FZD Photos

Some promo stuff we put together on Mon/Tues for FZD classes next term. Check out more here:
http://fzdschool.com/about_fzd_fouraces.html

FZD Warmups

Some more warmups and things at FZD, sort of a realistic take on a slightly future MGS/Eva/GIS/Appleseed inspired humanoid SWAT robotic soldier for the military, i imagine it would be completely autonomous and/or have some soldiers mind downloaded into this vessel so a team of these guys could be extra lethal with years of combat training augmented by a superior body. Haven't put my designs in environments in a while...a bit rusty to be honest. Mostly 3D with some refinement in Photoshop on the transition areas between the artificial muscles and the robotic areas. Pushing myself to build more detailed/refined hard surfaced stuff in 3D this year after seeing what guys like Vitaly/Furio/Fausto/Gavril/Fields have been smashing out lately...definitely takes a while to get into but seems to be speeding up. Should have much more to share later this year.

Some little teaser images i did testing out Keyshot before going in and detailing the model more (you can see how rough the model is in these images). 

Spent a little more time on the model based on where the paintover went and did some more finished renderings out of keyshot, this is mostly straight out of the program with a little PS work on the decals etc (though you can do that in the program). Could have taken things further, but that's all the time i had to spend on it this week (and probably all the time i will have for a while). Mostly a technical exercise getting some new processes for building complicated hard surfaced designs and rendering pipelines down for the FZD class next term, took a bit more time than i would have liked messing around with each program and figuring out how to get both to work together efficiently (on a laptop!), but i think for future designs it will be a really effective combination to create some highly detailed renderings very rapidly, when you see your design looking photoreal in real-time in the keyshot viewport.....its very addicting.

 Grey renders of the model, still not super detailed but fairly resolved for a concept, would definitely like to push the level of detail much further on future designs. 

 Polygroups on the model before exporting to Keyshot. I am doing everything on my macbook pro so i needed to use decimation master a lot to get the polycount down as much as possible, though i ended up building parts of the lower legs separately then merging them (and not dynameshing into one mesh, i think because i was only planning on doing the upper torso so it was detailed ahead of time then decided to do the full body last minute) so the parts of the body are a bit more dense than i would have liked but i just didn't plan ahead as well as i should have and time had run out so i just had to deal with it. A note to myself for future work when doing this sort of thing.

ZBrush for concept artists Vol. 1

Thanks for your patience, the tutorial is now live!
http://www.conceptdesignworkshop.com/ben-mauro-zbrush

On top of the 3D files, layered .psd and the custom UI created in the demo i have also included 2 additional layered .psd's so you can see how i handle rendering different materials in Photoshop. Enjoy! :)

You can view a short preview here:

Yellow

 Finally on our feet in Singapore, doing some warmups at FZD before getting into IP stuff the rest of the week. Will do a bit more of a writeup on the character when i post the body in little while.

THE HOBBIT: WARGS

Neato, we finally got clearance to show work that was in film 1! Here was one thing that i know made it into the movie, i will have to go back and check if there was anything else worth showing from the art of books but i wasn't as involved in the films as some of my co-workers. There are a few things here and there that made it through but i put more of my time into ELYSIUM for obvious reasons. ;)

I will try to showcase the basic design process that lead to the Warg (heads) seen in the film. This is actually one of the first things i did at Weta Workshop with ZBrush so excuse my rough as models! Weta Digital did an incredible job bringing them (and everything else in the film) to life. Most of this stuff is pretty standard production art, there wasn't a ton of time in most cases to do sexy paintings/renderings....but that's how it goes a lot of the time.

There were some initial designs done by the fantastic Nick Keller for this version of the film, but Peter seemed to respond to one of the Warg designs from a Gus Hunter environment painting (crop of which can be seen in lower right corner).  My job initially was just to bring this into 3D as that's what we thought he was after. As this design looked very much just like a wolf and less like the hyena looking creatures from 'Lord of the Rings' i created a few other options that bridged the gap from the more wolf looking direction to the hyena looking ones seen in the earlier films. (i will spare your eyes from some of the mankier ones i did!)

First design trying to match the illustration.........and yes, i was asked to draw the glowing eyes and lines coming out of its eyes.

One of the variations attempting to link these wargs to the ones in LoTR.

 After some feedback we learned that Peter did in fact want to go more in the wolf direction but he only liked the illustration i was given as a starting point. He wanted the Wargs for Hobbit to be more of an exaggerated theatrical embodiment of evil and not something that was just an over-sized anatomically correct wolf where the initial illustrations were going. He referenced the 'Darkness' character from LEGEND as a good example of this idea, if you look at the forms on his face none of them are necessarily 'anatomically correct' but they enhance and embody the evil nature of that character, it is much more iconic and stays with you long after the film is over.

 So with that in mind i again did a few more options taking it in that direction, starting more subtlety then increasing how prominent the exaggerated features were in the other options. (again i will save your eyes from the really manky ones!)

 ...and a more intense version, definitely started to look pretty evil in the bottom left view but maybe getting a bit too much in some of the other angles. I think it was a good call though, really made them stand out visually even though we toned things down significantly from this version in the final.

 After that, one of the more toned down options was selected and i was asked to sculpt it with a closed mouth which we milled out at the Workshop to build a full size prop/rig of the albino matriarch for the actor playing Azog to sit/act/roar on while on set. I'm not sure if this was the final model used to mill out, i recall being asked to widen the head a little in the back so it was a bit more broad right before i handed it off, will try to track all that down and see if i can find the others. This model and a few of the others were then supplied to Weta Digital where they worked their magic making them extra menacing/realistic and absolutely fantastic in the final film!

 Showing a quick comparison of the final Weta Digital models. (seen in the art of book)

Quick screen grab from the film.

PRECINCT 114

Another short film i worked on around the same time as DRONE (early 2012), I have collected the main design elements that were in the short (and a few that were cut)....there was much more stuff but i will just post the highlights for now. The opportunity presented itself to me and i decided to take it as a design challenge and see what would come out of the collaboration. Having low budget (and time) constraints was definitely limiting in many respects but it also forced me to try to solve problems in different ways. When the project gets picked up i would of course like to go back in and redesign a lot of these but thought i would get these out there as a bookmark on where the project was in 2012.
 
BTS can also be seen here: http://jameslawler.org/

 Some of this content was used to pitch the IP to studios but Director Kay Parandi turned it into a short film tying everything together. Check it out! 



Quick promo image done early on to show the producer what the suit would look like in one of the locations we were going to be shooting in.

 Police costume design, created with a lot of back and forth with the Director/Producer/Manufacturing to meet the design needs for the script....and of course what was possible on the budget....which was extremely small! A lot of the design needed to be simplified to large panels especially on the back/front as the future police used that as adspace to generate revenue for the NYPC. When the show gets picked up and we get a nice budget i would definitely like to redesign this or maybe make a more advanced version?

 A gun design i did in 2011 that sparked initial conversations about the project, we came to an agreement and i let them use this for the short film. The gun is based on current day 'centrifuge weapon system' technology, this just being some sort of future miniaturized version of the same tech. Video here illustrating the basic idea: http://www.military.com/video/guns/gunfire/dread-weapon-system-video/659603352001/

 Early exploration of some larger rifles based on the same technology as the centrifuge pistol. We ended up building a few larger rifles as background props that show up briefly in the short. This is just a small sample of the guns i did.....too many guns.

Flying drone seen in the short film.

 A larger police vehicle that was cut for budget reasons. Probably the first vehicle i tried to visualize in 3D to show a Director what i had in mind......then i never looked back, powerful stuff! Lot of things i would do differently now on this from a design / rendering standpoint, but was a fun project to be involved with and look forward to see where it goes. The idea with the cockpit is that its entirely self contained, so cameras mounted all over the exterior of the vehicle combined with display screens all over the interior which would result in the pilots being able to look nearly 360 degrees around them while flying and remain completely armored/protected.

A few people were asking to see the ZBrush base i built before painting over so here it is, really simple stuff, enough to show the forms/basic details to the director/producer to get them to lock off on it  before taking it further. 

One of the police vehicles seen in the short film, this design was a collaboration with the Director. Multiple other directions were explored but the more thin/streamlined helicopter form was decided as the final direction to take. As with a few other things there is a lot i would do differently on this now but thought it was worth putting out there.

Robotic cat seen in the short film, this painting like many of the others was pretty rough as it was just meant to lock down the design the Director and Producer were wanting but i either did an ortho or brought it into 3D to give the VFX guys a better idea of the design from all angles.

 Robotic mosquito that was cut for budget reasons, this is the rough concept that went back and forth with the director until we had something close to what he was after. The form and mechanics got worked out in more detail on the ortho but we couldn't afford to shoot the scenes this was going to be in...maybe someday! Definitely would do a lot of things differently on this now, but thought it was worth showing.

Organic Mechanics

MAKOTO KOBAYASHI inspired robot done for fun, this guy was blocked out from a few months ago.... just got around to doing a paintover. Painted a different version first but felt this angle was a little more dynamic so this version looks a bit chopped up with the details from the other painting, ah well. Fun playing with these really organic forms for something 'mechanical', tried to keep everything a similar aesthetic, but maybe only the ammo canisters in that universe remain familiar (like something you would find on a phalanx or mini gun) to give it some reference point? In hindsight it might look better with some cool organic podform on the back of the gun that they use instead of an ammo tank..... might that further at a later date. The gun has organic sculpted ports that its fingers lock into instead of a traditional handle looking form. Played around with it having canisters attached to the shoulder ports and with some aerials and antenna off the back but thought it looked best really striped back and simple. Thanks for looking. :)

Quick renders of some of the other views of the simple sculpt that i painted over, might take it further later if i get time.

2 years later..... finally getting around to possibly making some 3D prints of this guy. Here was some early tests of a possible stand, still some artifacts here and there where it connect with the stand but i will clean all that up when i decide on a base and send it off to the printers. Also need to make sure its not too front heavy so it doesn't fall forward, i think as it is currently i might need to lengthen the bottom a bit more.

'COPPERHEAD'

Synthetically engineered cyborg assassin. Done for Danny Luvisi's upcoming LMS book reprint, he kindly asked me to contribute and i really wanted to design a new character that would give his Gabriel a good fight. He also has a knife in his mouth, don't get too close.  

It looks fairly humanoid anatomy from this picture but the body design is very different looking, will update this thread when i finish the full body design. Early next week maybe after i get through some freelance?

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Last-Man-Standing/120622634669647?fref=ts

BLUE - Neobatrachia

This critter was sitting on my hard drive for a while, finally got around to rendering up the top view. Some sort of alien winged poison dart frog type creature that has the ability to glide from tree to tree, this guy is a bit smaller than the green variant and also has a thin membrane between his back wings to help glide/maneuver faster to evade predators. Will be doing a more elaborate rendering of the design soon posed on a branch or something so you can see it in a more dynamic view and/or maybe a grey render to show the form a bit more clearly? Similar to other creatures in this world it sees its surroundings with some sort of sonar type pulse, the head is some advanced almost completely circular disc type form, almost like the big radar dishes you see on AWAC’s, so this little guy has a very clear picture of his surroundings from 360 degrees while it is in the air. Think it would look really cool as this creature twists and turns in the air and this disc head form rotates first as it leans into turns, like some strange shifting geometric form cutting through the air.

 A bit hard to see the design with the poison dart frog paint-job so here was the block-out of the model. Will detail him up and make a bit more sense of the design before i do the more dynamic pose/render.

Blue

Little teaser of things to come, a small cropping of a larger scene with rough models. Probably bit off more than i can chew but i am just going to go for it. Will probably finish the individual creatures first then put them back into the scene....its like 10 or so new creature designs on top of the initial ones already created.... a lot to tackle all at once but gets really exciting once all the elements are in the scene then its just like being a photographer in a jungle taking cool photos of animals that you created. :) More to come soon.

The rest of work can be seen here with a full writeup about the world here or on my website:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4587458237120.2170487.1011974083&type=3
http://www.artofben.com/Blue
  
Will update this post as i finish some of the new creatures, should have one done before next week.... lot of stuff to work through, need more hours in the day!

First pass at the alien Theria creature. I'm trying to tie all of these guys together some how, like maybe most of the creatures don't have eyes or see the world with some form of sonar? So this creature would act more like a prey animal with eyes on the sides of his head. So the large flat planes on his front sides emit sonar left and right from some internal organ (or maybe the petal form on his back emits the pulse and the head area picks up the signal?), whereas the HH creature acts more like a predator with eyes in front of its face emitting sonar forward. I imagine this guy eating more like an ant eater, some long weird tongue coming out the front to eat plant life in the area. Working on the detailed rendering right now, got hit with freelance work so might not get to the main rendering till the weekend. Also wanted to try to do a shot of a herd of these guys walking/grazing similar to some of the other shots i was working on. One nearly down, 9 or so more to go!