Catching up. Part I!

After much debate on the future of the blog, I've decided to keep it alive! It's a great reminder of all the personal work (not) done. Plus, I like the concept of journaling my work, process and inspiration. So, till I get my website up and running, this blog shall stay.

My work life has been rather exciting and has kept me on my toes. So I'll update on my work and experiments so far over the course of these 4 part posts alongside some personal work that I've been noodling on.

Shall break the long silence with my reel! It was somewhat bitter sweet to playback my reel and see all the long hours of work loop in under three minutes.

Figure Drawing Resources

Thought of sharing a few websites that I've come across that are good resources for figure drawing studies.

Quick Poses
artists.pixelovely
posemaniacs

I've made a Pinterest Board as well to collect good poses for studies.
https://uk.pinterest.com/divyavijay/figure-drawing/

Madame Tutli-Putli

Quick study from a still in the stop motion short film Madame Tutli-Putli. 

Prop Modelling

Prop modelling based on concept art from Ark Lineage II. The art book for Lineage II boasts some seriously strong concept art  especially the character concepts and armor. I used Zbrush alphas to add detail and paint the texture. Modelled and UV'd in Maya, Multipass rendering using Mental Ray and comp in Photoshop

Longsword

Longswords have straight and double edged blades and are characterized by their cruciform hilt.

Had two consecutive non-productive and blocksy days so decided to speed model a prop and just have fun with it. Modelling & UV in Maya, Texture in Photoshop, rendered with Mental Ray

Bat Creature - Fan art

One more observational study before I stop procrastinating on completing some original concept work. It's based on the bat creature sculpt by Aris Kolokontes. I kind of slipped into painting it after oggling at the details in the sculpt and paint work. 

Image ref used with permission of artist. Thank you Aris!

Environment Modelling

Left: Concept art of the Alkalai Dam Doorway in X- Men2  by Mark Goerner || 
Right: Texture and Light blocked render test 

I picked this concept art for X Men 2 by Mark Goerner to do a model to render study of an interior environment scene. His concept art pieces are so incredibly detailed and well thought out!
Though I need to do a lot more of these before I really get the hang of it, I totally enjoyed working on it. I've finished modelling and UVing the scene and blocked out the textures, shaders and lighting. More fixes, polishing and render tests before I can call it done.

Mastercopy: L'italienne au tambourin

Another value study of  a painting by William Bouguereau. I blocked it out in sketchbook pro on my iPad and decided to continue the study in PS & ended up starting over from scratch for the most part. I normally don't enjoy revisiting older paintings but I had Indian election & political scandals to keep me entertained through the study this time around :)

Figure Study

Wanted to keep these studies quick and loose. Had a tough time calling it done. Cannot seem to paint hair for the life of me. Will probably tackle Rapunzel fan art next ;)

Edit: Image ref used from one of the core shadows set over at  http://www.characterdesigns.com/ 

New Showreel!

3D Modelling Reel 2013 from Divya Vijay on Vimeo.

I started working on this model between course work to spend some quality time modeling in Maya. I built parts to kitbash for later projects but my system crashed so had to revert to this earlier version. I decided to move on to lighting, texturing and shading the model and get back to adding modeling details later. Thought I'd post a quick WIP update while I finish up the textures.

I revisited a painting I started a while ago. I ended up working mostly on the character and teensy bit on the background. I may just get rid of the trees in the background or alter them drastically. I could really use some feedback on this one!

EDIT:  I've started a sketchbook on CGHUB and posted for feedback over at the paintover thread and got some helpful suggestions.. Will post the finished version soon!

Homage to Giger

I recently watched Giger Revealed for the nth time and ended up with a fresh dose of inspiration.. and a well spent Saturday!

Ichabod Crane

Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane. Quickie for a weekly portrait challenge. These are so much fun and super addictive! Kinda ran out of time but here it is.

Texture and shader study

Some more tests of the portrait study. For the lighting setup, I used 3 Area Portal lights linked to mia_blackbody along with  physical sun and sky and an environment sphere. And for the shader setup I used a mix of misss_fast skin shader linked to an mia_material_x shader to control the specular and reflection maps for the character. 

I finished the model, sculpt and texture on the character. (Modeled & UV'd in Maya, Sculpted in Zbrush, Textured in Zbrush, Mudbox and Photoshop, rendered using Mental Ray.)
I am working on the lighting, render and comp, so another work in progress.

NURBS

Ambient Occlusion(AO) render of a scene built using NURBS in Maya using a photo of an old kitchen by Kurt Langland as reference. 

AO render  using Final gather in Maya

More work in progress..

Some early sketches for a fish-human hybrid creature that thrives on flesh. It can usually be found waiting for it's next meal lurking around the shadows on playgrounds. It also has a thinly veiled love for cloth masks, capes and costumes.

Lost

Lost  (work in progress)

I doodle, sketch and paint characters in between my 3D work. Switching between painting characters and building them in 3D helps me explore different mediums and one informs the other. My character sketches so far are experimental and largely driven by studies of different textures- skin, soft fur, metal, rust etc. Earlier this month, I attended a workshop by Pixar Director Mark Andrews. His talk on narratives and composition made me re-evaluate my approach to these character sketches. This painting was started before I attended the lecture. I am currently reworking the painting with pointers from the workshop. I'm excited to see what I can come up with!

Whisk Kid

Many lighting and venue changes later, the whisk kid is done! He started off on a hill top, moved to a night club and ended up under a kitchen table. The whisk kid loves to cook, bake cupcakes and drink late into the night.

Happy 2013 to everybody!

Benito Benigni

Quick update of a black and white portrait study in progress. 

My first digital painting done in between work hours using a mouse and oodles of enthusiasm .
(I used a photograph from a stock photo website as ref for this painting)

Master Copy: Portrait of Gabrielle Cot by W. Bouguereau

It's my first attempt at tackling skin tones and Portraiture & my second attempt at a digital painting. It's still far from being complete. But here it is for now!

doodledom

My work so far

3D modeling demoreel from Divya Vijay on Vimeo.

These are the first set of models that I have completed. They were essentially studies to understand the process and study anatomy and technique.