Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is well and spending time with loved ones, on adventures, or at least someplace cozy and nice at this lovely time of year when so many folks are celebrating so many different things, in so many beautiful ways.

Gorrumblebee!

Heh....fuzzy.

Buzzy buzz buzz. It's a....gorilla....bee...dude. An excuse to play with more fiber-mesh stuffs.
I started out with him on a purpley flower but then I thought, a dandelion would be ideal for packing as much fiber mesh into one session of zbrush as possible, and it still renders in only a few minutes!
(plus, I can probably re-purpose the pupley flower on the lapel of my proper-chap dragon!)

If your nanners have bruises on 'em in the morning, gorillabee was probably fighting crime in your kitchen. :P

Proper Chap

Have you seen the well to do, up and down Park Avenue? 

This is Sir William Wingsworth, and he travels exclusively by dragon-heated dirigible, as any civilized dragon should. None of that flapping about for him. (although he does secretly wish for a larger wingspan:P)

I'm experimenting with light caps in Zbrush, he's got skin shader 4 on him, and jellybean on the eyes/gemstone...but eventually I'd like to get this guy into maya and see what he looks like with some Metal Ray rendering stuffs, and brighten up those eyes!

Now that I look at it, he really *does* need a monocle.....and a flower for his lapel...ah, an excuse to revisit this later!!

oh, almost forgot....color turntable! His whiskers and eyebrows sparkle a bit though, LOL!

You're a monster Zorg...............

"I know....."

A bit of Zbrush fun this weekend: Jean Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg from the 5th Element, one of my all time favorite villains, from one of my all time favorite movies! Weapons dealer, snazzy dresser, and utterer of the second most famous "I know" in sci-fi cinema history. I'd like to think maybe he's an alternate universe Han. Weapons dealer, smuggler, and CEO...what Solo could have ended up like if he'd never met Luke, Leia, and Obi-Wan? I always feel a little bad for him when the black brain goo starts dripping from under his mowhawk dome. Poor guy got an offer he couldn't refuse and got himself in big trouble. Gary Oldman's self depreciating delivery of the "I know" line cracks me up every dang time. That slight eyebrow twitch, the glance down to think before answering? Hilarious.

I used dynamesh + the nifty extract feature to practice making clothing. He's rendered with the skin4 shader, and the "jelly bean" shader on his plastic hair thingy. I was gonna give his clothes and hair a whirl with some of the other shaders but since it was a caricature I thought it worked better with everything cartoony looking.  (I made the neon glowy thing in photoshop! AZZIZ LIGHT!!!!)

Guardian Dragon

 Here is a Zbrush dragon I've been working on!  Sometimes when I work on characters I like to think up little stories about them, and what adventures they might be up to. When I was making this guy, he seemed like an important, regal, but not entirely unfriendly guy. Fierce looking, but intelligent...as a guardian of something important should be. I hope you enjoy cornball fantasy writing! You're gonna want to avert your eyes, and scroll to the end if you don't! (I've also included a turntable render of my model after the story:)

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Lan held the talisman aloft in the dark like a lantern, adjusting her direction when the glow dimmed. The soft green light cast snakelike shadows through the tree limbs,surrounding them both in movement as she walked. She kept her eyes ahead, attempting to ignore the brief glints appearing just off the path. Were they the eyes of night creatures....perhaps claws, or teeth? She concentrated on the intermittent soft clicks of Arfund's own large curved claws on the stone path behind her for reassurance.

The talisman had led them to a dead end.
A sheer cliff stretched up into the fog, obscuring its height. Lan turned to Alfund, who already had his wings unfurled. The world has changed much, perhaps this mountain was not here when the talisman was created, and the path is now above? Alfund disappeared into the fog above, leaving the girl alone. As Alfund broke through the fog into the grey morning sky, both heard it... The low boom, then another, and another, increasing in frequency until it became a constant rumbling hum.  Alfund immediately dove back into the fog,  he hit the ground behind Lan and threw a leathery wing over her. The source of the hum appeared to be coming from the solid stone wall before them, but the lichen, vines and dirt had fallen from the entire cliff face in a mist of grey dust, and the solid wall of rock now rippled, as if it were a lake into which a stone had been cast.
Lan crawled forward beneath Alfund's wing to peer out, mesmerized by the hum, and the sight of  fluid stone.  Alfund curled his talons briefly, then lifted his wing so that Lan could stand. As she walked towards the wall, she turned back..."I know you cannot enter, but I wish more than anything that you could."
"Dragons cannot enter the lair of another dragon uninvited, it is the last privacy afforded us since the blessing of insight connected us all, but I sense no malice from this one..you are safe here...at least until he knows your purpose." Alfund cast his eyes down, his jaws opened briefly then snapped shut.
"I will try my hardest to convince him to extend an invite, Alfund"
Alfund chirped and raised his eyes, Lan laughed. It was nice to have him along, even if he could not come into the mountain with her.

Lan took a deep breath and held it as she passed through the stone, as if she were entering a pool of water. She stood on the inside of the mountain shivering, finding it was quite a cold business to have passed though a mountain.

"That is a strange greeting, is there something offensive to your senses in here?"

Lan was so startled she froze. Here she stood, an ambassador for all mankind, before the guardian of all magic... scared stiff, shivering, and still holding her nose as she often did when jumping in the river to bathe.

"Step forward, and tell me why you are here."

Lan stepped forward, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the chamber, she began to pick out the silhouette of the guardian.  He had a peculiar arrangement of horns she's never seen before that gave the singular appearance of a crown upon his spade-shaped head.His scales glinted red, and his eyes glowed ochre and red like fire, far fiercer than the violet, blue and green she was accustomed to in dragons.

Lan had never been more afraid in her life.....................

 

Welp, hope you were entertained!

*Disclaimer: I haven't posted any dragons here in a very, very loong time, but I think it's been long enough that it's been established the stuff here is my *own personal art* separate from work...so get ready for a deluge of dragons!

Oh, and as an extra bit here are some more color scheme experiments!

Rain!

Hooray! It finally rained! There's a terrible drought going on right now in California, and I was so excited to see some rain, I made this!  I call her Mrs Prickles, hehe. Just practicing and learning TVPaint.

The Chocomancer

I know you've all got Valentine's Day cards, but have you ever gotten an *after* Valentine's Day card? I put some work into this on Valentine's day, but didn't quite finish it in time, so....um here is a card celebrating...the 15th!
Valentine's Day is for lovers, but the chocomancer waits patiently, for it knows once the sun sets on February14th, it rises on a dark chocolate kingdom....the "seasonal items" aisle at the grocery store. YESSSS, SO MANY CHEAP CHOCOLATES! Stare into the gaping abyss of noughat and see your dooooom! Or noughat, if you actually like noughat. (I do!)
If you happen to like those paste creme filled chocolates though, you are way more evil than the chocomancer, even he leaves them at rest in their paper-lined tombs. What flavor are those things supposed to be???

Owl be toasty

It's a silly little owl, um....wearing a hat? I've been talking with friends about studying masterworks to improve technique, and learn through imitation. The marvelous thing about the internet and digital reproductions is the ability to zoom in as far as I please, getting a close up look without being dragged out of a museum for getting nose-prints on an important piece of art. Lately I've been pouring over pre-raphaelite paintings. They always have that "glowey" feeling. I still have a lot to learn about palette choices, composition, and things I probably don't even know I'm lacking, but it is fun to try! Why did I choose to paint an owl in a hat? Iunno....I like owls, and I like hats? Plus everywhere in the country is so frozen over right now I'd feel guilty painting this owl outside without a hat. Stay toasty!