Peacock 3D

So after completing the very cool Rendering Organic Models in ZBrush and Keyshot tutorial with Peter Minister I decided to play around a bit with the Skin materials in Keyshot. So I dusted off this old sculpt I never finished, cleaned her up, polypainted some skin and imported her into Keyshot. Here are the results: I am absolutely ecstatic with what I got with a little bit of tweaking to the default skin material! I've never got such a realistic looking skin result with such little setup. It could still use a little more work (I think the SSS translucency is a little high) but now I'm ready to pose her, give her some hair and make some really nice images.

I've been seeing some amazing images around ZBrushCentral and the web rendered in Keyshot. I decided to spend some time today learning the software and I'm glad I did! While it has some limitations it makes beautiful images with very little effort. I especially love the included environment lighting setups. Just import your model and maps, select a lighting setup and hit render! And here it is, my first Keyshot render! It was great being able to play with the light and materials in realtime. I'm really excited to get into Keyshot and will definitely be using it for beauty renders in the future. Give Keyshot a try for free, you won't regret it!

I started work on a simple military boot for my Mech Soldier. I decided on something generic that I could reuse later for other projects. I'll add some futuristic panels and mech flair to them for my current soldier. I left my little mark on the bottom! ;-)

I finished lots of cool stuff for my Mech Soldier concept today! I added some sleek insert mesh straps to the shoulders as well as some bags I got from the amazing Kurt Papstein. I got this assortment of bags and buckles from the additional content that came with my issue 47 of 3D Artist Magazine. These are just placeholders for now but they really add a lot to the character. I've also started on the straps for the kneepads. More to come soon!

Here is the progress I made on my Mech Soldier today. I added a belt and buckle and created a metal clip for his shoulder straps. I decided to get away from the skin tight pants and move to a baggier style, I think it looks better already. I've also made some little detail changes around the mesh here and there but that's it for tonight.

Over the past week I've had a few Freelance requests for 3D soldiers and they were wondering if I had any similar examples. I started this guy a few months ago and decided it's about time to add him to my portfolio! So in my spare time I'll be extracting and cleaning up some armor pieces and really tightening up the smaller details and hopefully get him to a finished state.

The winners for the Stan Winston School of Character Arts Dinosaur Contest were announced today. Congratulations go out to  Andrea Leanza and RJ Palmer for their amazing entries! I'm a little disappointed I didn't win (I really wanted that signed book!) but the competition was stiff and I had a fun time creating my dilophousaurus and I learned a lot along the way.