeks that much of my time is spent learning some new tool or technique and so I don’t have a lot of project progress to post about. That has certainly been the case this week. There has been some really fun stuff happen around here and I’m just chasing one squirrel after another. Fortunately, they all seem to be going in roughly the same direction.

A couple of the projects I have in mind to work on will make use of one of the many game engines that are available to, what else, make games. There are a handful that are really well known by some of the game enthusiast, players, that is. And then there are others that I suspect mostly developers know about. I’ve been researching these for a while and sort of waiting before I jump in since most of them have had some sort of license fee or subscription fee and some sort of royalty as well. The subscription costs of 3 of the bigger engines has come down over this last year and on Monday of this week a couple of them came down significantly, including the engine that I have finally decided to try to learn.

I had finally decided I was going to go ahead and sign up for the roughly $20 a month subscription for the Unreal Engine. The royalty of 5% wasn’t going to be a big deal for a while. So I was all set and ready to take the plunge this week. Then Monday afternoon I read the lovely news that the subscription fee has been dropped and the only cost is the 5% royalty. Awesome!

The end of last week had me putting in my order for a Wacom Cintiq 22HD Touch. And then spending the weekend all a quiver in anticipation of such an awesome new tool. Anticipation that was heightened Friday afternoon when I received an email from UPS notifying me that a signature would be required for delivery of said awesome tool. Oh, and that it should arrive on Tuesday. I have a really cool manager at my “day job” and I was allowed to work from home that day so that I could be available to provide the required
signature. The timing of the UPS driver could not have been much better. He dropped off my Cintiq 15 minutes before I was to finish work.

Awesome cool Cintiq arrived and once it was assembled I had to test it out. Ok. First I spent nearly two hours deciding which of my monitors I was going to give up in favor of the Cintiq and then I had to decide which side of the desk it was going to sit on. The short answer to that is that even though I am right handed I put it on the left and kept the monitor on the right. I did have to dig out the desk though as it had stacked up with a variety of project notes.

The first program I decided to test it with was Photoshop. I use this mostly for painting in it. So I pulled it up and shifted the program to the Cintiq and got to sketching. I used the brush tool and chose a pencil style brush with a black swatch. I started out pretty soft. But I got what I was hoping for. Better control of the brush and where it is hitting the page so that when I pick it up and move it, I know I’m putting it back down where I intend. It’s much faster since I don’t have to think as hard about it. I also used the blend brush with a Doodle_030320154% mix and not very saturated. This got me a nice blender with little extra. I did have to clean it a couple of times. I found that using a white swatch with this was really nice as it kept the blend from getting too dark. So here’s my first sketch using my new Cintiq.

I was so good. I did not stay up to 2:00am playing with the Cintiq. I did go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour and I even went to my “day job” today. But tonight I decided it was time to test out the Cintiq with Zbrush. That was fun. It works like a champ. It took me a little to identify what the side controls would Doodle_z03042015do in Zbrush. Only because I was too lazy to pull up the configuration to find out. I like the side controls a lot. My hand is already there and for the sculpting process it lessens the need to have one hand on the keyboard. As an aside, I love the control bar on the back in Photoshop as well where it acts as the zoom tool. Way awesome. So I messed around in Zbrush for a couple of hours tonight. Here is what I came up with. It’s made from a default sphere using mostly the move brush, the standard brush, the clay build up, and the smooth. It has be subdivided a couple of times but I haven’t re-topologized it so there is some stretching still. I kind of like it. I may go back to it later and develop it more.

And one other thing for this week. You might remember my Pumpkin project from back around Thanksgiving and early December when I got in that package of inks. Well I finally got that project finished. Here IMG_0376smis a shot of it almost complete. The Pumpkin is done in acrylic inks in the stippling style and the background is done with Prismacolor pencils.

So that’s the week so far. I have more done on the Mannequin and now that I’ve got an idea of how to model the next part I hope to have an update or two on that soon.

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Moving along a Mannequin

Posted on February 25, 2015 by SusanG

I got as far as placing the thigh section last time. I’ll just keep moving down the leg of this mannequin.

The knee is just a sphere I had created as part of the initial rough in. I moved it into place and scaled it so that it fit the bottom of the thigh section. Then I created the lower leg. Actually, I recreated it. I originally created it like all the other cylinder shapes, I forgot to include sections on the caps. So the end is on big polygon sort of thing with no modeling possible. As before, to fix this, instead of fiddling with what is there I just created a new cylinder and made sure to add sections for the caps. Now I had something I could work with.

Shaping the lower leg was much the same as the thigh. I scaled the whole thing to the size the top needed to be. Then, using the soft select and point selection I selected the center point of the cap and set the soft select radius so it would impact only the points to the outer edge and transformed or moved them in the z axis to create a concave surface to hold the sphere for the knee.

I used soft select again and selected all the edges of the bottom cap as well as the bottomMannequin_02072015c edge. This time I adjusted the selection radius so that it worked it’s way up the cylinder. I wanted it to taper at the bottom. With the selection made I scaled the bottom to what looked like the right size. Then I selected the center point of the bottom cap and again used the soft select setting the radius so it would only impact the points to the outer edge. I transformed them in the z axis to create the concave surface for the ankle sphere. I scaled the ankle sphere so it would fit within the lower leg area created for it.

Time to work on the foot. This is a little trickier. I was originally going to start with a box shape but when I got to thinking about it I decided a cylinder was a better choice. I had to make sure to create it laying on it’s side and also to add the cap segments so I could do some adjustments. The relatively easy part was flattening the bottom. The idea being that the mannequin should be able to stand on the feet. I selected the edges along the bottom of the cylinder and then used the soft selection tool so that it would ease out the transform since it’s a cylinder not all edges need to be moved as much.

Mannequin_02072015dI also wanted the foot to be a little pointed. To get that I selected the center point on the toe end of the foot and used the soft selection so that the taper only went part way down the foot. Then I scaled pulled the point out a little and I also did some scaling to get a nice taper. I had to transform all of it some in the z direction to get it all to sit flat again. I didn’t do much with the back of the foot. I did create a small indent in the top at the back to hold the ankle sphere. I made sure it was all positioned properly so it looked right.Mannequin_02072015g

I’ve got the first leg created and I didn’t make any adjustments to the foot to indicate it should be one side or the other, so, I decided that I would go ahead and select all the components and create a copy of them and position them on the other side. I did this out of convienence and practicality. I will be working on the arm next and it will help to have the other leg in place for spacing reference. I will also use it for setting the proportions of the arm segments against the body. So now it’s starting to look like a proper model.

Mannequin_02072015hHere’s another angle so that you have a better view of the shape of the mannequin.

 

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Messin’ Around and Learnin’ Stuff

Posted on February 22, 2015 by SusanG

A good bit of learning any new program for creating stuff involves a lot of time messing around in it. Sometimes we get the software and have something specific we have to do with it right then and that’s all we really get to. Then one day we want to do something and find out that that program we got to do this one thing can also do these hundreds of other things.

Learning software for creating art is a lot like the first time you picked up a pencil to draw that flower or picked up a brush to paint that vase. You didin’t really know what you were doing at the time. You might have had a class or two that told you how to prepare your canvas and how to mix the paint and hold the brush. But until you put pen to paper and brush to canvas, it is all just theory. A wet paint brush might not do what you expect. If you were being taught by someone who paints in oils and you use watercolor, it’s a whole different ballgame. You have to practice and learn how things feel and flow and then you start to get a handle on your tools. If you switch tools, you have to go through the same process. When switching to a digital tool the process is still the same. You have to learn what the tool can do and how things feel and flow.

I don’t tend to do a lot of this. I tends to decide to do something and charge headlong into doing it and figuring out how to make it work. I can admit to having done this in at least two programs. Unfortunately, I think I am missing out on a lot of cool stuff and I’m probably doing some stuff the hard way.

So today I spent a while just fooling around in a couple of programs I’ve been using lately. I have some projects coming up in 3DS Max that I’m going to want to punch some holes in some things. As far as I can tell, most 3D art programs will let you do this in one manner or another. I have been doing it the hard way. I have been cutting out the faces and reshaping things manually. It’s time consuming and not always very accurate. But I knew I could do it that way and I was more intent on some other aspect of the project at the time. For this process of punching holes in things I decided to look it up. Really, the Autodesk
website does have great resources for this. That’s where I found the answer, and another that I may need.

The trick for creating the holes in something is to create a boolean object. It’s the concept that I was expecting and fairly easy to get to and do. You need to remember that the object you have selected when you click on the create boolean option is your A object. It’s important when you are creating a union or subtraction especially. It took me a while to figure out that I had to click on the Pick B option button. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t click on something. But after a closer look at the panel I found it and clicked and then selected my B object and there it was.

Along those lines is another tool called connect. You create these on the same tab as the create primitive but from the drop down you select compound object instead. I had quite a time trying to make this one work. What was shown in the help document was creating a cup and adding a handle. I could see the faces removed on the cup but I didn’t see them remove on the handle. I kept trying to get it work and it wouldn’t. It really helps to read the instructions, especially if you’re going to go through the trouble of looking them up. I had to make it a mesh. I had made it an editable poly and that wasn’t working out. I had to make it an editable mesh instead.

I thought for sure it would work at that point. It didn’t. It really helps to read ALL the instructions, especially if you’re going to go through the trouble of looking them up. The connect object works when you have two meshes and they each have a hole and you are trying to connect them at the holes. Yes, I needed to delete the face at the end of the handle I was trying to connect. With a hole in each piece and both set to editable mesh, I was able to select one and then the other and connect the two into one object and 3DS Max
created all the in between geometry for me.

These two tools alone allow me to more easily create more complex geometry for my projects, and to do it more quickly. And while I looked it up, I probably learned it better from messing around and making some mistakes as I did it.

I did a bit more messing around today. I am looking to upgrade my Wacom Intuos 4 to one of the lovely Cintiqs. While I was perusing the Wacom store I saw the different nibs on offer. Yes, my tablet came with a variety. And I’ve even tried to figure out the why of them. But I just use the standard nib that came already installed in then pen. So while I was poking around I tried to figure out the reason for them. Wacom makes a nice note on each page what they are for. So I got mine out and identified the one it says give more of a pencil on paper feel, since that’s what I’m most used to, and I swapped it out with the poor default nib that has been worn and battered. Cool. Lets go play.

In this case I decided the best place to play with this new nib was in Photoshop. So open we go and change the color mode to 16-bit depth because 8 jsut won’t do. I like 32-bit but learned earlier this week that it creates it’s own issues. I pull out first the pencil tool to play with since I hardly use it. It’s ok but not really what I like so to the brush tool. When I’m goofing off it’s always fun to play with all the different brushes. And since I’m using Photoshop a bit more now it’s a good refresher for me. And fun.

I found that I like the new nib. We’ll see how it holds up. I have 3 of them and I can order more so I should be fine. I also find a brush I like the feel of in Photoshop. It has the look of pencil and some of the control. Though it will take a bit more practice before I feel as comfortable with it on my tablet as I do with a pencil on paper. I goofed around an sketched a part of a ballpoint pen. Hey, it’s relevant to another idea I have. While I was doing that I found the blend brush. I’ve run across it one other time and every time I need it I forget what it’s called and where it is and I end up making do with the smudge tool
Which is just not the same. So I spent some time playing with the blend brush and the settings and trying to make my pen look nice-ish. It is just a doodle sketch.

Doodle_02222015

So it was a fun time. I got to play, and learn, and now I have new tools in my toolbox.

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More of the Mannequin

Posted on February 11, 2015 by SusanG

I’ve got from the head down to the waist started. Time to get a little more done.

For the pelvis, I again swapped out the cylinder for a sphere. Though I’m not sure that was the most efficient way to work with this section. A new cylinder probably would have sufficed. I had to do a little more work Mannequin_02062015b
though. I flattened the top a little and even made it a little concave to fit the sphere for the waist. Next I flattened the bottom to make it easier to flare it out. With the sphere I was doing a little of working against myself. But I used the soft select tool. That allowed me to not over do the scale transform too much on the upper edges and still get the stronger scale transform on the lower ones. I still had to do a bit of adjusting to smooth it out better. Once the bottom was the right shape I used the soft select tool and used the point selection and concave the bottom of the pelvis piece as well. This provides a nice spot for the hip spheres to sit in.

I adjusted the size of the one hip sphere and put it in place and then I Mannequin_02062015dcopied it over for the other side. I had planned on just making the one leg and then copying all the pieces over so this is a little ahead of what I intended. But I wanted it for spacing. I wanted to make sure I had the pelvis wide enough and that I didn’t get the next parts too wide to realistically fit.

The next component down the line is the thigh. I considered swapping the cylinder with a sphere for this one as well but I decided that was really unnecessary. I just swapped the existing cylinder with another one that hadMannequin_02062015e cap segments so that I could better manipulate them. Then I selected the entire cylinder and scaled it in the x and y axis to so that the diameter matched with the hip sphere. Then I selected the bottom edge loop and using soft select I set the impact so that the taper would be most severe at the origin and then fall off nicely towards the top. Then I scaled it in the x and y again this time making a nice taper to where the knee would be.

Mannequin_02062015fHere we are so far.

It’s not that much farther along, is it. Hmm… I’ll see if I can get the base of this mannequin done soon so I can start trying to figure out how to rig it. That should be interesting.

 

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Not as Far as I Want to Be

Posted on February 6, 2015 by SusanG

I got just a little farther on the mannequin for this project. I am not moving quite as quickly as I thought I would. There are so many reasons for that right now that I think I’ll just skip the step where I ponder the why of it and move on to telling you what I did get done. And what I think I need to do for some parts.

I had the head shaped for the mannequin. Well basically shaped. I know it looks a little like a cotton swap. What can I say. It needs a little more refining. Not much though. Remember this is an art mannequin used mostly for reference for positionining and for proportions. I may need to increase the size of the head though. It’s looking a little small compared to the chest. And it may turn out that I need it larger for the rest of the proportions.

The rule of thumb I was taught so many years ago when I started drawing was that a person was about eight (8) heads tall. So if you stack eight of your heads one on top of the other then it would make how tall you are. I know a little gruesome. Sorry. Also, I was taught that from chin to brow of the face is roughly the length of your hand from the base of the palm to the end of the middle finger. As far as I understand it these are the basic proportion rules of the body that artists have been using for years. So they are what I will try to work with.

Now back to what I got done. Though I had the head roughly shaped I hadn’t made a good spot for the neck to fit into so I selected the point at the bottom and the set of points along the next edge loop and transformed them so the were up into the head area. I used the soft selection tool so that I could get more of a cupped look to it. By using the center point and the soft selection tool with a shorter falloff I was able to control how much got moved a bit better.

Once I had a spot for the neck section to fit in, I moved it over some to put it in place and then scaled it up. It turned out to be a little small. That was all the easy stuff.

I think it’s going to be easiest just to work top to bottom so next up is the chest. If you Mannequin_01302015aremember from one of the earlier shots, I used a cylinder to block in the chest.

It works for blocking it in but turns out not to work as well as I would like for actual shaping. For one, I forgot to add cap segements to the cylinders as I created them so without additional steps it’s pretty difficult to shap the caps and I need to do that. I need to be able to make the shoulder part of the chest a bit rounded on top and I will want to make an indent for the waist area as well.

So I created a sphere about the same volume as the chest cylinder and I will used that. First I Scaled it so that it looks a bit more deflated front to back. If you look at it from the top view it’s more oval looking. Then I selected the bottom half and scaled it in a little, and took out some of the deflate look. I want a bit of a rounder and skinnier lower torso area. I flattened out the top a little. I don’t what the mannequin to be totally round shouldered Mannequin_02022015aand I want a little indentation for the neck.

 

In this more zoomed out view it looks like the head is a bit small compared to the chest.

 

But it may be the right size over all because when I look at it zoomed in some they start to look about right. I’ll need to pull out the ruler at some point.

Mannequin_02022015b

Here you can see where I’ve got a pretty good start on the basic shape of the chest.Mannequin_02022015c

 

After I got this far and started thinking about the next step I realized that I will probably end up swapping out all my cylinder pieces with spheres. I think I’m going to get better shaping control that way.

I need to get the waist moved up into the torso and add the proper indent for it and then I’ll swap the pelvis cylinder for a sphere and see how that goes.

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