Artician

Artician.com Ad

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

First Cloud Soldier


This image is my first Cloud Soldier sculpt. I remember testing out the modo renderer and having a rough go at getting the glass transparent, because of the way the shader tree was set up, but this was my first successful and I'll definitely be redesigning the goggles since they a little too much like "Rock Star" shades for me, but I really like the quality of modo's Global Illumination rendering.




In terms of my general process for the material for this project I really don't do a lot in terms of sketching for these sculpts -characters or vehicles- as it allows me more freedom in the design process. In terms of Influences and inspiration it's largely a blend of a lot of research on a African Tribal arts, clothing, costume, Comic book mythology and animal structure/anatomy.

Orisha/Jinns in the House!


This is actually an Orisha/Jinn that is essentially a Spirit Watcher and one of many different Orishas observing the events of the "New Stories of RA!" This particular Orisha is based on the Satyr and I actually am finding information that places the origin of the Satyr mythos in Ethiopia. Initially this was a design for an illustrator, but he didn't like this one, so it left me with a sculpted, but unused character. I hadn't really done any Orisha for my project, but since they are nature and animal oriented I wanted fantastical Anthromorphic like creatures. The Physical make-up of this Satyr fit what I was looking for, but it being part of Greek Mythology to begin with was a problem since I have set the Nommo stories within African/Egyptian mythology, so it was a Godsend that in doing some basic research on Satyrs that I didn't mention much about the Celestial watchers that will be an important part of the trailer in the synopsis , but their role is more secondary.

NOMMO: New Stories of RA! : Synopsis

Productive Upswing!!


I'm finally on a nice little productive upswing and I'm able to sustain that for more than a week. Work is slow-going, but that's just the nature of the "Thinking Beast." (corny joke I know.) I've been bouncing around modeling characters, many of which aren't finished, but I'm ecstatic to have them as far done as they are now. This is the most recent Nigerian Cloud Soldier model/sculpt I've been working on.





Wires for my first Cloud Soldier:





Detail Shot: