I have always taken the approach with
this blog to just post up my artwork. Rarely do I post anything
without an artwork update. I feel that isn't as helpful to myself or
to you, my fellow artists, professionals, and the overall community
at large. We should be sharing our ideas. We should be spreading them
and working collectively towards becoming masters of our craft.
Let's talk about personal artwork
goals for a minute. I don't want this to be confused with
contributing to a side project. I am talking about going through the
motions of just making a character for yourself and your own
satisfaction. Most people think of things in terms of goals. It is
in our nature. When it comes to creating a AAA game character there
is a very clear road to follow. Block out, High Poly, Low Poly, Bake,
Texture, Rig, Animate.
There are steps in between, but this
is the basic road map. While this works on a professional level, I
find it difficult for these goals to push me when making personal
artwork. In the end I find that having a singular final render as a
goal isn't always enough. In the end it becomes a file on my hard
drive and a still image (maybe a video turn around) on a website.
This isn't a bad thing. It's great we can all share these works. I am
not downplaying their awesomeness for one minute. For myself though,
that hasn't been enough. Everything ends up feeling like it is just
practice outside of work. It is too easy to abandon a personal
character work early on, and move onto sculpting something else.
What I have concluded is that I have
needed a shift in goals. I need to make things that are more tangible
for me. I got into the art field because I wanted to create pictures.
I love sculpting, I love making characters for games at work, but I
still haven't found myself personally satisfied. I believe I have
found a way to change that by shifting my goals.
My goals now are to create
illustrations and art series pieces based on my high poly works. My
new goals go as followed:
Decide/Design the character you
wish to make. (Keep in mind all of the following steps when
designing.
Plan out the art series. (I feel
some of this you can freeball as you go, but you should at least
give it a thought)
- How many pieces do you want make?
- How do you want each piece lit?
- How do you want to pose your
character for each illustration?
- Do you want to make album covers?
- Do you want to split a render up
into 2 or 3 panels?
- Do you want anything printed on
canvas?
- Do you want to mount this stuff on
board? Etc, etc.
- What pose do you want the 3D print
to be in?
Make the high poly character.
PolyPaint/3D paint it.
Build a low poly and bake
everything (This to me is an optional step, it's all about what I
wanna do with it right?)
Pose out your high poly in the
various poses and scenarios you need/want for your art series.
Get the digital sculpture 3D
printed in the pose of your choice
Render your character in various
lighting moods.
Photo shop those images and turn
them into illustrations with different moods and environments.
Get them printed on board, or
canvas, or whatever. Get the sculpture 3D printed as well. Get this
stuff physical.
Step 10 is the most important step to
me. Make it real. Make the art you want to make. For me I always
have wanted to make paintings and things for people to physically
see, something they can hold, touch, hang up, look at, pass out,
show off in the home. Don't let your creation be another file
on a hard drive. This methodology hits my personal artistic goals
while using everything I have learned.
We create beautiful pieces of 3D art
that we usually pose once, render out, and call it a day. But because
we have this 3D work, we need to take advantage of our ability to
pose it, and light it as much as we want, and get drastically
different art pieces. You can turn 1 character into a series of 2 –
5 completely different illustrations. You can get creative with text.
You can make album covers, book covers, illustration panels, etc etc.
Just typing all this gets me excited.
I am excited because I feel it give my work purpose, meaning,
longevity, and most importantly it gives me a clear goal when I am
making a piece. It makes creating the character just one small piece
of a greater whole (just like a character in a game) but all the work
is focused on that character you have created. With just 3
characters, you could make an entire gallery of things that people
and yourself can enjoy.
The main thing I am trying to
communicate is this. If you find yourself struggling to finish
personal art. If you find yourself struggling to create it. Re-shift
your entire perception on what your overall goal as an artist is.
Gear your personal work to what you would like to see. You may find
you finish more art.
