The Art of SketchUp - part 1: Fantasy

Bryan K · 17 Oct 2014, 02:20

Wow. Some serious polygon work there.

pbacot · 17 Oct 2014, 03:31

Nice ruins. Have you been able to travel to archeological sites?

ken28875 · 21 Oct 2014, 16:22

@bryan k said:

Wow. Some serious polygon work there.

Haha, yes a lot...thanks Bryan.

@pbacot said:

Nice ruins. Have you been able to travel to archeological sites?

Thanks, Peter. Yes, I have been to Cancun archaeological sites (Chichen Itza, Tulum). I wish I could visit the Roman ruins in Italy, the Parthenon/Acropolis and other Greek temples, the Egyptian pyramids, Angkor ruins, etc.

What about you? Have you been to any of them?

Take care,

_KN

pbacot · 21 Oct 2014, 17:49

I've been to ruinas all around Mexico. Uxmal and Palenque are especially fantastical. Also Native American southwest ruins. Chaco Canyon is mind-altering.

Would like to see more in Asia. They've discovered more incredible city sites in Cambodia.

Scaled Borobudur in Java.

Although NOT ruins, I have also visited Balinese temples. Their work is fascinating.

ken28875 · 27 Oct 2014, 05:05

@pbacot said:

I've been to ruinas all around Mexico. Uxmal and Palenque are especially fantastical. Also Native American southwest ruins. Chaco Canyon is mind-altering.

Would like to see more in Asia. They've discovered more incredible city sites in Cambodia.

Scaled Borobudur in Java.

Although NOT ruins, I have also visited Balinese temples. Their work is fascinating.

Hi Peter,

Wow, that's awesome. I did not know you are into ruins and visited so many of them.

Hello everyone,

Here's another concept that is part of that ruin level in Skylanders Trap Team.

The color concept shows the background sill in blocking phase. The SketchUp wireframe was taken later therefore showing the finished model. I will post final color renders of that background in other views later.

Have a good week!

_KN

Nemesis · 29 Oct 2014, 09:31

Hello Ken.

As an engineer I like your industrial buildings for Sim-City, they look very accurate and have nice balance of details. Did you use some references for them?

hellnbak · 29 Oct 2014, 10:38

I really love your End of the World scenes. I read a lot, I have an entire room just for my books, and the biggest section is for my End of World books. They are all I've read for many years. I personally believe our demise will come about as a result of a Pandemic. Not from Ebola, but from a Superbug brought about by our overuse of antibiotics.
Did you know that the EMP from just two nukes placed properly above the U.S. would effectively throw us back to the stone age. Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.
Guess it hasn't, my computer seems to be working

faust07 · 5 Nov 2014, 11:52

Thank you for this detailed and inspiring images. To build entire cities with this city kits and visualize this, should be fun. But be sure to check before the "Brandenburger Building Code (BbgBO)" ...

ken28875 · 5 Nov 2014, 18:07

@nemesis said:

Hello Ken.

As an engineer I like your industrial buildings for Sim-City, they look very accurate and have nice balance of details. Did you use some references for them?

Hi Max,

Thanks for your kind words. Yes, I used references to design the Simcity buildings, but my architectural background certainly helped, too. Indeed, I worked as an architect doing designs for several years before quitting my job to become a concept artist in the game industry.

@hellnbak said:

I really love your End of the World scenes. I read a lot, I have an entire room just for my books, and the biggest section is for my End of World books. They are all I've read for many years. I personally believe our demise will come about as a result of a Pandemic. Not from Ebola, but from a Superbug brought about by our overuse of antibiotics.
Did you know that the EMP from just two nukes placed properly above the U.S. would effectively throw us back to the stone age. Frankly I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.
Guess it hasn't, my computer seems to be working

Hello Steve,

Thank you, glad you like the End of the World scenes. And thanks for the interesting anecdote of our demise.

Here are some of concepts for Simcity. You may have seen the color ones before. They were done for London. The black and white concepts are different options for London, Paris and Berlin.

Have a good day!

_KN

ken28875 · 22 Nov 2014, 10:29

@faust07 said:

Thank you for this detailed and inspiring images. To build entire cities with this city kits and visualize this, should be fun. But be sure to check before the "Brandenburger Building Code (BbgBO)" ...

@ Faust07: Thanks for your kind words and the "Brandenburger Building Code (BbgBO)".

Hi everyone,

Here are some interior concepts for Skylanders Trap Team.

SketchUp + V-Ray for Skp + Photoshop for the first render. The other ones are just raw screen caps from SketchUp.

Have a great weekend!

_KN

cotty · 22 Nov 2014, 12:40

Nicely detailed

Bryan K · 22 Nov 2014, 19:07

I am floored by your Sim City work.

The Skylander work is also excellent. I am always impressed by your texturing as well.

ken28875 · 14 Dec 2014, 19:33

@cotty said:

Nicely detailed

Thanks, Carsten. Yes,I really love details in all of my Skp models. Sometimes I get carried away and spend too much time focusing on details that I forget the big picture.

@bryan k said:

I am floored by your Sim City work.

The Skylander work is also excellent. I am always impressed by your texturing as well.

Thanks for your kind words, Bryan.

Hello everyone,

I dug into my Simcity concept folder and found a few more. I won't have anymore concepts for Simcity. These were some of the last ones I did for the game about 2 years ago.

These concepts were inspired by Brownstone architecture.

Enjoy and have a great week!

_KN

ken28875 · 25 Jan 2015, 06:55

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a great holiday. I wish you all the best for 2015.

Here's another concept I did for the video game Skylanders Trap Team.

Have a good weekend!

_KN

cotty · 25 Jan 2015, 07:11

great!

andyc · 25 Jan 2015, 07:23

Fantastic work. Great design ideas, beautifully presented as usual.
I always look forward to your updates Ken. Inspiring!

Cheers,

Andy

pbacot · 25 Jan 2015, 18:38

Thanks for the updates Ken. Like the wireframe!

How do you go about your textures for the SIM City demos? E.g. are the brownstone walls all one texture or separate for every brick or 2-3 textures separated by bricklike borders? And how do you go about acquiring or making the textures, e.g. if you need that tar roof texture?

jeff hammond · 25 Jan 2015, 19:12

@ken28875 said:

Hello everyone,

I dug into my Simcity concept folder and found a few more. I won't have anymore concepts for Simcity. These were some of the last ones I did for the game about 2 years ago.

These concepts were inspired by Brownstone architecture.

Enjoy and have a great week!

_KN

R_Gen_W1D2_Brownstone_05_01_Detailed_Concept

that looks like my house!

pilou · 25 Jan 2015, 19:20

LeMOG
A cool modeler about the old Paris and other towns! (site)

modelings (workflow etc)

ken28875 · 17 May 2015, 00:12

Thanks for your comment, Jeff.

Merci Pilou for the LeMOG's link. I saw his stuff before. Really nice and detailed.

@pbacot said:

Thanks for the updates Ken. Like the wireframe!

How do you go about your textures for the SIM City demos? E.g. are the brownstone walls all one texture or separate for every brick or 2-3 textures separated by bricklike borders? And how do you go about acquiring or making the textures, e.g. if you need that tar roof texture?

Thank Peter for your kind words and interest.

I used tileable/simless textures. I got them from CGTextures.com as well other websites. I usually open them in Photoshop and do some paintover, color correction, etc. to fit my needs.

As for the borders between the different types of bricks, I use the free hand pencil tool and draw them as you can see in the image below.

Have a great weekend!

_KN