But how?

Since posting my Thief illustration, many people have contacted me asking about my processes and how I created the image in 3D. So to explain, I have split up the 'layers' of the completed illustration which will show how the everything was put together. Even if you have zero experience in 3D and those terms mentioned below make absolutely no sense, hopefully you can still understand the processes visually.


Click for larger size.

1. Diffuse render - fullbright, solid colours
2. Ambient occlusion render, original
3. Ambient occlusion render, colour adjusted
4. Diffuse render(1) * ambient occlusion(3)
5. Shadow render, original - very intense directional light & Lambert shader
6. Shadow render, cleaned up & colour adjusted
7. Diffuse render(1) * shadow render(6)
8. Diffuse render(1) * ambient occlusion render(3) * shadow render(6)
9. Final image - completed with finishing touches
(* = Layers stacked with multiply mode in Photoshop)

...and here is the full-sized final image again.


Click for larger size.

Nurture

Just a quick & random 3d 'doodle'.

Crackpot 2010

Gestalten's Crackpot 2010 calendar is now on sale. I have two spots on the calendar but it was cool to find out that I'm among great artists such as Raquel Aparicio and Jean Jullien - go check their portfolios out if you've never heard of them!

Thief

I've been working on this scene a little bit everyday for the past week or so and finally completed it today!


Click for larger size.

Kim 21st

For Kim.

School

Sun Wukong

Recently I've been reading up on the Journey to the West, a famous Chinese story (some of you might recognise this from Jamie Hewlett's and Damon Albarn's animated titles for BBC's coverage of the 2008 Olympics). It's a pretty fascinating story so if you're interested in legends and whatnot, you might like to read up on it too :) Most recognisable is probably the main character named Sun Wukong, a monkey king who has some pretty impressive party tricks up his sleeve, like somersaulting through clouds. I realised he is just too cool to not draw, so here you go! This might even be the start of another set...


(decided to draw this after a little nagging from Rob, hehe)

Man head

Practising more head modelling in Maya.


Click for a slightly larger image.

Girl head

This was more of a practice piece than an actual illustration, hence the extremely creative title, 'Girl head'. I've only ever modelled a few heads in 3d so I thought it would be a good idea to make another attempt.


Maya, as usual.

PS I'm super happy that lots of people downloaded my wallpapers, cheers!

Solar System wallpapers

Here they all are lined up, in order of course!

I've made two sets of desktop wallpapers, dark and light with both being available in the following resolutions:
1280 x 800
1680 x 1050
1920 x 1200
Download them from here.

Enjoy! I certainly enjoyed drawing them :)