The Art of SketchUp - part 1: Fantasy

ken28875

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

Level 325_Flynn_XP_view_01_concept.jpg

Level 325_Flynn_XP_view_01_skp.jpg

Nemesis

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

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

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

@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

C_Landmark_W3D2_BigBenGeorgian_01_01_DetailedConcept.jpg

C_Landmark_W3D2_BigBenGeorgian_02_01_DetailedConcept.jpg

C_Landmark_W3D2_BigBenGeorgian_03_01_DetailedConcept.jpg

ken28875

@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

Nicely detailed

Bryan K

I am floored by your Sim City work.

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

ken28875

@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

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

great!

andyc

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

Cheers,

Andy

pbacot

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

@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

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

modelings (workflow etc)

ken28875

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

pbacot

Thank you Ken. Real artistry indeed!

ken28875

@pbacot said:

Thank you Ken. Real artistry indeed!

You're welcome, Peter.

Hi all,

Here are some more concepts for the game Skylanders Trap Team.

This level is called Clock, where the players go through some clock mechanisms.

That was quite fun working on it. I will post more concept of the clock environment later.

SketchUp + V-Ray + Photoshop

Best,

_KN

cotty

@ken28875 said:

That was quite fun working on it.

Not only working on it, watching it here too!

pilou

Amazing game!

Maybe this can interest you ?