Creatures Community Chat

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Artwork: Time to leave the ship

For those of you who have been reading my gibberish for the past few months, you've probably picked up that I breed Norns in my spare time, and that my day job is in fact a 3D artist.

Well I've just finished off a major project spanning about 6 months and I've got a little bit of a break in between starting my next one. I've also realised it's been far, far too long since I did any of my own work and with the release of Grandroids in the (hopefully) not too distant future I felt compelled to make some artwork related to Creatures and/or Grandroids.

While I was working on 'The Island' in Unity3D I found it quite beneficial to write about my progress, both as a means of establishing my thoughts and as a way of encouraging me to continue my work. You'd be amazed how inspirational it is to have even a small number of people interested in your work and the extra pressure you put on yourself to make regualar updates in an attempt to satisfy your audience.

So I thought, why not try the same thing with any project I tackle? Why not try this progress blogging with a 3D piece? And considering the next piece I want to tackle is Creatures related, why not just use this blog?

So, without further babble, here's the initial concept I have for the next piece I have dubbed 'Time to leave the ship':



I'm not a particularly good sketcher (another of the things I like to work on in my spare time) so instead I try and piece together my concepts from other inspirational works. The background geenery is all chopped up from works done by one of the guys I watch on DeviantArt, Nukeation. His work takes a lot of influence from Valve's 'Half-Life' series. If you have a DA account I'd really recommend checking him out.

So the idea behind this piece is that the release of Grandroids is likely to mark the death of the Creatures series. The Creatures Community has stuck it out for many years, despite the shrinking population and the lack of assistance from the company, creating many beautiful works in the process. But come the release of Grandroids I can see there will be a shift in the community, and although Creatures and the Norns, Grendels and Ettins will always have a very special place in our hearts, most people will give up playing Creatures in lieu of the smarter and more interesting Grandroids.

Those of you who followed the Creatures story know that the Shee took their creations and left for another planet, but the story never reached it's climax and arrived at this new world.

So I thought, as a final farewell piece to the Norns that have given me so much enjoyment over the years, why not let them finally reached their new home? One last final act where we can release our Creatures into the wild of this exciting new planet before moving on to bigger and better things.

Here's the progress I've made so far on the 3D piece:







And here's some of the initial lighting I've started:




And yes, the Norn in those pictures is Tiggy, my first ever Norn.

2 comments:

  1. How can you say that the CC is dieing? well maybe it is but thats not the point! Maybe I'm over optimistic...

    Great Picture btw Can't wait till it's done.

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  2. Thanks Pirate-Rob. Been playing around with those camera settings and I'm pretty close to getting everything in the shot I'd like. I've also playing around paint effects in Maya and I've learned a couple of tricks to make things behave much more nicely. Should be able to get some good work done on it in the future.

    Maybe dying isn't the right word, but the CC has been in decline for years. It's truly remarkable it's been kept going as long as it has.

    But with the coming of Grandroids and the potential to build new creatures and worlds, I can see the CC rising again with a host of new members. Only this time it'll be the GC. Can't wait for it!

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