Finny

It's been my intent lately to begin work on another character for my portfolio. I want to portray the idea that I have a greater interest in character design than any other subject matter when looking at my website, and frankly one model just doesn't cut it. My problem with this has been motivation. I just haven't been very passionate about too many ideas as of late; I have no stories to tell; I'm too aware of the idea that there is little necessity for yet another stocky viking warrior, or cyborg soldier, and creating one of these standard issue portfolio pieces with no life or motivation behind it just seems excessively arbitrary. I cant bring myself to do it, no matter how self destructive this attitude is. On the other hand, to remain stagnant is the worst course of action. I am undoubtedly happier or at least more comfortable when I am busy and being creative, and compromising in some way now will leave me better versed when I do have a story to tell. I have faith that day will come, so I've finally decided upon a project.

Recently, I developed a character named Finny. He is a lanky, fiery haired boy that I created to remind me of pleasant times in my life. He reflects ideologies that I've grown to value, and for me was an exploration of that tumultuous time in life when one first enters adulthood and faces the trials that come with it, a period my immature self is still facing. Of course, Finny is mostly just a smiley boy with a jar for collecting things! He is a happy boy and he made me happy while creating him, so why not continue that process? I know he's not the grandiose and ultra-detailed character necessary to get me a job at Blizzard, but he is what I like, and its shameful to sacrifice that. That being said, I will begin Finny with an open mind and a positive attitude. No more self pitying rants from here on out. With this post I christen the project, so anyone reading it must hold me to it and nag me accordingly.

Without further ado, here is the boy. You may recognize him.

Its been a long while since my last post, partly because I feel that I haven't accomplished a great deal. In some ways to say this is to sell myself short a bit, as I've produced a number of paintings and models and even completed my personal website (www.ethanscheu.com), but nothing has turned out quite how I would like it too. This seems to be the nature of my creative ventures, which I am more than aware of, but have yet to grow accustomed to the idea.

Anyhow, here is a render of a building I created for a level design project in Unreal Editor. It has a fully modeled interior, and it breaks in multiple locations as can be seen above. Ill add some concept images for a different project soon. Ive got to say I am itching to do another character model.

Finished... (are we ever really finished?)

Well this is it. The final submission for studio 1, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with what I have to show. I still intend to develop the textures a bit more and of course, some of the accessories are not there, including the complete hair and headdress.Well, thats what the break is for. Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

On an ending note, it was a pleasure working with everyone in the studio 1 class! There was a lot of incredible work in the end. Hopefully some of us will see and motivate eachother in studio 2. Have a wonderful break!

Render Test

I went ahead and set up a lighting scheme, so I can judge how the renders will look as I add more to the color map. Anyway here is a test render.Obviously the color map that you see here has barely been worked. Suggestions?

Last Stretch

Texturing is under way now, and I've finished baking all of the normal and occlusion maps. I will still probably do an occlusion bake of the low poly model on itself get some nice shadows being cast from the different accessories. I don't know if I'm going to make the deadline or not at this point. If this was all I had to do till Thursday, I still would be worried, but its not, so... I should have gotten this model out of the way before finals. You'd think I would have learned by now.

If xNormal was a woman I would marry it.

Ok so I have all of my Uv's layed out and I just did a test render of the normal map I baked using xNormal and here is the result as seen in the preview window. I am very pleased by the results, (although I can seethe flaws in my sculpt very explicitly now) especially when I was expecting complete failure. Great job xNormal, pat yourself on the back.

Funny story, at first I forgot to switch the bump mapping option to tangent space normals, and thought my entire project was a complete failure when it came out looking like a burn victim. Thats always a harsh surprise when you're working down to the wire.

ooh... also I forgot nipples, wtf.

In the process of baking normals. Here is the majority of the UV layout. There are still a couple of bare spots for the glove, headpiece, and any more hair/fur I will need to create.