ccsears sketchbook

[ccsears]

i can't stand the composition of the last one. and i think the sunset colors are a kind of cliche... very blah blah blah feeling about the whole thing. i think a big underlying problem is that it's halfway in between a character or a creature illustration. can't make up its mind about it. so i'm going to shove it back to blue/gold because i like that color combination for this. and i'm going to stretch it out like a front/back book cover...

kinda frustrated, but i need to break out of that box...

[ccsears]

more work.

[Naked Ninja]

Damn man, the design of that tent city is just fantastic. And loving the bird rider guy.

[MacTire]

Man Chris this recent work is stunning! The mech caravan concept is great, and I'm particularly looking forward to seeing how this bird rider develops.

[Velocity Kendall]

love these recent ones, a lot!

the building behid the mounted guy, and the giant cloth building: magnifique

[ccsears]

NakedNinja, MacTire, VelocityKendall--Thanks, Thanks, and Thanks!

[mike butkus]

Hey, great job Chris! Otto's been here all week it's time for those beers.

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Chris this latest sculpture is looking brilliant, so powerful and so much movement. Are you working from concept drawings for this one, and do you have any photos of how you set up your armature please?

[si3g]

Great paintings and drawings, your sculpture also looks awesome

[ccsears]

Between classes, I've been teaching myself Modo. this is my copying Andy Brown(?)'s Luxology tutorial video series. So far so good, but it's hard to focus when I've got all this other stuff going on.



my armature for the bust is really simple. I'm using Chavant NSP Medium clay, so it is pretty stiff at room temperature. My original armature was just a 1/8" coil for the base which then ran up the spine and into the head. The composition was sucking and it was hard to work on some areas so i made it taller by adding clay and another wire which i drilled a hole for in the wooden board. The spikes on the back are pretty long so i ran some small 1/16" wires in for them too. It's not a pretty armature, and i may need to cut it up to mold the pieces separately, but i don't care. The point is just to practice designing in 3d without a sketch; i want to get fast like simon lee. again, if you haven't seen his work, you need to check itout--www.bigbluetree.com



mike--Definitely, man. Just give me a call when you have time. sya hi to Otto for me.

Marian Rowling, si3g--Thanks!

[ccsears]

i guess an old dog like me can still learn a few new tricks...

i don't know how i'm going to incorporate this into my workflow yet. modo has really cool pixar-subD's but i don't know how to export them into Zbrush. i was kind of hoping i'd be able to make some parts and then bash them together in Zbrush using dynamesh, etc. there's probably a good way to do it. would be nice for mech bashing.

[jedininjaman]

Awesome sculpture. Pretty neat to see the process

[rishenko]

Such an amazing sketchbook thread. I've been going through (currently on page 37), reading your posts and advice, studying your pictures and am very impressed both at your tenacity and level of skill. Such an inspiration. Keep it up man, you're awesome!

[NickyBeats]

hey dude! i see that Simon Lee is clearly rubbing off on you!! im still ridiculously jealous that you get to learn from such a master of the craft. truly inspiratinal. i was just perusing his site yesterday, for some painting ispiration actually. his designs are frigging transcendant. so epic. anyways, just dropping by cause i love ya hhaa. keep up the great work Chris!! and when are we gonna be seeing some epic pen work again??? no pressure, i know your busy as hell, but i just cant get enough of that stuff!!

[rishenko]

I finally finished going through it, and not only learned a ton, but saw some excellent progression. Thanks for keeping this thread alive for the past several years and showing us your work and sharing your expertise. Keep kicking ass, man!

[ccsears]

i don't have time to write anything at the moment. this is just some quick 3d practice in modo. i'm starting to get the hang of modeling.





thanks everybody. will write more next time.
c

[ccsears]

I've been working through this tutorial to get my ZBrush skills up to speed. It's 20 hours long, but it's very good. Going to try to jam it all into my week somehow before classes start again. This isn't the most original design, but I just need something to practice posing and creating accessories for.

Link to Jesse Sandifer's tutorial

[ccsears]

worked some more on that hulking thing. also bashed out a quick sketch-sculpt of that indian guy from a few posts back. might wind up doing all the mechanical buffalo stuff too... combined zbrush/modo jam session perhaps.




jedininjaman--Thanks!

NickyBeats--Thanks! Simon is really an inspiring guy. Very unique approach, even among the few concept sculptors at the top of the industry.
(I know, I know... I need to go back to life drawing one of these days and bust out the ballpoint pens. it's been tough on me time-wise lately. rest assured, i will get back to it.)

rishenko--Thanks man, I need to write you back soon.

[ccsears]

i'm still working on that personal project of mine.



something i was using as reference:

[ccsears]

This is stuff from John Park and Mark Castanon's Design Theory / Form Language Class.

This first image was done in-class. We had a hot glue gun to use as inspiration.


These UAVs are all done from my electric toothbrush.

[rishenko]

The UAVs look really tight. The different designs seem to fit three main focuses (in my mind): commercial/personal (photography and landscape video taping), military, and industrial (the one with propellers handling flying into areas for safety checks and reporting).

I love the industrial look of the heavy landing pod transport ship. It makes me think of a more military minded Prometheus.

An excellent update, as always.

[Asatira]

That sounds like a fun exercise. Very tight looking drawings, and nice variation in ideas from the core concept.

[ccsears]

rough telescope model in Modo...


rishenko--Thanks man!
Asatira--Thanks!

[ccsears]

some more work tonight.

[ccsears]

quick modo drone this morning while i was waiting.

[Andrew Sonea]

Really loving the stuff from Park's class. I was wondering--how did you go about building your visual library of mechanical parts? Is there a particular book or type of study? Do you look more at function of things or at visual shapes? How do you decide what marks to put down when greebling?

[ccsears]

another quick one...



AndrewSorrea--You're right, they're are two kinds of greebling, now that i think about it... one of them is just "textural" and the other one is "functional." actually, a third one might just be a "shadow shape" way of approaching it. with things like mechs, joint design is important so it's mostly about counting the degrees of freedom, the number of pivots and axes involved, and then coming up with an interesting way of designing them. as john told me, it doesn't really have to "work" in real life, but it has to look like it does.

with all the brushpen stuff i was doing it's mostly a mixture of finding cool shadow shapes and finding good ways to merge them or pick out a few details.

i dunno... lemme think about it some more. i'm at work right now, so i can't do my usual ramble. Thanks though!

[ccsears]

more modo tests. applying materials, figuring out volumetric lighting, playing with booleans and other modeling tools, etc. i'm f'ing tired... think i'm gettng burnt out on this stuff.

[ccsears]

This is homework for Week 2 in Form Language. The theme this week was organic design. Mark brought in a preserved baby crocodile head/skull and our assignment was to take the form/textures/colors/proportions/etc. of a crocodile or alligator and create a new organic (creature or plant) design from it. Outside of class we are supposed to choose something on our own, but I decided to just stick with the crocodile thing to keep my momentum going.

[PxelSlayer]

Wow, those exercises sound really fun AND the result is showing! Love these latest sketches! Might just try something like that myself