Alien Fisherman - Final Sculpt

Yikes, it's been nearly a full week since my last post but that's not due to a lack of working on my part, in fact I have a finalised sculpture of my alien fisherman - BAMF!

Click to embiggen.

I'm pretty happy with it, seeing as though it's my first ZBrush sculpt an everything but God DAMN did this guy's face annoy me. I started sculpting last Tuesday and I didn't get a face I liked until sometime in the afternoon today.

Here are the many iterations of Alien Fisherman's face:

Click to embiggen.

And these are just the ones that I saved. There was probably about ten more between versions two and three, eugh! It's kind of funny, I was so fed up with changing his face that I just cut off his face which lead to version four and it wasn't until I looked back on it later on that I realised I liked the look so I combined the tentacle look with the nearly final version six and we have the final fact of Alien Fisherman.

I still have (to learn how) to pose him and texture him but for now I'm content enough to sleep.

Goodnight, Internet.

Alien Fisherman - Junk Mesh

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This alien fisherman is becoming an obsession.

I just finished the junk mesh which I'll import into ZBrush and use as a base for my sculpting. There are four separate objects; the body, the trousers, the trouser straps and the boots. The mesh is completely clean, no faces with more than four sides, no holes and pretty decent edge flow if I do say so myself with edge loops added in areas where more detail will be needed i.e. the head, hands.

Working time: 2 hours.

Polycount: 1876

I'll begin sculpting on Thursday.

Alien Fisherman - Messing around in ZBrush

Click to embiggen.

I'm currently learning ZBrush and I was itching to put my current knowledge of the program to use so I spent about an hour sculpting the head of my Alien Fisherman and here's the results.

Alien Fisherman - Concept

As the title suggests this is the first instalment of a series of developmental blog posts chronicling the conception, refinement and finalisation of an alien fisherman.

I've been needing a concept to develop into a 3D sculpt for my research assignment and showreel and this is he. I knew I wanted a classic alien-looking character and I was gathering images from Star Wars and old kids shows like Plasmo for inspiration. Despite presenting my eyes and brains with such delicious eye candy I really wasn't getting any good ideas so I fell back on my method of just drawing shapes until something is spawned upon the canvas and voila! it worked once again - I was given this as

a starting point:

Click to embiggen.

I was really liking the design at this point, he was unique and simple. Now, I honestly don't know what lead to the next stage of this guy's design but I decided that I wanted him wearing wading trousers. Wading trousers are hilarious, the image of huge pants hanging off a slim frame by means of only two shoulder-straps has always tickled my funny bone and it makes for a distinct silhouette so, go time.

Click to embiggen.

Obviously drawing baggy trousers is not one of my strong points but he was starting to look more like a character, and that was all I wanted at this poi

nt, I knew I could stress over drawing good-looking wading-trousers once the concept had been finalised. Of course, now we have a fisherman without a fi

shing rod which is... unprecedented to say the least. I knew I didn't want him to have a humanoid fishing rod as I feel like I'd just be placing an alien head on a redneck fisherman which would seem more like a shallow punchline than an interesting character.

Click to embiggen.

Regarding the fishing rod (which I'm referring to as a "rod" purely for my own ease), the mechanism works as such; the end of the rod emits a force which holds the bait in place and also emits a light which shines a spotlight on the bait attracting the fish. Once the bait has been bitten the indicator lights on the shell of the rod signal as such and a button is pressed which projects the harpoon out, piercing the fish.

And so, after a few more minutes of colouring and about thirty or so minutes total, I present the concept of the alien fisherman:

Click to embiggen.

Gamer's Log - Mirror's Edge

A shining example of why not all games should have a story.

I wanted to like Mirror's Edge, and I did for the first few levels; I was free-running across rooftops, sliding down pipes and wincing every time I pressed the wrong button and fell hundreds of feet to the ground below. Mirror's Edge at it's core is a fun, beautiful and innovative game. It's a shame then that the whole experience is marred by an intrusive, linear and inherently boring plot.

I need to stress that the core gameplay of Mirror's Edge is fun, you play in the first-person as what we Earthlings refer to as a parkourist although within the world of Mirror's Edge they are known as "Runners". Unimaginative name aside, this is where the game truly shines. That is, the running. In Mirror's Edge you are running a lot and you are required to constantly think about where you're going while doing your best to avoid the platitude of obstacles the levels throw at you. It's amazing what a change of perspective does to differentiate Mirror's Edge from Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed, the rush you get from jumping over a thirty foot gap between buildings intensifies tenfold when seen through the eyes of the character doing so. Likewise, the horror of not quite making it the full thirty feet is intensified just as much when seen through the eyes of the plummeting protagonist. It's a good thing that the experience of falling is a notable one as it will happen many, many times. Death is a frequent occurrence in this game as one would assume in a game where split second decisions are always required and the difference between pressing the left trigger 0.1 seconds after you jump and 0.2 seconds after you jump is the difference between life and death.

Another positive attribute Mirror's Edge boasts is its beautiful art-style. The world you play within is entirely white, with patches of red, blue and green added to not only break up what would be a monotone landscape but also to direct you where to go with a concept known as "Runner vision". Runner vision is the equivalent of an arrow pointing you in the direction you need to go, though not as blatant. When you build up speed and momentum in Mirror's Edge, the objects in the world which you are able to interact with become red and therefore stand out like a sore thumb. These objects may include a box you can jump off, a pole you can climb up or a plank of wood you can leap from. Runner vision is a great way for players to have their hand held through these levels without them feeling like they have no control or choice in where they're going.

If the two preceding paragraphs were all there was to this game it would be fantastic, there could be the 20 or so levels to complete, each with their own time trials and online leaderboards to compare your time with others. There could have even been a level-editor to ensure eternal replayabilty. Nope. Instead of the game being centred around a solid gameplay mechanic we have a dull story about a city overrun with corrupt officials and a rebel group trying to blah blah blah... It's been done hundreds of times before and this instance is no more interesting than the last. Regardless of the fact that the game has an unnecessary story albeit a horrible one at that, the major problem is how much the story interferes with the playing of the actual game. Despite the cutscenes placed between each level, on occasion the game will suddenly break away from the fast-paced adrenaline-fuelled gameplay to an in-game cutscene filled with nothing but dialogue where you can't even control the direction your looking. In a game with such a heavy emphasis of the concept of the player being the avatar they control it is such a slap in the face whenever I'm brought out of my immersion and placed within a scene where I have no power. It's incredible how different these scenes are when you are able to walk and look around, the Half-Life series did this to perfection; seldom was I not moving around the room thwacking everything with my crowbar (people included) when I was forced into an area of pure dialogue, and guess what?

It was fun.

Creature Of the Week #187: Murderous Intent-Gnixxian Assassin - Part III

Click to enlarge.

She is complete! The creature I have dubbed "The Venomlash". All that has been done since my last update was the reconfiguration of his chest area and a lot of finishing touches. Here is my description (which is required for every entrant in these Creature of the Week competitions):

"The Venomlash is a natural assassin; in the wild it would crouch behind it's forearm plates and blend in to the lush, vibrant vegetation of the planet Gnixxian and wait until it's prey within rage before whipping its incredibly powerful barbed-limb at the poor creature and stabbing it with it's poison-filled tip, killing it instantly.

The Venomlash were initially only hunted and bred by the citizens of Gnixxian for their poison which coated every blade and tipped every arrow but recently, factions have begun warring against one another on Gnixxian and Venomlash are being trained to kill the opposing factions. Camouflaged with paint, the Venomlash are stationed in select areas and are instructed by their trainers to kill on sight. A single Venomlash is capable of taking out an entire platoon of Gnixxian soldiers."

If you'd like to check out the other entrants here is a link to the finals thread.

Hopefully this becomes a regular occurrence and additional hopefulness for me getting at least a couple of votes.

Now, back to Chime.

Gamer's Log - Chime

It sounds like "Trine" and is equally amazing.

Before I destroy my keyboard out of the frustration of trying to get past 100 percent on the fifth level of this game, I thought I'd write about why it was good enough for me to drop five of my dollars and six hours of my life the first day I even knew this game existed.

Chime is a perfect combination of Lumines and Tetris, usually the combination of anything and Tetris is enough to garner my attention and luckily enough it just so happens that this one's a keeper. The mindset required to excel at Chime is much more similar to that required to excel at Tetris more-so than that required to excel at Lumines; the strategic placement of blocks to form quads is very reminiscent of creating four rows of tetrominoes to create a tetris (these are all the correct terms, take my word). Combine this game mechanic which is already insanely unfairly targeted towards obsessive-compulsive perfectionists such as myself, with an incredible soundtrack that organically responds to your placement of the blocks within the grid and you have yourself a recipe for addiction.

It must be a testament to the incredible gameplay that I barely care that there only six playable levels in Chime, each with its own unique grid-shape, set of blocks and more importantly its own song which plays consistently throughout your time in the level and while I don't plan on downloading any of these songs onto my iPod any time soon that does not necessarily mean that they're bad songs, in fact, it doesn't mean that at all. What it does mean, however, is that they are symbiotically infused with the levels in a way where one simply could not exist without the other. For example, I could listen to Still Alive forever, it is a musical trophy representing the time I had playing through Portal (seeing as though I never got that damned cake...), however, the version remixed for Chime is significantly more drawn out and while it doesn't bring the instant delight and joy of the original, it allows you to enjoy the song for what it is while you're still horribly aware that you have twelve seconds left to fill the remaining eight percent of the playing-grid.

I feel that for every good thing I say about Chime is something good I'm saying about Steam: the bringer of Chimes. Without this amazing service being what it is I would have never seen this game for sale in the first place. In addition to the simple fact that Steam is a platform from which Chime could be released, it is also fully supported with online leaderboards, stats and achievements. Because the fucking game wasn't addicting enough, apparently.

I was having a conversation recently about how much to put a price tag on a game; to you charge for the length of the story-mode; the overall experience; the multiplayer; how much it took to develop the game? Whatever pre-conceived points existed for that debate have now been shattered by Chime. Five dollars. I paid five dollars for one of the best games I've played all year and most likely will be playing for a very long time. How can a company like Activision justify charging 110 Australian dollars for a game like Prototype when Chime charges five and gives a portion of that to charity? They can't, that's how.

I'm on the verge of a rant that would be better saved for later so I'm going to quickly conclude so that I can play some more Chime before I have to go to sleep and wake up to do many non-Chime related things.

So, in conclusion...

Buy. Chime. Now.

Creature Of the Week #187: Murderous Intent-Gnixxian Assassin - Part II

Click for full-size.

As you can see the concept has been fleshed out much more since yesterday. I still need to refine the area where his back lets connect to his torso but other than that it's looking pretty good. I've created a time-lapse gif of my work today, I was only able to add five images (out of my seventeen layers) so I'll walk you through each one to give you a better idea of what I went through.

1. This is the image I thumbnailed yesterday, resized and placed on a white background - nothing special here.

2. I added two colour balance layers in Photoshop to mess

around with colour schemes. The idea for this creature is that he blends in with the lush, al

ien environment of his planet and once something gets too close it whips out with its stinger-face and injects venom into them. I could have gone for any colour scheme given this logic since the planet is alien the flora could be any colour but I decided upon pink/purple because purple is a colour naturally associated with poison and pink works nicely with it.

3. Took away that rib-cage area of the creature and gave it more of a prominent feature on its stomach which could be used to hold venom.

4. The arms were looking really wonky at this point so I decided to increase the size of his forearm plates and duplicated his right arm over

to replace his left arm. I also added some stripes along his face and neck to give him some more visual appeal and added some more colour to his chest area.

5. The colour has now been removed from the chest area! The arms were still looking wonky so I moved his right elbow to a point where it woul

d make sense and now he looks much more comfortable just standing there. I blocked in the colour of his forearm plates since they were annoying me and I shall work on them a bit more in my next session.

A couple of people over on the ConceptArt.org forums seemed to like my A thumbnail so if I get time I'd like to render him out in the same way as this creature here.

Stay tuned for Part III of Murderous Intent-Gnixxian Assassin.

Creature Of the Week #187: Murderous Intent-Gnixxian Assassin - Part I

Here are my thumbnails for the latest C.O.W:

Here is the full brief:

"Bring to life a creature whose sole purpose is to take life. The Assassins are a special breed of creatures from the planet Gnixxian, a lush and dangerous planet, hunted and used as special weapons against those that have earned the distinction of being high priority hard targets. Your design can range from a small creature that kills in inconspicuous ways, to a stealthy

hunter that overwhelms its prey with strength and speed. As usual, get creative, and it probably wouldn't hurt to show your creation in action."

They're actually less thumbnails as they are progressions of how I came up with the idea for the concept D, an evolution chart of the murderous intent-gnixxian assassin as it were. To give you a better understanding of my workflow I'll detail the steps I took to get to the final design:

I started by searching for references of animals that I would consider to have assassin-like qualities but the only real animal I could think of was the Whip Spider so I typed "natural assassin", "nature's assassin" and "assassin bug" into Google and found some very cool results such as a spider aptly named the Assassin Spider, check it out:

Horrifying, huh?

I then began sketching using the common features that all of those assassins shared i.e. thin legs, small abdomens and cold, dead eyes. Using this method I ended up with Exhibit A - something resembling what it would look like if a Tyrannosaurus Rex had a headcrab for a head. I wasn't too fond of anything in A other than the front legs... or are they fangs? I wasn't sure but I copied them over to the right began sketching again, after a short while B was created. At this point I still wasn't liking anything about the design other than the legs (which I refined a bit more). Once again, I copied the legs over and took a new approach which ended up looking a bit like a scrab from the Abe's Odyssey universe:

Once C had been finished I noticed that the legs didn't really fit the new torso and head (both of which I was quite fond of) so I duplicated C in it's entirety and reinforced the forearms, gave him stronger-looking hind-legs and added some cool finishing touches such the poison dripping and the stripes across his head and legs.

Overall I'm happy with the design. The next step is to go over the concept with cleaner, more defined lines and anatomy to get it ready for colouring.

Stay tuned for Part II of Murderous Intent-Gnixxian Assassin.

Art Dump: Creature Concept Art

Here's some of my past work:

A concept I did for ConceptArt.org's Creature of the Week; the brief was "The Creature that Changed Mankind's History".

Saw-head.

Golem

Brief: Capable of a high-level of mathematics; employed by some secret U.S. government agency; consumes bacteria.

Creach & Kidd: Concept for high-poly advanced character design.

Gamer's Log - Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

While he isn't the most compelling protagonist, Zack is the centrepiece of this fantastic puzzle-adventure game.

Let me preface this post by stating how unenthusiastic I am about the mainstream video game industry at the moment. It's an amazing feat when I can sit down and play a game for more than fifteen minutes without getting bored by cutscenes, dull visuals, horrible controls or bad game design. Zack & Wiki is a brilliant game, it's not trying to be anything it isn't which is a rare find these days. The puzzles are hard without being too hard, the visuals are colourful and full of life and the core gameplay is unhindered by any other elements. Zack & Wiki is everything a game should be.

Within only a few minutes of inserting the disk I was already playing the Zack & Wiki, solving puzzles, waving my Wiimote around and hunting down pieces of a dead pirate named Barbaros. The brilliance of Zack & Wiki's game design lies within the way it rewards the player with HirameQ, a silly name for what is generally referred to as "points". You get H-Q for everything you do that progresses you through each level, from pulling a lever to smacking a fireball at a spider using a tennis racquet made out of a spider. However, there is a catch as if getting points for doing these tasks wasn't enough, you will also be shown how many points you could have attained based on how efficient you are at the task at hand (I can't express how discouraging it is to receive 100/60'000 H-Q for putting a totem into a totem-shaped slot in the ground). Even though I'm yet to finish Zack & Wiki I'm already itching to go back and redo each level to perfection.

Another reason to love Zack & Wiki is the impressive way it utilizes that cunning piece of technology known as the Wiimote. Basic movement of Zack is done by pointing the Wiimote at the screen and clicking where you want him to move to. The beauty of the game, however, lies within the interaction between Zack and the many, many unique objects he encounters throughout the game at which point the Wiimote becomes whichever object you are currently using. For example, let's say that you decide to use a CentiSaw (a saw made out of a centipede for those of you unfamiliar with insect-based tools) to cut down a tree, you are required to perform a cutting motion, with the Wiimote acting as the saw, another good example is when you are required to swing the Wiimote like a tennis racquet to propel a fireball at an enemy spider. Of course, various Wii games have already implemented similar mechanics to this before (Cooking Mama, Wii Sports: Tennis) but it has never been as successful outside of the mini-game scenarios those games present them in. Zack & Wiki blends the use of the Wiimote seamlessly into the core gameplay and that's what I believe makes it such a great game - it embodies everything which got me so excited about the Wii back in 2006.

Introductory Post

Hello, reader.

My name is Benjamin, I'm an artist who likes to play and make video games. I am 21 years of age and live in Sydney.

Welcome to my newly created blog which will act as my journal as an artist, a gamer and a person. This will essentially be a collection of game reviews, artworks and various other updates.

That's all I feel this post needs.

Thanks for reading.