DMC - Render

This is Kat, a character I made following Talexi's concept for DMC. This render has been made like the previous ones: all meshes and textures are ingame. I've exported several passes as 5Ks, and made the final color and tone adjustments in Photoshop. I worked closely with our Art Directors making sure they where happy with the final tones and refinement. The shadow on the ground has been made in Photoshop too (achievable ingame, but quicker this way!).

DMC - Captivate Trailer 2012

The latest DMC trailer that we created for Captivate 2012. Quite happy about this, it's been hard work!

DMC - Render

These two images are renders we've been working on lately at Ninja. 

The assets are all in-game and lit in the engine, but exported at a massive resolution (4k) and than composited in Photoshop. We've exported the diffuse, zdepth, specular, reflection, rim separately from Unreal and mixed them. We've also smoothed the edges, made some colour corrections and minor shapes and textures tweaks. The red paint strokes have been made with a cool little software called Artrage.

Enslaved FX reel /Mickaelle Ruckert

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmzrcv_enslaved-showreel_videogames

Some pretty cool FX reel from Mickaelle, technical artist at Ninja Theory.

DMC - ScreenShots December2011

I feel a bit sorry for having to let my blog on the side at the moment. But all my energy is going into DMC. I will post as much as I can when I will have more time. The number of things I would like to publish from the game is phenomenal. But we will have to keep being patient for now.

DMC - Painting /Talexi

DMC - Artwork /Talexi

Some new Artwork from DMC.

Cesar

Cesar. Nicolas Coustou. 1696.

Nicolas Coustou was a French sculptor mainly known for his piece The Seine et Marne that can be seen in the Louvre. But Coustou's work on Cesar is the piece that got my attention. A majestic posing supported by a very fine treatment of the cloth.

Lower Leg Muscles Layout

I have started laying out some muscles on my skeleton. I have finished the lower leg part, but it needs refinement.

Enslaved Ingame Models

CGArena Excellence Award

I received an award from CGArena. Always good to take. I noticed it is quite hard to make it into online galleries if your work is not textured. 

The Child Oepidus Revived by the Shepherd Phorbas

© Loicwood

The Child Oepidus Revived by the Shepherd Phorbas. Denis-Antoine Chaudet. 1815-18.

This piece from the Louvre is an other great example of posture mastering. The Shepherd's forearms and hands are of absolute beauty. Both hands posing are exceptional and I would encourage you to look at this piece from other angles.

3D Total Excellence Award

The guys from http://www.3dtotal.com/ gave me an award for my Rhino and Scouts.

I'm quite happy about this, they have got some good artists in there!

Monolith

The first draft of a little statue idea I am currently working on.

Scout render 2011

Latest render of the series, the scout. 

Monkey Render 2011

Rhino Render 2011

I finally got the time to make some improved render of my models.

St George

St George. Donatello. 1415-17.

The simplicity of Donatello's St George model, accentuated by its rigid pose reminds me of the static feeling we get from our T-posed character art model.

My Work / Drawings

I've published a few quick drawings I made recently in here.
I can see problems and mistakes in all of them, but if I were to only show things I consider as perfect, I'd probably never show anything...

Help: Hai Phung2

The tree mains good point are the same as for the back view.

Three main bad:

-the shape of the Clavicle is not right. Even if it looks straight from a front view, it is actually S shaped from the top view. There is a gap between the two Clavicles as they are attached to a bone called the Sternum, a good average for the gap would be about 3cm.

Google Body Browser

It is still rudimentary, but a great start.
http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com

Thanks google!

Help: Hai Phung

Here is a piece of work from Hai Phung. His goal for now is to get all the muscles to be clearly defined before starting adding skin details and subtleties. This is the right approach. I would very much encourage making sure about the general proportions/rhythm/weight of the model before adding details. At this stage it should still be quick to fix any problems that are discovered and test different things to improve the model. Most of the time the low and midrange volumes are more important than the details added of the top.

TD Matt

http://td-matt.blogspot.com/

A very interesting rigging blog from a friend and colleague Matt Stoneham.
Lots of tutorials, tips, advices from a very experienced rigger, this is gold.

HELP!

A few people have asked me for advice, help or comments on their work in the past weeks. I can't promise to reply to all of them but I thought I would give it a go and try to help when I can. I will post the most interesting cases, or when I think it would help a lot of people.

So if you would like to submit something:
-click the "ask me anything" button to send me a mail.
-please send me a maximum of two images and a description of your problem or thoughts.
-the pictures should be jpegs of 1280 by 720, this will make sure there will be a consistency through the help! posts.
-please make sure you are submitting something linked to anatomy, sculpting, modelling or character art in general.

Voltaire Nu

Voltaire Nu. Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. 1776.

This piece is known as the first statue of a living writer, in a time where this was the privilege of kings. The statue was a scandal, representing the body of a old and emaciated body, nude.

Aristaeus

Aristaeus God of the Gardens. Francois-Joseph Bosio, 1817.

This is a piece I find perfect. Bosio was certainly one of the best french sculptor, and all his work present in the Louvre is stunning. No doubts why he has been made "Premier Sculpteur du Roi". This God of 216cm stands here with majesty.

Rhino Ingame

The ingame model of the Rhino. About 20k tris.

List of statues by height

This is great fun. I don't know who got the idea of making that list.
But the only fact it exists makes my day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statues_by_height

Hyacinthe

Hyacinthe Francois Joseph Bosio, 1817.

Elegant posing. Notice how the Gastrocnemius melts itself into the Quadriceps. How the posture of the hands feels spontaneous. How pure yet sophisticated is Hyaninthe's face.  The contrast between the curly and detailed hair next the plain and smooth skin is unquestionably gracious. Great.

Apollon de Mantoue

Apollon de Mantoue. Original around -450.

Nice render of a young but strong body structure. This is great reference to understand how synthetic a bust can be without loosing any of its realism. The Apollo has no representation of any Abdominal Tendinous Interestion, and still he looks dry and athletic thanks to a strong Linea Alba.

Écorchés

Some écorchés. The best way to learn surface anatomy.

Arm study

A quick study of an arm. I made it a while ago and I feel it generally lacks rhythm, but the muscle structure is still relevant.

Talexi's Blog

Talexi's World


a nice blog from great artist.

Caïn

Caïn venant de tuer son frère Abel by Henry Vidal. 1886.

An other great piece from Le Jardin des Tuileries. I still don't know if Vidal wanted to represent the Serratus or the Ribs. The posing is great and the skin detail below the Bicep is fabulous.

Digital Double

The digital double I modeled for the three main Character in Enslaved. Richard Riding's model was originally created by Ben Flynn who also worked on Pigsy, the character that Richard is personifying in Enslaved; I just had a final tweak on it. 

Andy Serkis and Lindsey Shaw are respectively Monkey and Trip in the game.

Monkey

Monkey. The main character in Enslaved. Left is HiRes, right is InGame.

Gun Scout

The Gun Scout.

Corpses

Some corpses I made for Enslaved. They are supposed to be old bodies that have been partially burned by a laser beam, and then left there to rot. The skeleton I made earlier in the year proved to be extremely useful in this situation. As I didn't have more than a couple of hours per model.

Stun Scout

Rhino

The Rhino. A great character I had the chance to work on for Enslaved. Design by Alessandro Taini.

Skeleton

This is a skeleton model I've been working on this year.

We use it as a tool, here at Ninja for some information concerning bone landmarks, and Subcutaneous shapes.

I need to finish the Ribs, add some volume to them, but have no time at the moment.

Cassandre

Cassandre by Aimé Millet. 1877.

This Statue is situated in Le Jardin des Tuilerie. Very gracious posing. Interior lateral lumbar fossa are giving a very nice sense of flesh. The skin fold right above are well executed.