DreamShapers sketch book

DreamShaper

... Zoom in a bit on the medium texturing full figure
body, except the suction cups,all one layer now. 
(full figure on previous page)

DreamShaper

And really zoomed in on the texture of the cloak, some really interesting patterning developing

DreamShaper

While the original form can no longer be determined at this level of closeup, it's interesting to look at the pattern which emerges at the surface of ths cloak.  I'm also find the contouring where the layers got merged, and perhaps adjusted with the move tool, to create higher "ink" densities.  Can see a similar technique being used to describe muscle masses.  As seen above, as the zoom out is increased to mid ranges, there's an interesting form of volume that seems to happen. Using a higher contrast pallette, careful overpainting, or addition of a modified material layer might create a more deliberate sense of volume at a distance. Anyhow, intrigued by the emerging shape and mottling

LZoltowski

DreamShaper said:

Still working on this, materials unified for the most part.  More work on the overall shape and form

STUNNING, simply STUNNING, that texture is soooo organic, the whole thing has a fluidity to it, you feel the motion without it moving, bravo good sir.

DreamShaper

LZoltowski said:

STUNNING, simply STUNNING, that texture is soooo organic, the whole thing has a fluidity to it, you feel the motion without it moving, bravo good sir.

Thanks.  Glad you liked it!   Be interesting to see if I can amplify things with a bit of paint.  I think after it's finished, if I still like the scene, will run it through marmoset.  I'm kind of curious how that will work out.  If the sculpt ends up with 100 layers, or something, will probably just leave it to medium

DreamShaper

I liked the way this stamp looked in metal, but didn't really fit the other scene in that material.  Various tests using layers with different levels of resolution to build up detail.   Usually when I'm testing a stamp, I'll just make a bunch of lines, curves, resolution changes, and repositions, each on its own layer, so I can screenshot it and see what sort of forms it might create.  This time, I decided to actually make something, by building up the layers into an object.  

Here's a basic form, viewed from the front

DreamShaper

Here's the same form,  at some point, viewed from the back, before more plating was applied. 

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A bit further along, more details and the start of a weapon.   Used the move tool on the wings,  while I was deciding whether to add a bladed edge to the weapon.  Lower armor cod piece base layer added

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Explored some possible leg armor arrangements, and some stamp position variations.  Side view.  Looking kind of thin at the moment.  This bit was kind of hit and miss, but enough there to see what direction I want to take it.  If I run much further with this, I'll considering using more than one stamp.

DreamShaper

At this point, took a wildly different direction.  Decided to clone some of the armor, was thinking about merging it and doing some cutaways.  Something of a possible fork here.  The lighting and tilt adjust show some new patterning possibilities, but is starting to look more like a statue or an object of some kind.  Alternately, could merge it all, carve the wings (or remove entirely), and see if I can scale it down enough to use as a bracer, a pommel, or similar accessory.

DreamShaper

Looking from the top, the figure (if any) definitely will be very thin, or require quite a bit of additional plating.   I like the effect where the stamp overlayed at the top ridge (probably have to zoom to see it).  Incidental, side effect,  but something that I can see using on repeat to create scaled armor or as for trim somewhere

DreamShaper

Most likely will continue back from here, likely trim the arms for a vest and start thinking about a pose.  Anyhow, finding it to be a pretty versatile stamp, with nice dual tone metals and form characteristics. Probably will use this quite a bit when armoring figures

DreamShaper

This stamp, in a couple of metal and emissive settings, was used for a fair amount of the octopus texturing.  The hard metal didn't really go with the piece, although may use it for some environment objects.  So anyhow, that was kind of a side journey.   The octopus went through a variety of textural experiments of its own, some of which I kept and some which eventually got discarded. While interesting in their own right, they didn't really work well for this particular critter

DreamShaper

Dont' recall whether I kept them and trimmed them back in, or just worked over the surface some

DreamShaper

Without the suction cups,  the movement changes, and the camera angle, the underside is taking on kind of an abstract effect, with an interesting array of emerging textures

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Zoomed out to see the figure in it's more or less current state

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Still hammering away on this damned octopus, trying to get it to where I'm satisfied with it.  Not sure if that will happen before I run out of memory on my machine, or not.  I like the green better in VR, but maybe not as much in the photo. Will take a brush to them eventualy and see if I can get them to work in both mediums 

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I like the way the shadows jump from the background  with this surface and lighting angle, definitely something I need to explore more

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Slow progress. Working out how I want to do the background imagery. Always interesting how much different the 2d and 3d appearance is, particularly with emissives and metals with very low roughness. In VR the stone feels very gemlike and transluscent, in 2d not so much.  Better in large screen view, but so much more active when immense and in 3d.  Blending is tricky for similar reasons.  Settings in the top image have potential for something more like water.  I expect the background to change quite a bit before this is done, mostly getting a feel for what surfaces work well together. Getting the lighting right is probably the next step, along with some higher contrast elements to separate the sculpt from the background a bit more.  Will probably continue to work with this as long as the sculpt memory holds.

DreamShaper

Some pics from an abstract art session. Some of my favorite images from the set in the next few posts.
This was made using a custom stamp that I created while working on the octopus

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Patterning at one resolution, second image is same stamp in a third resolution. Binary code spontaneously emerging

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Same stamp used with a bit of help from the move tool and some smoothing

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I like the way this stamp looks when cut away, rock, granite, quartz, industrial metal, something along those lines

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Some kind of cat creature

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Mech day 1

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Explorations. 

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