Chermilla's spare time creations...

[Chermilla]

Hi everyone,

I thought it was about time that I started a brand new sketchbook, I fancy a fresh start. My new sketchbook will show 3D along with sketches and 2D paints. I'm extremely busy at work at the moment so I try and devote my lunch breaks and a few hours here and there after work to creating personal pieces. Because I am being creative all day at work I try to use my evenings to wind down a bit although I am still partial to sitting in front of the TV sketching from time to time!

Please feel free to give crits on my work, I'm always trying to improve and I believe as an artist you can never stop learning your craft. At the moment I am studying human anatomy an awful lot and creating 3D sculpts in ZBrush.

Thanks for taking the time to look,

Natalie

[Chermilla]

To kick off here is a 3D sculpt I finished the other week in ZBrush of Thane Krios from Mass Effect. I wanted him to look slightly more aggressive than he did in Mass Effect 2 and so raised the armoured plates on his head area outwards slightly, I also went with a more yellow tint in regards to his skintone.





Here is a piece I'm currently working on during my lunch breaks. Originally I was painting just a portrait of the face and shoulders but then decided to add more interest in the background, therefore her face has the most work done on it so far, I have started laying down my composition and base colours and will begin adding the detail next. I prefer to do this in stages square by square and then zooming out to tweak certain areas that don't look right. So far I have worked three hours on this piece.

[Chermilla]

Here is a full body sculpt I am currently working on now and then after work. I have been studying human anatomy and muscles a lot recently, this is probably at the half way mark in terms of getting the muscles fleshed out properly.

[Chermilla]

Been working on an AK47 with Tatical Scope, I still need to create some more texture maps for this to finish it off, and lower the poly count further. This one was modelled using Maya and textured in PhotoShop.

[Chermilla]

Some EVE starship concepts along with some WIP shots of the models, these were all modelled in Maya, then textured and rendered using ZBrush....

[Chermilla]

Lunchtime update, worked another hour on this, felt the composition wasn't quite working for me so changed it about a bit, started blocking in more of the form and colours too.

[Chermilla]

Decided to crop down the sides a bit to focus more on the figure and started painting in tree details.

[Chermilla]

Couple more hours work on adding detail section by section...After adding more detail into her clothing the cherry blossom trees started bothering me so I have decided to remove them, I prefer the empty space around her face, it felt too closed in and fussy once the details were painted in.

[Chermilla]

[Steveland]

Lovely work/sketchbook Do love your b/w pieces

[Chermilla]

Cheers Steveland, appreciate it.

Began this piece at lunchtime today, one and a half hours done on it so far...

[Chermilla]

Update!

[dierat]

The composition on the girl with a sword painting is looking much better. I think it helped to crop off half that vase to make the scene feel a little more natural, not quite so 'set-up' if you know what I mean, but the close-cropping feels kinda claustrophobic; you're not giving the character room to breathe (especially above the head). I think you need the cherry blossoms in some respect to keep the image from feeling so bottom-heavy and keep the eye moving throughout the entire composition. I would suggest just having one or two stray branches, so you keep some of that empty space but also have a touch of decor to activate the borders. The pose also looks a little awkward and off-balance, but that may just be because you haven't rendered it out yet and some information is hard to make out at this stage.

[Chermilla]

Thanks for the useful post dierat, I know exactly what you mean with regards to feeling too closed in with the japanese girl painting, I've actually worked on it a bit more and opened the space up above her head more and only painted in a cherry blossom tree on the left hand side of the page, I have a feeling I wont be entirely happy with this piece for quite some time yet. It's been bothering me somewhat so I'll go back to it in a couple of days and look at it with fresher eyes, and I also agree that that pose is slightly awkward, I need to try and fix that too.

[Chermilla]

From draft sketch to final 3D model...

[Chermilla]

Update of Japanese garden painting, another hour and half spent on this today...Hopefully it's starting to look better. I've opened up the space around the figure more and tried to position her feet in a more natural stance.

[Chermilla]

One I just scribbled tonight, before bed.

[Icedearth15876]

Very cool pieces of work I like the last piece in post #8 it's really cool

[cloudcan]

Wow great stuff!! I don't know much about 3D but looks just epic Great sketches too, I esp loving the girl in post #14. The kimono girl piece seems to be coming along nicely, but I'd double check her anatomy, it seems a bit wonky in places. I love the color scheme though! Keep it up!

[gurzy]

Omg I love your pencil work! How do you draw so confident, clean and fluid at the same time =o. Is your process all on 1 piece of sketchbook paper?

[Chermilla]

Icedearth15876: Thanks, really appreciate the kind words.

cloudcan: I'm glad you like the 3D work, I've been working on that loads lately, I like epic, epic is always good haha. Yeah the Kimono girls anatomy is still a little off, I'm still trying to remedy that.

gurznoble: Thanks! I'm kinda confident with my lines but I still need a lot of improvement when drawing from my imagination like this, I always get carried away with detail too a lot of the time. I think when I use references my pencil work becomes stronger. Yup, these are all sketched on one piece of paper or across two pages just using a HB mechanical pencil mostly.

Here's some random quick doodles I just did before bed...

[Chermilla]

I finally got around to completing this model I started quite a while back, modelled in both Maya and in ZBrush.

[Chermilla]

There was something about the positioning of the sword in this piece that was bothering me so I have painted it out for now. I have spent an hour today working on her hands, feet and stance. This still needs quite a bit of work but it's getting there slowly.

[Chermilla]

Finished painting with some close up detail of her face...

[Chermilla]

Me and some of the guys at work have decided to start doing speed sculpts in ZBrush during Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes (so a total of two hours per week), to try and improve our skills and so we can give each other help/feedback on our work etc. Here is my first one for this week, this one actually took me two and a half hours because I poly-painted it as well.

[Chermilla]

Here are a few speed sculpts I've done at work in the past month, they all took between 1-2 hours each. After the deadline I stop working and so they don't look as complete as my usual works. These are just to try and become faster at sculpting.

[Chermilla]

Really quick 1 hour study of a male arm performing a bicep curl.

[Chermilla]

Here's a two hour speed sculpt I did for Halloween...



And here is something that took quite a bit longer to create, a 'Fishman' character concept. I made this over several lunch breaks over several weeks, starting from a simple sphere in ZBrush then stretching sections out to form the torso, arms and legs etc.

[Chermilla]

Here is my latest painting, inspired by playing the game Skyrim. I wanted to depict my Bosner character riding on horseback. This took 10 hours in PhotoShop to paint.



Close up details:

[Chermilla]

Digital oils on canvas, software used: Painter.
Title: The Widow.

This piece took five hours and was inspired by a beautiful Neo-classical painting called 'Portrait of a young lady wearing a turban' by the master painter Jaques Louis David. I wanted to capture the essence of the Neo-classical style but put my own modern twist on the figure.