The Art of SketchUp - part 1: Fantasy

ken28875

I like the Iron pine forge!

Great job as ever!

@ artysmedia: Thanks, Roberto. I hope all is well.

Here's a tree I modeled in Sketchup and brought into Vue for the 3D Environment 2011 competition I entered a couple of months ago. Unfortunately my render was not selected. But it was fun to do. The image below is actually a postwork in PS adding the foreground, waterfalls and some birds that could not be done for the original entry as the rule forbid any kind of postwork.

More stuff form the game Rift. I still have tons of them and will post them whenever I have time.

Thanks for stopping and have a wonderful week!

Best,

_KN

Sketchup for Sci-Fi Art:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=27030&p=337096#p337096
My interview with Sketchupartists.org:
http://www.sketchupartists.org/spotlight/artists/sketchup-art-in-the-online-game-industry/

artysmedia

Yours Avatar's image is great, but i think the man has his left leg a little misplaced...

hellnbak

What can I say, your work is amazing! I especially like the tree, I attempted to make a gnarled old tree several time, failed miserably. Any tips or secrets you'd like to reveal??

pilou

Your gallery is truelly amazing!

mesadesign

Awesome Work!

solo

WOW!!!!

swedishnitro

Awesome, I didn't realise a lot of RIFT was developed in Sketchup! A conversation I keep having with people (particularly architects) is that they feel SU is a children's programme, which it's anything but. Seeing amazing stuff like this just gives me more answers to take on the naysayers. Keep up the great work.

manwe

@ken28875 said:

@liam887 said:

@fabrice de lyon said:

Great job!
Could you explain what tool you use to model cloth ?

Whatts, SDS or Artisan perhaps? http://artisan4sketchup.com/

@ Fabrice and Liam: Thanks for your comments. The answer to the question is d)none of the above. I do have SDS and Artisan, alghough I don't use them a lot in my Sketchup modeling workflow yet. I use basic "Box Modeling" or "Polygon Modeling" for most of my hard surface models and architecture stuff. For the cloths and most of my organic shapes (and sometimes for hard surface modeling too), I use a technique similar to "Nurbs Modeling" or "Spline and Patches". TIG's Extrude Edges tools and TGI3D work wonderfully to create faces/mesh and for moving vertices.

Few posts ago you were writing about your modeling techniques. I wonder if you could record a video showing your modeling methods while you are using Sketchup. I'm not asking you for tutorial, just for show. I know that you are pro, and working with Sketchup is your job so it can be impossible.

Sorry for possible mistakes. I’m not English native speaker.

alvis

Unlimited fantasy and extraordinary ability

irwanwr

@swedishnitro said:

Awesome, I didn't realise a lot of RIFT was developed in Sketchup! A conversation I keep having with people (particularly architects) is that they feel SU is a children's programme, which it's anything but. Seeing amazing stuff like this just gives me more answers to take on the naysayers. Keep up the great work.

that's what often i heard from most friends of mine which are also architects and civil engineers
even my brother

i like that forest image. especially those trees and cliffs
keep up the good work

michaliszissiou

@solo
What is so wow on this image? Another rather expected boring vue render.
Otherwise, this artwork, this modeling, is excellent. As expected from this gifted artist.

pilou

@unknownuser said:

I have been working on the newest version of Simcity, designing and concepting architecture.

That's a cool news!

Ghalko

That is awesome! Sim City has to be one of my all time favorite games.

ken28875

**Hi guys,

Sorry for the late reply (as usual... ). Things have been quite busy with work and family.

I don't think I have mentioned it before. I left Trion Worlds last summer to pursue other career opportunities. I have been doing some freelance works for a facebook game using Sketchup for architectural concepts. I will post some images whenever I have the chance.

Electronic Arts/ Maxis Studio has contacted me and hired me to work on a new game back in December. It's for an unannounced game that was actually announced during the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco a few weeks ago. So I can say it now: I have been working on the newest version of Simcity, designing and concepting architecture. It's quite different from the fantasy and sci-fi stuff that I did before. I hope I will be able to post some images soon.

A few replies to some of you:**

@artysmedia said:

Yours Avatar's image is great, but i think the man has his left leg a little misplaced...

>> That's correct. It's a test to see if people will notice. You're the winner. J/K....You have an eye of an eagle...thanks for seeing the mistake. I will fix it when I have time.

@hellnbak said:

What can I say, your work is amazing! I especially like the tree, I attempted to make a gnarled old tree several time, failed miserably. Any tips or secrets you'd like to reveal??

>> Steve M: Thanks for you comment. I am glad you like my work. About the gnarled branches: draw with the line tool,Arc tool, BZ_Toolbar (classic bezier curve) to create the path of you tree or branch, then use Draw a Taper plugin.

@unknownuser said:

Your gallery is truelly amazing!

>> Merci, Pilou. Bonne journee!

@mesadesign said:

Awesome Work!

>> Thanks for your comment, mesadesign.

@solo said:

WOW!!!!

>> Thanks, Pete.

@swedishnitro said:

Awesome, I didn't realise a lot of RIFT was developed in Sketchup! A conversation I keep having with people (particularly architects) is that they feel SU is a children's programme, which it's anything but. Seeing amazing stuff like this just gives me more answers to take on the naysayers. Keep up the great work.

>> Thank you, Jordan. No, Rift was not developed with Sketchup. It uses its own game engine. I use Sketchup for concepting and building models that will be exported into the Rift game engine for testing/previzualisation. My Skepchup models are used by modelers as reference to build the final 3d assets in Maya.

@manwe said:

Few posts ago you were writing about your modeling techniques. I wonder if you could record a video showing your modeling methods while you are using Sketchup. I'm not asking you for tutorial, just for show. I know that you are pro, and working with Sketchup is your job so it can be impossible.
Sorry for possible mistakes. I’m not English native speaker.

>> Pawel: I don't have a video recording software installed on my computer and I don't really have time to make tutorials, but I hope I will do some in the future. However, if you have specific questions, please email me and I will reply to them when time allows. Thanks.

@alvis said:

Unlimited fantasy and extraordinary ability

>> Thanks for your nice comment, Alvis.

@irwanwr said:

i like that forest image. especially those trees and cliffs
keep up the good work

>> Thank you, Irwan. Glad you like that image.

@michaliszissiou said:

Otherwise, this artwork, this modeling, is excellent. As expected from this gifted artist.

>> Thanks, Michalis. I really appreciate your comments.

Okie, here are some more images of 3d concepts I did for Rift.

**Thanks everyone for stopping by and viewing my work. Have a wonderful week!

_KN**

Sketchup for Sci-Fi Art:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=27030&p=337096#p337096
Interview with Sketchupartists.org
http://www.sketchupartists.org/spotlight/artists/sketchup-art-in-the-online-game-industry/

ken28875

@unknownuser said:

@unknownuser said:

I have been working on the newest version of Simcity, designing and concepting architecture.

That's a cool news!

>> Merci, Pilou!

@ghalko said:

That is awesome! Sim City has to be one of my all time favorite games.

Thank, Bryan. I hope I will be able to post some images in the near future.

**Hey guys,

I hope all is well.

I just had an interview with Nomer from Nomeradona Sketchup Vray Resources. Most of you probably heard of him. He is one of the best Vray for Sketchup users out there. Anyway, I would like to thank him for the interview.

You can read more here:**
http://sketchupvrayresources.blogspot.com/2012/05/q-and-with-our-featured-artist-ken.html

There are a few images that were not posted anywhere else, but exclusively for this interview, like the one below.
Sketchup + Vray + Photoshop

**Have a great day!

_KN**

Sketchup for Sci-Fi Art:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=27030&p=337096#p337096
Interview with Sketchupartists.org
http://www.sketchupartists.org/spotlight/artists/sketchup-art-in-the-online-game-industry/

iichiversii

Iv never seen this post before, but I'm glad I came across it now, your work is fantastic and just by studying your images iv learned so much, I'm looking forward to future posts on this, ill be watching this post closely, well done

urgen

...Ken,really COOL! thank you.

ken28875

@iichiversii said:

Iv never seen this post before, but I'm glad I came across it now, your work is fantastic and just by studying your images iv learned so much, I'm looking forward to future posts on this, ill be watching this post closely, well done

>> Hi Damien. Thanks for your nice comment. I am glad you are able to learn a trick or two from my sketchup models. Feel free to ask questions. However, it might take a little bit of time for an answer since I am quite busy with work and family.

@urgen said: