Sculpt/Sketch/Font/Model-book

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

OK, on with the show:

A couple of years ago I had an idea for an RPG based on a dream about a Big-Brother/Crystal-Maze type gameshow set in Russia that goes wrong. Contestants are chased down by un-named military types and lots of them die very suddenly. The game I worked up was the (second) biggest pile of shite I have ever put my name to.

Well last night I worked up some storyboards for a film of it - just setting down these characters and scenes I have been mulling for all these years on paper for the first time.

On the verge of escaping policeman Nick and second unit director Jessica take a taxi...


Phil - the head driver, contemplates... (the tagline for the original game-show was "Be a part of it")


All C+C welcomed. Thanks

[Poohgee]

Some really good sketches .. some lesser good sketches .. if u put the work in I guess or are in the right mood .. ure stuff comes out real good ...

Sorrry but the dialogue is a bit .. ehhh ... simple & well .. just I kinda expected more interesting dialogue ... U might get C+C saying .. that storyboard is too messy .. well I think U know that ..

The assassin above .. somewhere is hot IMO ... please tell me .. thats an athletic hot woman .. great body .. & firm tits .. are you still working on that ?

Just IMO

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Poohgee: Thanks for posting - Yeah it is a mixed bag. Sometimes finding motivation is difficult. I find that the first thing on the paper is always the worst.
I worked the dialogue up for the first one based on a very old idea, and the second owe was make-it-up-along-the-way material.

Hopefully I will return to the "assassin" as soon as a master my fear of her...

But, storyboards - messy?! What the hell are you on about man!

[lunatea]

Hey DunefishUK. Nice stuff you have here.
My faves would have to be monkeysurgeon from post 2 (what did you use?) and post 30 of your friend stealing the cat..classic.
Can see improvements in your digital work. Keep it up

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Thanks for posting lunatea!
The monkey surgeon has to be one of my favourites too - It's mostly ink, chracoal and chalk - the original is A2.

Thanks for the words - Needless to say, I will keep at it. Ever learning, ever growing.

[Movenski]

dunefish,

thanks for the feed on my work.. i figgerd i'd return the favor and give you my feeback...

i agree with you, you need to work from life more.. and even moreso than "life" but just observation. work from photos, magazines blablablablabla.... all that stuff. and i don't think it'd be such a bad idea for you to pick up a pen either.. a pen'll teach you decision making skills because you wont be able to pick up the line. the work seems really (for the most part with a few exceptions) stiff and skewed.
when you're painting in photoshop, go into your brush sets and start using them. dont just settle for that dumb circle and an opacity change, photoshop has some really great brush emulations.. take advantage of them. also, value contrast is something i think you should work on the black n whites are very grey now. if you're working from a reference, study that light and really grasp that shift in value. also, light your subjects stronger, so that you can get that contrast. it'll help you see the forms immensly. you really start to grab onto something in that one from november 15th. thats the best piece in this thread by far to me. and its because that contrast is there.
so all in all the nutshell i'd have to say: get REALLY into looking. really start observing just about everything you can from a really analytical and draftsman point of view. be drawing (even if its in your head) all the time. thats some of the best advice i've ever gotten...

hasta luego,

-ryan

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Been pissing about in 3ds Max basically stealing a mate's idea for his uni project. He had to develop a concept for a game and came up with quite a nice city in a dome on mars with some tiny very simple - almost like coloured pills representing minority report-esque cars as scale reference etc.

Took it and ran with it.

Trying to keep it simple because my comp is s-l-o-w as hell (assuming hell is slow).

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Thanks for the post Movenski.
I have been experimenting with getting a more dynamic flavour into my work (stiff and skewed - said with reason) but I am finding it really really difficult. The same with lighting - everything turns out muddy in the end. It is frustrating, but ... be analytical and practice, practice, practice eh?

Thanks again.

Crit - me - harsh.

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Trying a brasher style of PSing. The marks are still too many too meaningless and there are blatent errors that I can spot a mile off. But hopefully this is a beginning that will continue. A lot of the other PS attempts I've had to fiddle with the contrast - they were that muddy, but not this time!

<See: Illustration Activity>

[Badger]

Hey Dune, i like your ideas here, and the readbility is good.
But i think you could do with slowing down a bit. Also really working on form and underlying structure.
Storyboard is my fave.
Keep on drawing mate, great dedication, you are improving.
-B-

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Thanks for the encouragement Badger.
Unfortunately time is a factor these days. And while getting good is a goal of mine, getting away from the real work for a few hours is the more pressing aim.
Glad you liked the storyboards, I love pissing about with storyboards - got a couple more on paper somewhere in this room. Gad knows where though.

Anyway - just spent a wee while on a speedpaint I've been wanting to do for a while. As always: I can see errors and happens to be the exact opposite to what Badger said - in that it is rushed and really fast. But colours on canvas, I found my Shpadoinkle, ran with it and enjoyed it. I've had worse days ... good night.


And ODT's words of wisdom (which I must admit I basically ignored when he posted ) - really came back to haunt me this pic. I took heed and I think it came out a while lot better because of it. Thank-you.)

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

I've just handed in the first of two one week projects I'm doing for Uni. The task: to sculpt a cartoon character. I chose to do Max, the psychotic rabbit thing of Sam and Max fame.



Will try and post pictures of my other short project soon.

[Aremah]

His belly seems a tad too long, but a good job nonetheless.

Oh, and do sam as well when you find the time. They're just not meant to be alone.

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Thanks for posting Aremah.

Still got half a kilo of plastiline left so Sam is definitely on the cards...

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Plastiline is like plasticine - you cannot fire/bake/cure or otherwise harden it. So the second part of the project was to make a cast of the original and to immortalise it in fastcast resin.

This was the first time I have ever made a mould using Thixotropic - - a substance that turns very liquid Silicone Rubber into a gelatonous mass, that can be spread over an object and will stay where you put it.

Worked first time. Which was nice.



----

This is a link to the Ref I used for the original sculpt.
http://www.telltalegames.com/comics/...468A83EE4C.txt
<Brand new Sam and Max!! ... I'm excited>

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

About a month ago I did a project for my course - the object was to make something simple that used a mechanism. This is what I came up with. It could be more finished, but the whole project lasted a working week. So it was a bit rushed.

Turning the handle makes the Spider rise and fall a bit twice every turn, the soldier stabs the spider once every turn.

The figures are sculpted mostly from super sculpey.





Any and all comments are welcome. Thanks.

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

The tiniest of tiny updates today... currently working hard, so feck all time for personal projects right now. And feck all time for uni projects too. Still good (hard) work at a modelmakers in London... which is VERY VERY cool.

Paint, Adobe ImageReady. Too long.

< yup, that's it.

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Been working hard on projects for my course recently.
I will post pictures of the big project I've been working at soon.

These are two very short one-week turbo projects. They have both been put together in a few days (because I am disorganised and lazy).

WEEK 1 - Re-packaging project.

This is right after a massive project that had lasted since Febuary, so cobbled this together after a few days rest in a few hours.






WEEK2 - Gotham skyline.

Everybody on the course builds a building to fit into a collaborative Batman-esque skyline. Materials are simple (card and foamboard) and time goes quickly.



---

With uni-work finished for the summer I gave Smellybug's tutorial a whirl - looking towards my first big project next year (final year). It worked amazingly well.

This started out as a clay sculpt, a plaster mould was then made from it and the beast cast in latex and expanding foam. Both new materials to me. Exciting stuff.



Until next time...

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

A couple of new things.

First up is a quick-job advert for my Legion Training school in my current online Dune RPG. It's nothing special, but it is my first foray into digi painting for a loooong while. It's done is ARTRAGE which is pretty fun to work with ... and free to download: which is nice


Second up is a still work-in-progress life-size sculpt of my left hand. I did some more work on it today so these photos are a bit out of date. It's done in normal watery-dirt ceramic type grey clay. When it's done I'm going to try and take a plaster mould and make a latex arm to slap people with using the same stuff as the strange beast last post.


(Also made this little Spice Harvester emoticon...

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

03/10/06
Just for a sense completeness before I post some new-new stuff here is what happened with the hand:


And the "finished" hand (I didn't get the chance to get some prosaide and play with PAX, so I used my acrylic paints just for a test/bit of fun) ... (and it does flake off... )

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

As promised many moons ago, here are some buildings that I made for a low-budget scifi-horror film. I had problems with these buildings ... in that I had no idea what the hell I was doing. But, thanks to working over the easter break at an Architectural Modelmakers's in London, I managed to put these two together in the last 3 weeks before my deadline.





(Off the record - I am a not really fully happy with these buildings. Knowing what I know now, I know I could do better. A lot better. Ah well - live, learn and make contacts . The good news is that these are just one small part of a short CGI/model/human establishing shot put together by a very capable director... and they should look brilliant.)

--- Tomorrow I will post some NEW work ---

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Just time to post a couple of pics I have on PB already so might as well post:

This is an old (September) sketch of my second-to-last model project. I am currently completing my third and final year on my degree course - so this project is a bit of a beast, and, so far, has been a lot of fun.

These are little armour test pieces. They are cast in Resin mixed with Aluminium powder. When shined up they look like real solid metal. Very cool stuff and there is more to come.

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

I have a few photographs from this project, so I'm just going to post most of them.

Starting at the beginning.
Over a life-cast I sculpted in ordinary dirt-and-water clay (quite a nice fine one though)


Roughing out the shapes and first details.





Wrinkles, lots of wrinkles!

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

THE FINAL SCULPT



and the mould (just a simple plaster job - solid as an ox...)


I will post some pics of the latex and J-foam positives I have pulled sometime soon hopefully.
The wearer sees through the nose holes - it's not great, but it is workable (...just about). When you wear it, the ape eyes are aver your forehead.

All comments welcome (although it is all cast up and done now- there is no going back!).

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

A couple of ape paint tests:

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

The finished ape.





Crit & comments welcome...

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Some helmet progress pics.








The mould used to cast it was a quick waste plaster mould that somehow took five weeks to clean up... (on and off... but more on than I would have liked.)

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Quick tiny mutant cat thing WIP
(~6" long, sculpted in plastiline)

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

Flapping flight is quality. About 20 mins in ImageReady.


Also chucked together a quick album cover for a mate's final major project in a couple of hours last night. Nothing ground-breaking or brilliant, but came together alright in the time I had (I can't believe it's more than a year since I did any painting in photoshop).


---

Might as well post a revised cat thing (still not cast yet ) - much better now.


And (on a roll now) a couple of scribbled character concepts for my current project (a flying bike with cats an' stuff on the back)...




Comments welcome if you have any...

[MikeMakesMonkeys]

I finished my course! My final project (pics coming soon) finished in a beast of an all nighter. Hard work, but good work - for the last eight hours I was on creative fire (until two hours before the hand-in when I manged to loose my ID card and face unending problems with my camera and it's SD card ). I'll post the pics as soon as I have a couple of decent ones.
[PIC REMOVED BECAUSE IT WAS SH-TE ]

Now I'm sculpting a sword for the Ape Warrior.


NEXT UP: GOOD pics of stuff (would make a change)