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just for fun.
Apr 272009
FEATURED
Apr 132009
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Here is an image of my latest digital sculpture, The Death of the Centaur. The sculpture depicts the moment when the king of the centaurs, Chiron, is struck down by an errant volley of Hercules’ poisoned arrows.
Chiron originally appears in Greek mythology as an exemplar of wisdom and learning, tutoring many of the legendary Greek heroes including Achilles, Jason, Theseus, and Hercules. He meets his end at the hands of Hercules who, during a skirmish with unruly centaurs, accidentally wounds Chiron with an arrow poisoned with Hydra blood. Being immortal Chiron can’t die, but lives in agony until he selflessly barters his immortality for Prometheus‘ freedom (note: I have take small liberties with the original story in my depiction of events). Chiron subsequently makes appearances in other stories including Dante’s Inferno, where he guards the seventh level of hell, and in Goethe’s Faust.
Apr 132009
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Mar 202009
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From the story of Hercules and the centaur Nessus. More showing the digital progression of the piece here.
Mar 192009
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After a few more iterations on proportions as well as layering in some of the thin layers of muscle, veins and skin folds, the sculpture is getting close to completion. It still needs one more pass at a higher subdivision level to capture some fine details and break up the regularity of the surfaces. I may need to modify the pose a bit as well.
Image rendered with Hypershot.
Feb 202009
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Here’s a snapshot of the current state. I have done work to improve the gesture of the piece, trying to add more strength to the pose (rearing higher, chest out, arm back, twisted more, etc).
Also more attention to the legs – it is important to understand the bones, tendons, and ligaments in a horses legs, as they are the primary forms below the knee and elbow. Beyond this there is still a “softening” pass, that includes veins wrinkles and those small variations that keep anatomical forms from being perfectly smooth. And obviously I am going to have to address the hair and tail at some point. Perhaps soon?
Feb 202009
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If you are interested in this sort of thing, here is where the model started. Click on the images to see the complete evolution. On the far right you see I started with a base human model I have lying around and built a low-resolution horse proxy around it. This was fused (second image from R to L), and refined in Zbrush. The final ‘bind pose’, from Zbrush, is shown on the left.
Feb 172009
today – refinements all around. Anatomy revisions to the way the obliques and back connect into the horse’s body. Also refined the legs, increased the size of the rear hooves, adjusted the sculpting around the horse’s elbow, and moved the left arm back (not shown). getting closer…
Feb 162009
Here are a couple renders showing the point the upper body is at. For the most part, I am happy with the anatomy, there is still a bit of refining to do and another pass of details like veins and wrinkles, but the structure is sound. The next stage is going to be refining the details of the horse anatomy and then I will address the hair and tail, two parts that will give the piece a strong sense of motion (I hope).
Feb 122009
Here is an image from a current project, “Death of the Centaur”. The piece is still in progress, so I am starting a work-in-progress thread that will document the sculpture at various stages of execution, along with a couple time-lapse videos of the creation and preliminary sketches for the piece. You can find the WIP page here.
Feb 112009
here is the current state of the hind legs straight out of Zbrush. I am generally happy, but they are a little stumpy – a proportional error that snuck in during posing. There is also refinement still to do on the bones, tendons and ligaments in the lower legs. Right now they are very approximate. Beyond that there is work to do around the knee – re-establishing some of the boney landmarks that have gone a bit squishy. Finally, there will be a skin and veins pass, but this will wait till the very end.
Jan 072009
I will be presenting a two-day Artistic Anatomy Masterclass on 2-3 April 2009, at the Moving Picture Companies screening room in central London, sponsored by Escape Studios . The sessions will be VERY intense (but fun), so get your coffee, notepads and sketchbooks ready. I hope to see you there!
For more information and booking visit Escape Studios’ registration page
FOLLOW-UP
The April anatomy masterclass was a great success and every attendee left packed full of new anatomy knowledge. If you missed this course but are interested in attending a future masterclass in London please send me a quick note expressing interest. The more interest there is the sooner I can offer another course. Thanks!