New Projects...

Ya'll smell that? That's the smell of fresh baked polygons in the morning. Ha!

But seriously, I've got some pretty interesting modeling projects coming up for this summer. Intensive work, might I add. First, I'm looking to finish the Justice League Project. I started this back in November '08, and I'm still working on it. I'm doing the original 7 founding members from the almighty Bruce Timm directed "Justice League" that aired on Cartoon Network for several years and was cancelled for absolutely no reason. I've modeled, remodeled, remodeled, and now I'm working on the final revamp of the models. It's been a pain and a struggle to find the mojo to complete it, but I'm sure it'll get finished. It has to. It's demo reel quality.

Second project: 100 Head Busts. The human head is one of the hardest objects to model. Why? Well when modelers "model" an object, what you're essentially aiming to do is to simulate reality. You're taking an object from the real world and rebuilding it into a 3D application. Keeping this in mind, the human face is made up of various muscle groups that give it structure and form when we make expressions. Because these muscles are an integral part of that, it is the exact same situation in CG modeling. You have to duplicate those same muscle groups in 3D space so that when you go to animate/deform the geometry those same expressions can be fully realized and not limit the animator.

So I'm doing 100. 50 male, 50 female: 5 realistic (child, teen, young, middle-age, old), 5 stylized (child, teen, young, middle-age, old), 5 creature, 5 animal, 5 celebrities, 10 additional stylized of choosing, 10 additional realistic of choosing, 1 self portrait, and 4 miscellaneous.

Ambitious project, but the thing that I love about 3D is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel all the time. What I've done this month is create a "Universal Head Mesh" that has a very clean underlying face topology to it. When you have good topology, then all you need is a Sculpting application (ZBrush, Mudbox) to throw down and pile on the computer-generated clay.

Also demo reel quality (if I do it right!)

...and last but not least....4. This is another small (but big) project that I'm conceptualizing and throwing down designs and ideas for. I have this unusual obsession with the elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Air). There's just so much you can do with the four of them it's endless. Haven't fully developed a story to it, but basically it's 4 kids who are born from the four main elements...

...and that's about all I got for that one. Just imagine Teen Titans with a lot more grit...

...so those are my major projects for the summer. I'm not piling on anymore than that. Alongside all of this I'm re-studying anatomy. So anything I do in 2D these days are just anatomical throw-downs and nailing major muscle groups. 2D and 3D go hand in hand like peanut butter and jelly.

I'll be sure to throw updates up when I get'em. They should be comin!