Zbrush likeness practice

Painterly sketch

The White Sorceress

This illustration was done to demo a pipeline of 3d to 2d. This pipeline started out in film and game studios during the concept art phase. The 2d artists would use lowpoly, crude 3d items and paint over them to flesh out details, colors and materials or do a light pass on a scene before the level artists and the lighting artists would actually implement it in the engine. But lately, technology has evolved and it no longer takes a lot of knowledge to use 3d for presenting ideas, light them and texture them. Marmoset 3, Unreal, Unity and even Blender Game give you the option to build up a scene, add materials to models and light it realistically for an impressive presentation. I use this pipeline to do illustration. If the idea is solid enough, then you can cut down a lot of time in the painting of details phase.

 

So let’s break it down.

1.  The Ideea: a white, good sorceress during the money shot. She has a bird companion which she summons; it represents her warrior spirit and her “extended fist”. The girl is the embodiment of good, but a strong, independent woman, capable of fighting strong opposition. The shot needs to look empowering, powerful, memorable (and other seo-friendly industry-standard pop-culture sticky terms). That makes it “sellable”. Very important.
2. Costume design: somewhere between the classic Valkyries and your generic – run*of*the*mill – rpg sorceress class lies our design. Catchy, sexy – bling – bling yet simple and sugestive.
3. The scene setup: a rough sketch of how the characters are set up, what they do, what relation is between them and a hint of the environment. Oh, about the environment –  it’s set to support the presentation of our 2 subjects. Anything that can empower the idea that the sorceress is clean, noble, “urban”&”high value” if you like. I could’ve placed her in a cave but…not the same effect!
4. 3d Block-in: I use Blender (it’s free) to set up my scene with the architectural elements, posed characters and most importantly – the lights. Blender Engine is like a Dacia 1300 car (also known as Renault 12): it’s awful at first drive, but after 2000 km you start to appreciate its simpleness and easiness to fix problems. And in general it gets you there even if you choose to drive through Boulderland.

5 and onwards to the final image: this is the simple process of painting, overpainting, repainting, suprapainting and postpainting. You know, like in the good old days.

 

 

Online Shop is Live!

Hey there!

My artwork is available on a multitude of mediums: print, canvas and tshirts! Check it out now!

https://hexad.threadless.com/

New website!

Hello friends!

I have a very important announcement to make!

I’ve just launched my gallery website – http://www.hexadart.com

Check it out! I made it so you can view all my art, grouped by projects, in a straight fashion, in a very friendly and direct display. There will also be links to my online shops where you can get prints and thsirts! I’m still working on that, but it’s going to happen very soon! Isn’t that great? I know I am excited!

As for this blog, don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere! I want to introduce something new: I’ll be writing articles about art, digital painting and in general the things that motivate me to do what I do, the way I do it. As for my daily activity and updates on what i’m doing and what I am working on, Instagram and Facebook are the key words! So make sure you are following me there too:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hexad_art/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariusandrei.art

Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artist/neurotik

Well, that’s about it! I’ll see you soon 😉

3d to 2d Sketch

Done as a pipeline test.

 

TEKNOBLIVION III

— UPDATED on 13.07.2017 —

Latest installment on Teknoblivion series, now in 6 variants. Stay tuned, prints coming soon!

 

 

 

I had to post something

GATE 7 – speed 3d scene

This was done in around 5-7 hours as an exercise of speed modeling in Blender. The idea was to create a little scene that could serve as a set where I could place cameras and take shots at varying angles and focal points. In the end I used the Blender Game mode to add crude light and mood. I didn’t use anything but default materials except for some of the neons and LEDs (where i just set a color and a >0 value for emit) and some fog. That’s it, the idea was to achieve a 3d base for overpainting with the most basic of tools in a short time. As for the mannequins that populate the scene I chose not to go with DAZ because they would take too much to pose, export, import, place, correct issues, re-pose, re-import, rinse and repeat. Therefore I made those bulky mannequins that i could twist on the spot.

I am definetly going to streamline my 3d piepline for 2d illustration, the advantages are great in a concept art environment.

Here are some shots I took while trying to light the scene. I had in mind a Mars base / medium distress type of mood. In the end I went all Alien 3 on it 🙂

 

 

 

TEKNOBLIVION II

Here it is – the motherload! Available in 3 color variants! Soon on your walls, on your iphones, on your tshirts and in your hearts!