Coen! You made my head explode.

(it's a good explosion though, thanks!)

I think I get what you're saying, and I don't know if I see huge time savings. I still have to draw the contour, which in itself is not a precise process (given my rough sketch). In the end, I still tweak Almost every CV, so there's still a lot of work to be done.

Or maybe I'm missing something? I'll re-read your post a few times and perhaps it'll click. I'll have a new post showing my latest progress today.

Perhaps Alan F has some tidbits to share as well, because he's a madman the way he cranks out the human figures.

Here's an update to the Sam character model.

I started modeling a new character for my comic, Fuel & Fire. Consider this a work in progress. More updates will follow, both here and on my blog.

You can learn some of her important details on my blog and see a sketch of her garb:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=298

As of this post I've only done about 60 minutes of actual modeling work. You can view that time (compressed to 10 min) on youtube:

I posted an image showing the end results after my 60 minutes on my blog:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=305

Thanks for the tutorial, Richard! This will add a lot to my vehicles!

Holy Cow, dude. Those welds rock! I assume you don't like how the lines pop compared to the rest of the line work. I'm just marveling at the detail. Beautiful stuff.

I'd love to know your technique for creating those welds. I have some ideas on how to do it, but you seem to have perfected them. I'd love to put some welds on some of my cars models (for close up renders).

I've been using mine for a year and haven't needed to change the tip.

Also, the Intuos comes with extra tips in the box. Not sure about the other models.

RegH, good point about the mouse. Mine came with one as well, and I actually don't use it. I think it's still in the box. Plenty of my artist friends still use them. I just happen to really like my current mouse.

@unknownuser said:

would a graphire tablet be ok for serious image editing?

The main difference between the models is the resolution of the tablet itself, and the range of the pen pressure. A serious photoshop user will want the higher range in both categories. Pen pressure sensitivity is something like 512 for the cheaper models, and 1024 for the higher end. Plus with the Intuos you get the grip pen which in my opinion is more comfortable than the smaller pen.

Also, it depends on what you mean by "serious image editing." If you mean that you edit photos or renderings, than the graphire might work for you. But if you do a lot of painterly editing or do hand drawn elements, than the Intuos would be better.

My recommendation - if you have a widescreen monitor, or use a dual monitor set up, get the wide screen tablet. I had bought a regular tablet (before they had the widescreen model) and it felt weird to me, because the motion is scaled across the two monitors. The movement of the pen to screen isn't as natural.

Most of the artist I work with (and I work with a lot) use the 6 inch tall range of tablets. Mostly because that's the scale they draw in if they are not on the computer, so it emulates their natural drawing motion. So if you draw or paint outside the computer, you might want to think about that as your comfort range.

@unknownuser said:

Monsterzero- nice vid, but the navigation looks odd- it seems to orbit extremely fast back and forth. Did you sped up the frame rate of that video for posting or is the response of the tablet much quicker than a mouse?

Those videos are sped up quite a bit. But I do find that using the tablet has made some actions faster. A flick of the wrist, or circular motion is more precise and is less strain on my wrist than a mouse.

If you have any issues with wrist pain, or RSS you might try a tablet.

I've tried out the Cintiq and I really want one. But I like my setup now. The one problem with the Cintiq is the screen refresh of certain programs. Because you have a direct response from your drawing to pen, you notice the lag between drawing a long arc, circle or line. You'd get used to it I'm sure. The lag is the same with a desktop tablet, but it's not as noticeable because the hand motion, and the screen results are separated.

I bought a tablet for photoshop, and now I use it for Sketchup and Maya. The tablet I have is a Wacom Intuos 3 6x11 (because I have a dual monitor setup).

The tablet has been great with SU. I do a lot of little edits and it's nice to just tap around the model and select items. It takes more work to drag a mouse around and click, IMHO. The one issue that I've become very comfortable with is the zoom tool. With a tablet you don't have a roller on the pen. So you have to shortcut or select the zoom tool. I do everything in shortcuts so that was a natural fix for me.

I've had the tablet for a year, and for the past 10 months the mouse has become an alien device for me. I use the tablet for everything and my mouse sits to the side and is rarely used.

You can check out my youtube videos for a glimpse at how I work with a tablet and SU.

Sweet stuff! Wow.

Canoek, great water color!

I know you're not complete on the project, but I have one question. The house itself is grand, yet the interior shots you've shown feel confined. Was there a reason for this? Am I missing something?

Right now I live/work here:
http://www.google.com/maps?q=Redwood+City,+CA,+USA&ie=UTF8&ll=37.433108,-122.320082&spn=0.015727,0.026822&t=k&z=16&om=1

I'm in the process of looking for a new workplace and possibly home, so trees may not be in my future.

Wow, Ivica! Sweet stuff! Nice character design! I love the monochromatic background you have on that image. Your designs do very well in shadows and rendering. I'd love to see how you set that up!

There are a lot of costs associated with a project like this. If I self publish the printing will set me back ~10 grand. Shipping books, promotional costs, shows, and PR all cost something. That's not including my time to make the book.

I do well in my career, so I'll cover those costs. I'm perfectly willing to pay for all it because that will give me the most flexibility and control. When it's close to done, I'm going to pitch it to some comic publishers. If I can get a good deal, and still retain the overall rights I'll do that. The benefit of that, of course, would be that they would absorb the cost of printing, but more importantly they would have major distribution. I don't have that ability myself. The more shops stock the book the more potential for sales of course.

There's a saying in Hollywood that I love, "Never spend your own money."

@unknownuser said:

Thanks for the explanation Justin!

Those poor SketchUp Developers at Google... and all they ever wanted was to make a 3D program which could accelerate the work of an architectural CAD designer.

I was just at another http://www.sketchcrawl.com/ yesterday (#15) and someone commented on my SketchUp stuff. They wondered if SketchUp was helping me out with my work (funding wise). I said, yeah right, those guys have bigger fish to fry than support a guy who uses their program for inappropriate craziness like I am.

As I look at the image I find the right arm too long and exaggerated for my taste. It's a product of the FOC (~54 degrees) and the camera angle. These tests show the rough side of the figuring this stuff out, and I get to find out what to stay away from for the final product.

Coen -
For this model I worked with this process (not much different than usual):

• Did a paper sketch of the face and shoulders.

• Scanned the sketch and used it in SU while I built the head model (heads are weird and I do not t use the tube method described below)
• Using the head model as a scale reference point, I traced out the major shapes of the body and extruded them (much like this method in my blog post *). I do this to visually test out the the figure in 3 dimensions. My hand drawn art can hide a lot of things and might not translate well to a real world model.

• I print out the 3D blocking of the body and using animation paper, I trace out the shape and design the clothing and any other distinctive items.
• Using both the basic blocking and my hand draw sketch I build out sectioned tubes and scale them up and down to match front and side profiles (like in this blog post). The blocking out shapes in step 1 are thrown out at this point.
• I then go in and fine tune the sections and shape out the major details; muscle groups, clothing details etc (much like the video in this post). The tube sections are important and you need to have enough to build out the details you want to make.
• When done import into Maya for rigging.

Thanks everyone!

Here's a new image.

I'm 99% done with rigging him up. Wow, it's been fun. Time to make some real scenes.

Just for you Coen:

Oh, and anyone else who happens to spy this thread.

This most interesting and fun part of this process is the art of picking out which lines to show (smoothing and hardening). I was worried that this model wouldn't have enough poly lines to aid in the expressions, but I think it's working out pretty well.

Thanks everyone.

@unknownuser said:

I'd like to see a shot with Hidden Geometry on.

Coen, that might get ugly

The truth is; the model is pretty unkempt in SU, and the process of generating blend shapes make for even uglier geo. A jumble of triangles! It can be pretty scary, especially if you want to render it with textures or with any realism. Doing this test, allows me to understand how it might look and work in the end product (to be fair this is quite a bit more work than a your typical test).

CraigD - no textures. That would be just too much work for my own little mind, and my own little time. I do have some upcoming rending questions I'll be shooting your way

I got a request for a video, so I'll be working on that later today sometime. Coen that might fulfill your wish.

Eric, I like watching my own videos, because sometimes they make my own head explode - in a good way. It's like fanning a fire.

> Modeled character in SketchUp

Created expressions in Maya using Blend Shapes
Imported back into SketchUp
Smoothed and exposed/hid various poly lines

You can see a few more shots on my blog:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=383

This comic thing might actually work

Wow. I totally missed this thread. I fear that I might get flamed but here goes.

I read the article, and I feel like some things were lost in this thread:

@unknownuser said:

Over sixteen-hundred viewers watched his attackers taunt and punch him around the head on YouTube, the most successful video broadcast website. Yet no-one used the complaint system to have it taken down. We did and it was removed.

@unknownuser said:

However, the brands have all told Panorama that they knew nothing of the adverts - and have since ensured that they have been taken down.

@unknownuser said:

Almost all blamed rogue advertising networks for putting them onto the website. Both Carphone Warehouse and O2 have sacked the advertising networks responsible.

@unknownuser said:

"Upon investigation, it transpires that one of our online advertising networks mistakenly advertised TalkTalk on Pure Street Fights due to a technical error on their part. This was a breach of contract and we immediately cancelled out contract with this network."

An "open system" like this can be hard to move quickly. It appears the voices are being heard. I'm not defending Google, they are a big company. I am defending our voice. I'm sure they have caring people on their staff. If you don't like what's happening, write a letter to them and their advertisers. This forum is a great example of those voices.