Bridesmaids!

Planning a wedding is hard work. This weekend we finally picked out the bridesmaids dresses (probably). I took the liberty of drawing my bridesmaids into their dresses to see if they would all look good in them. It was quite fun drawing for myself again!

Directing a Play

For one of my classes we are allowed to create our own project. I did theater all through high school and college before starting at DigiPen. The only role I have not had was director. So, I decided to put on a play! It is an adapted one-act.

Here is the poster that I made for it:

 

I took a play that was written for 2 women and expanded it to a cast of 4. 2 women, 2 men. I am using the play to experiment with traditional gender roles on today's society. Both sides of the stage get the same lines, but are delivered differently depending on whether they are women or men.

 

I also found these beautiful scarves so that each character can be colored pink or blue, depending on who is the dominant one in the scene. The rest of their costume will be black and white.



Art Tests and Stuff

I was recently approached about an art test. The inspiration from the test came from here. I gave myself the time limit of 1 work day (approx. 8 hours) to see how far I could get. I think its nice progress for one day. I hope to make it a little nicer, however, with school projects getting hectic it may have to wait. 

I lit and rendered it with Unity. However, I cannot get the emissive maps to work correctly. I have read that they are supposed to go into the alpha channel of the normal map. This did change the way the shader handled them, but did not give me the results I wanted. I may have to invest in the educational pro version, I hear its much nicer for these things.

Final Poster

Here is the final for my fake movie poster! I really liked digging into the graphic design and focusing on simple shapes. Also, I had a lot of fun just coming up with the idea in the first place. I am glad that the process lead me to this image.

Lutin's Polished Area

Here is an update on my current semester. The game we are working on is in 3 Acts. Act 1 takes place at night. This is an in progress screenshot of our "polished" area that is due at the end of the semester. I have spent the last week creating and placing foliage around the large trees and covering up texture seems.

Fake Movie Poster

One of the assignments for my concept art class was to make a fake promotional image: Book Cover, CD Cover, Movie Poster etc.

I chose to create a movie poster for a documentary on Digital Distribution. After doing a bunch of thumbnails I took my favorite composition and fleshed them out.

My favorite is currently the far right, lets see how I feel about them tomorrow...

Lighting

A Study in lighting throughout the day. Not an easy task in late october when everything is overcast most of the time. I managed to find a good day with some sun and stare out my window. Time ranges between 10:30 am and 7pm. 

Scanners can really ruin things. These look so much better in person. Also, I love copic markers.

Final ArenaNet Test

So, Turns out the art test was from last year and they havent updated or released one yet.... but I finished this one anyway.

Here is the finished product:

Edit: A few people have asked me how long this took, I did it over 2 days and my estimate would be about 20-22 hours.

They also released the real test this year, and its the same as last year. So, yay! I am done!

Progress!

Not quite finished, but almost!

I have spent the last 2 days working on the ArenaNet art test for their internship position.

Here is where I am at so far...

I need to finish up the pumpkins and get some lighting in there. This is just the default maya lighting with high quality on.

What I have learned about "Textures"

You never know how much you have grown as an artist until you see work you did a while ago, and realize it was terrible. I have had this realization today.

Example:

What you see on the left (2011) is what I now like to refer to as "lazy texturing". There is no life. These may be just diffuse textures, but they should look as good as they possibly can without help from a normal or spec map. In short, the left one is boring. How did I ever think I could get away with this?!?!

The right one is a quick update I have done. I used the original as a base and worked my way up from there. It still feels incomplete to me (the mortar needs a little work) but after about an hour of work (inside zbrush and photoshop) this was the result. It was so much better I knew I should share. 

Please don't get caught lazy texturing, its just not pretty...

Spare Parts: Lutin's Folly

My project for the coming year is a lot different stylisticly from last year. The feel for the game is more storybook. We want a sort of fairytale feel, but with a slight technology theme. Here is a piece of concept art I just finished as a quick look and feel for the project.

Derelict

Below is a trailer for the game team that I worked on as Art Director. It is also my final for PRJ350. Enjoy!

ANI350 - Final Dialogue

I have learned an amazing amount in animation this semester. Here is my final for the class. This work went so much smoother than some of my other animation projects. I like to think that is because I am getting better! Enjoy!!

PRJ350 - Progress

This semester has been interesting. We have gone through 4 projects teachers. I really want to believe that the extra critique we have been given will help - but somehow I think as a whole the class has really suffered from the absence of a permanent instructor. 

However, here is a progress update with the texture work I have done. 

My project is a 35 second trailer for a game team in which I am Art Director. Therefore, the story is non-linear and takes place on the human station and the alien ship. Most of both environments were unwrapped to the trim sheets you see above. Its amazing seeing how versatile this kind of texturing can be. 

The game is first person, so all of the scenes taking place on the alien ship were designed to give the same feel as the game. In the human scenes, however, you will see the face of our protagonist and hopefully connect with her. 

PRJ300 - Final Project

Last semester I took the first half of Projects Class for my Junior year. While it is by no means perfect, I am quite proud of the result. Here is the character who is featured:

I think she has quite a bit of appeal! It was also my first time really animating. We had done some exercises, but nothing that really prepares you for a complex 20-30 second short. Here it is:

Quadruped Zbrush Sculpt

I have a love/hate relationship with Zbrush. When you can really enter a zen like state and just sculpt, it is amazing. And then without warning, it crashes. Then you get back into the groove, and it decides that rendering really means washing out all the colors you just polypainted for the last several hours.

However, the end result is something I am proud of. This is the first quadruped I have made in 3d. It is also only my 2nd real Zbrush sculpt (the first being a human). I have learned a lot about the program, but I have the feeling there is a lot more, and with that knowledge hopefully less hate and more love. 

Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap from Stephanie Keene on Vimeo.

This is the second assignment for my animation class. The Character had to deal with a "gap" of some kind. This is an amazing class with a great teacher. I am learning a lot very quickly, which means I will probably hate this animation very soon when I realize how good it is or isnt. Today, however, I like it!

Environment Concept

For class I was asked to paint a Look and Feel for my environment. I took a default render of my high poly scene and painted over it. In a class last year a teacher told me that designing your lighting is very important, it doesn't have to accurate, it has to lead the eye correctly. (it does however, have to be accurate enough so that people believe it)

The next step will be to texture and light the scene in Maya. I really hope that I can get it to feel this same way. It's a melancholy scene about a forgotten man who has died. The paper on the desk is his will. I am worried that it won't be quite obvious enough. However, I do want to keep the scene simple - more haunting than morbid.

Zero Engine Texture Work

I spent about a month this summer doing contract work on the Zero Engine. My task: create some tile-able textures. Preferably some with emissive maps. That is all the instruction I was given.

How does one show tile-able textures in a portfolio? They are inherently not that interesting out of context. Do you put the diffuse, specular, normal, and emissive maps in -- or just the render? I really have no idea.  I think it took me longer to decide I was just gonna show just the render than it did to paint some of the textures.

 

I had more trouble than I was expecting with inspiration. I love texturing, but with no real direction inspiration can easily wane. I started by making lists of textures I wanted to create. They really needed a bit of everything. I separated them into categories -- metal, plastic, concrete etc. Looked up some reference and got to work! 

These are not all of the textures I made, but they are my favorite and/or some of the most interesting. A few of them are intended as sets. I really hope I get to do more work like this in the future, texturing is kinda my favorite!

Annecto

I worked on an XBOX Live indie title that has finally been released!

Annecto

Its official release date was 8/4/2011. It was an amazing experience. As the only artist on the team it really makes a difference how close you get to work with the programmers. On the other hand, I definitely wish there had been another person I could have asked about some things. Programmers just do not think the same way.

I learned so many lessons on this project. Such as the need of proper naming conventions. You might not think they are important if you are the only one using them - but this is not true! Finding a 2 month old file to edit is not easy when you haven't organized things properly. Also, I did all of the work on this project before I took any 3D classes. This means I did some really dumb things. Do not ask me what the poly count is for the background... Lets just be thankful it's pre-rendered!

I am very proud of this project. Working form start to finish on a title is something everyone (who wants to work in the industry) should try. Starting small really gives perspective on AAA titles. Going through months of play testing and forgetting that it is a fun game to begin with... well, you just have to keep going. I played so much multi-player that I had forgotten how meditative the game was in single player.

We already were reviewed by a game review blog: Gear Fish. We were their "Catch of the Week"

While I know that most indie games don't really go far, I am extremely proud to have worked on this one. Go team ohfourhundred!