sketch from a sphere: man playing with grass

A lot distracted me tonight idk why.  But I decided to do a sketch from a sphere.  Just to focus on proportions and such, always good to brush up on such things.

About an hour and twenty so far, though I don't know if I'll finish it.  I love being able to pull forms out of nothing and have the mesh just reassemble itself into a usable thing.

A man playing with a blade of grass 

new presentation

trying out a different way of showing off my models

new zclassrooms

and my models are in em :)

check em out

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?161537-ZBrush-4R2-ZClassroom-Movies.-Update-1

no more doodles

It time we open up some old ones and really finish em.

Polishing it up

Just a test render to put on the forums:

beta work in progress

Its so amazing how quickly you can just pull ideas out of your ass and put them down with the new dynamesh.

another for the pile

did this over breakfast, for a reason or another.

from a sphere about 40 min

ZBrush 4R2 Beta Testing

Taken from my original thread here: http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?161137-ZBrush-4R2-Beta-Testing-By-Matthew-Kean

I owe zbrush a lot. 

It is one of the main reasons why I have a public face in the 3D world. In the beginning I was a maya kid all the way. A friend of mine introduced me to the program he used for toy design, a small program called zbrush, and after that I knew what I was meant to do. Digital sculpture has changed so much since when it started. In an odd way its goal was never to progress, but rather revert. The closer the program came to its clay origins the more a success it was. With the release of R2, I can say with almost no doubt that not only has the origin been reached, but clay will leave envious of more than an undo button.

I came onto this project a little late, a little over two weeks before images were due. I stressed thinking what a task this would be, what I didn't know was this version of zbrush was different than the others. I found myself unchained, unleashed, and unaware of the speed at which I was producing.

Off like a rocket I flew sculpting like never before

Dynamesh became my new best friend, allowing my to take spheres and turn them into anything I want:

From nothing other than my own imagination I was able to turn any kind of geometry into any character I felt. I was truly free to create as I wanted.

Just to show you how far you can push dynamesh, I gave him a close up too :P

Dino from a sphere, had a good time doing this one

The sphere became my best friend allowing me manipulate forms unlike anything I've been able to do.

With it whole new styles began to emerge because of it

One of my old professors as he ran around the room:

And a fat kid in a panda suit

Rendering in ZBrush.

The idea of rendering in zbrush is nothing new, but with the addition of HDR and the ability to alter things with BPR filters, the game for me changed significantly.

I'm the kinda guy who doesn't like to move around a lot. The more I can stay in one program the easier it is for me to focus. Conceptual work can be done now from beginning to end within this program. And I love it.

This Mermaid was done from a sphere in one hour. The actual render used no photoshop what so ever, the end result being layered filters found within the BPR filter itself:

This devil's render was my second play with the bpr filters.

This butterfly was the first successful test I did with the wax shader as a skin shader, I was so happy with how this came out.  I also put a quick vid showing the very very beginning of the sculpting process and what I go through when making a model like this.

The shader used, was later developed further and used again on my alien piece, one of my favorites from the sessions

And finally was the head I did to document a video tutorial on how I created this shader, it uses 3 variations of the material all blended together using zbrush's new material blending system.

 More of the same

This piece was done using the new curve brushes, really interesting things. Every thing from the wrinkles to the poly paint was done using the curves as a base.

a snippet of the base material, of which three versions are applied to the final model.





The Idea of rendering continued, but I realized I had no real videos of me modeling.

I decided I would (from a sphere) design a realistic creature

I also wanted to play with the new noise plugin

one afternoon I popped out this imagea napping old man and it made me smile:







And theres more of course, but its mostly scraps here and there, once polished they'll pop up somewhere haha. Making these sculptures I used every single new feature available to me. It was like using a completely new program, without learning anything. All the features were intuitive and just worked (most of the time haha). I never felt more at ease then with using these features.

I'm so glad I got a chance to help further along such a great program, and I look forward to future betas with such a great company.

Thanks for stopping by and, of course, happy zbrushing

-Matt

from the boys upstairs

ZBR2 Announcement

Published on September 20, 2011 in Pixologic News. 0 Comments

"Important announcement to our users:

 ZBrush 4R2 has not yet been released, Social Media buzz claiming otherwise is incorrect. Pixologic.com and ZBrushCentral.com will announce when the update is officially released today, please be patient! If you have questions regarding the release plans, please see:

http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/upgrade/ "

Apparently the software is coming out tonight or tomorrow morning.  Just hang tight.  My images are all ready to go, just need their go ahead and BAM.  


Looking good on my end. 

Tomorrow the sculpting world will change...

Tomorrow will definitely be an interesting day.

Tomorrow on Sept 20th Zbrush 4 R2 will be released as a free upgrade (as following their tradition) and is filled with a tons of amazing new features that will really change the way you view digital sculpture.  

  

I obviously cant say what but I can say that the videos being shown only show a small snippit of a large update. 

I also can say that I'm super excited for the promo stuff, of which I helped contribute to. 

I'm super proud of the work the beta artists did, including myself in that group of course.  I can only hope future ventures will go as well. 

The makers of Zbrush have been so helpful in pushing the 3D market along.  Never have I seen a company so driven to keep the artist and the studio on a level playing field.  

It is this mentality that grounds the company and allows for one of the best, if not the best, 3D communities in all of the packages (you blender boys will argue I know haha, but other than zbrush I use maya so there)

They are the reason I have somewhat of a face in the community and I owe them a lot.  It was an honor and a humbling experience working with them.

Lets hope good comes from all of it :) 

Gotta hand it to my boys at Pixologic, they know their stuff.  not only do they have the number one sculpting program on the market, used in most major motion pictures and games, now they have an award winning FREE sculpting software.

From Pixologic's Blog:

Sculptris wins New Application of the Year in 3D World Magazine International CG Awards

Published on September 16, 2011 in Pixologic News. 1 Comment

We are delighted that Sculptris was voted the No.1 ‘New Application of the Year’ by an expert panel and the community in the 3D World Magazine International CG Awards!

More info at www.3dworldmag.com

“This award recognizes the best new asset-creation applications that have been released over the past year, which provide stable, useful and usable tools for the CG artist.”
-3D World Magazine

Download your free copy of Sculptris HERE

ZBrush’s Shadow Box modeling was also voted runner up in the ‘Software Innovation of the Year’ category.
To learn more about ZBrush’s tools, including Shadowbox, visit: www.pixologic.com "

Comic Con and MOCCA

Hey Guys just wanted to pop in and say that I'll be attending NY Comic Con and MoCCA fest. so if you're in the area send me and message and I'll see whats up.
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Comic Con this year is Oct 13-16, Which is cool considering my birthday is the 14th.



Now I have a 4 day pass for this thing, but might only go two: the professional day and one other that I haven't decided yet.  Family day was always nice, so we shall see.



MoCCA's Fest is April 28 and 29,  Pretty far from here, but its good to know all the same


All in all this should be fun, I plan on going to a conference or two this coming year as well, so I'll be posting for that too.  Can't wait :)

CHAOS

My life was thrown for a bit, I gotta say, something I'm not too pleased about.  Im back on track as it would appear.  I unfortunately lost the class this semester, it seems there just weren't enough students, though I hopefully will be looking into some grant based classes in nearby high schools.  Other than that I've sculpting away.

I must admit the idea of all of this mess, teaching and money, has killed my sculpting for a bit.  Quite terrible timing I do admit.  It was only till a few days ago that I finally began to crack it.


Sometimes when all else fails you need to know when to walk away from a piece.  Its something I've been learning.  I know they say "never give up" but knowing when its hopeless is half the battle.  I'd rather invest my time in a new piece that excites me rather than trudge through saving another.  It could even be a different execution of the same concept, or even a part of the concept that I'm experimenting with.  Know what is a good idea and what is a bad idea and if you can work with either is a power that is invaluable to any artist.

The 20th approaches, and I got to see the manual for the new release of ZBrush R2.  Can't say anything really, just that two of my images made it in to the manual.  This is the manual not the promotional material mind you.  So thats cool, at least I know I'll be in documentation right off the bat.

I hope something good comes out of this.  I'll be with them for the ride for a while.  We shall see where this goes.

I wanted to keep you guys posted.  I haven't been much of anything lately as not of my stuff can be shown. Gosh I'm like a record player haha.

till later readers.

Some thoughts

I've been keeping this blog for a while now, and it sees its fair share of hits, so thats why I'm thinking of branching this blog out to what it originally was meant for.  Until my beta testing period is done I can't really show you what I'm doing.  But my thoughts are all over the place artistically and I think here would be a great place to share some things with you guys.

I'll be doing mobile posts as well with things that I see during the day that garner interest.

I've got a lot of ideas, and I think its time I write them down for others to share.

But for those that fear this will get off the topic of this blog fear not.  I have some nice sketches (2D, I know right?) That I'll be posting soon, though I do happen to like the image I drew of me beating the crap out of zbrush haha.

I'm rolling with the big boys now, and I cant let an opportunity pass me over because of other items I'm involved in.  I think I need to figure out a lot with my professional direction and this blog will be the canvas to do so.  Also I'll be doing so figure painting soon, I'll post the results of that as well, that should be fun.  I also have some other paintings to show (I betcha didn't know I had that whole fine art side of me eh?)  haha, but alright I'll end it here, with ideas to follow.

Lets see where this takes us.

Where the Hell did I go?!

Jeez so much has been happening lately, I love it haha.

Just a quick update for those wondering where the hell I went



I began to teach more at the Yard School of Art, found inside the Montclair Art Museum Building, Where I over saw a interactive Design class, and will be teaching a 3D modeling class this fall, followed by a basic animation class in the spring, so yay!

Me helping a student during one their summer program sessions, Hey money is money! 

Interestingly enough I've also been working with pixologic on beta development of their latest version of their program.  I'm working with some of the best guys in the biz and its so humbling and exciting to be in that group.

Me making zbrush my bitch 

Now though I cant really say what I'm working on, I can definitely say it will blow your socks off!  We are all in for one hell of a treat I'm tellin ya!











Well thats all for now, Till next time :)