Hey everyone:)

I hope that you are all doing well!

I just wanted to write a quick blog post to give an update on this New York building project and to let you all know that I have got a new job that I be starting at the end of the month.

Job Update

So after 2 years, yesterday was my last day working at Firesprite and It’s been an absolute pleasure to work at the company, I've made some great friends and memories whilst living in Liverpool and I've also being involved in some really awesome unannounced video game projects. They are currently hiring a lot of people and I really recommend applying!  

It was a tough decision to leave, however I've been offered an amazing role working on some cool VR games which I'm pretty excited about. Starting on the 26th of this month, I am now a Senior Environment Artist at nDreams.

Project Update

This brings me back to the personal project, I now have from today to the 26th to get has much personal work done has possible and really progress with the project. Since I made my original time plan, I added a lot more assets, characters and story to the project which meant the time plan was completely wrong. Another area that I misjudged was how long sculpting actually takes! A lot of the projects that I do, I don't really do much zbrush so with this project running everything through zbrush first for the high poly has really slowed me down. 

So where am I at with this project? Right now, I have the project broken down into these areas which are:

- Unique assets (all the assets that sculpted to be baked down and textured in painter including both hero props and generic props)

- Modular pieces (all the assets that I will just run tileable textures and edge decals over)

- Materials (brick, plaster and roof flooring designer materials)

- Foliage kit (all the foliage in the scene, trees, plants etc)

- Car Kit (few car models that will be retextured differently for variety)

- Story (level placement, lighting, setting up cameras, setting up project for the marketplace)

So far, I've got the good majority of the unique assets done with the low poly versions made too. I don't have zbrush on my personal PC so now I will need to wait to start the new job to get access to the program again, with this in mind I will finish sculpting the rest of the assets in a few weeks. The assets that I have left to sculpt are the stairs, doors, ac unit and then I want to make some small improvements to a few assets. 

My main focus now for the next two weeks is getting the modular pieces done, edge decals made and some of the materials. I will also try to get the props that I've made so far baked down and ready for texturing. Everything right now feels like slow progress but with the way I've done this, it will get to a point where all of this will come together all at once and it will go from block out to final pretty fast. 

 Here is a rough timeline for the project: 

- This month - Brick material, modular pieces done, majority of unique assets baked.
- Next month - Finish sculpting unique assets and get all the unique assets textured
- September- Foliage Kit and level placement
- October - Car Kit
- November - Camera work, setting up marketplace project.

This is a big project and progress can be slow when only doing a few hours in the evenings and on weekends, this time plan above is just a rough estimate and there is a chance some stuff could take longer. If this is the case I do run over into the new year a bit, I don't mind has I think the quality I'm aiming for with this project will be worth spending time on it and go for quality over quantity of projects.

In this image above, you can see a few more sculpts that I've done recently and an edge decal sheet that I will apply to the modular kit, I just need to make an alpha for it. The sculpted bricks I will use in substance designer for the brick material. The water tower asset still needs a little more work has I think I've done the middle cylinder too low poly of a shape so I'm going to brick this back to a smooth cylinder and just do some small dents instead. 

That's all for this blog post and I will try to do another one towards the end of the month to show the progress I've made in the weeks that I've had off.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,
Dom.
  

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I last posted an update on the blog about the stylized New York project that I'm working on. I've still been working on this but due to other aspects going on in my life such has work, new career opportunities and enjoying BBQ's in the nice weather after being in lockdown for so long, the progress has sadly been slow. I think working on personal projects are important but it's good to prioritize mental health, so I've been trying to get away from the PC whilst the weather is nice. I'm only a few week behind on my project plan, so I will still get the project done and dusted this year.

To make up for the lack of personal project posts, here is a trailer for the game that I've been working on with the talented team over at Rare that dropped at e3 yesterday.

To give an update on my personal project, I've nearly finished making all the sculpts and here are a few of them.

I'm still working on the lamppost and some models look half done due to the fact that I will just reuse elements, such has on the barrel, I only sculpted a few loops that I will then copy down the barrel.

I will do one more blog post to show off all the sculpts in the next few weeks. Once I've done that, I will be at the retopology stage which is really dull and a bit boring, so I won't be blogging throughout this period has really it's nothing interesting to view. I would rather do a few interesting blog posts than weekly ones that don't have much interest to them.

That's all for this blog post + Thanks for reading:)

All the best,
Dom. 

Hey:)

Here is another update on my current project, the last two weeks I have been sculpting away on my assets and I've managed to get a lot done. I still have a lot more to do so my next few updates will just be sculpts. I'm trying to do the project in stages so all the sculpts at once, then all the retop + bakes and then all the texturing.

The assets below are all just generic assets, I've not started any hero props yet. 

Above you can see the building kit, I showed you these sculpts on the last blog post, however I wasn't a huge fan of them so I decided to redo them. Honestly, I just wasn't spending enough time on each sculpts because of how much I still have to do, it can be a bit overwhelming but I need to remember that I've planned most of this year on this project and I don't need to rush them. The sculpts on the right side of the white line still needs another pass which I will be doing this week, along with some concrete flower pots I have made and the concrete stairs assets meaning that hopefully all the concrete elements will be done this week.
  

The main sculpts that I have done this week are the pavement assets, I wanted to get some variation and damage so I did several pieces and I'm pretty happy with these have turned out. The bottom right garden piece, I still need to sculpt which I will be doing this week. The tree base mesh, has a slab missing where the tree/ foliage will go.
  

To help speed up the project, I got all the metal railings from my meshes and put them together and did them has one pass. I tried my best to only sculpt reusable areas a few times rather than sculpting the whole meshes which is why the fire escape meshes don't look like complete meshes. I'm still to get feedback on metal assets so I may need to take another pass at these, I'm not sure yet. 
  

The final sculpts that I've been doing are the AC kit for the rooftops, I've done a square and a cylinder kit for variety. Yet again, I'm going to reuse the cap pieces throughout the meshes which is why them areas don't look sculpted on assets such as the square straight mesh.

Moving forward, I still have a long line of assets that needs sculpting which you can see on the list below.

I'm hoping to get all the small props pieces done in the next two weeks a long with a few door assets that I need to make. After that I'm then going to take a look at the hero assets which should be really fun. Hopefully, with all this practice on the small props that by the time that I come to do the hero assets they should hopefully be a lot easier to do and gain a lot better result.

That's all for this blog post and thanks for reading!

All the best,
Dom. 

Hey:)

It's been a few weeks since I last updated you all on the stylized New York project. In the last blog post, I was just about wrapping up all of the block out meshes and starting to do a proper project plan now that I have gotten Caleb to help out with the characters. You can find a link to his portfolio in the last blog post.

Our plan is to make a short video for the end result and we will be selling both this environment and the stylized characters has asset packs hopefully on the unreal marketplace once we are done. These last two weeks have been spent planning, creating storyboards and asset making. We have decided that we are going to keep the story to ourselves until the final drop which means that once all the assets are made, I will not be posting any blogs on the video making side of the project.

When it comes to planning this project, I separated my assets into three categories which are hero assets which are the main props, unique assets which are all the assets that will be sculpted in zbrush and have a bake and then building assets which are all the assets that will use a trim sheet and edge decals. 

In this image above you can see all my assets separated into each of the three groups mentioned above. Moving on to the time plan that you can see below, I have given myself 10 weeks to get all of the unique assets done and then five weeks for all the hero assets. I will then take some time off work to get all the materials, trim sheet and the main building done. I will be focusing on all the sculpting first for the unique assets which I have given myself three weeks for then I will retop, bake and texture the assets after. You can see in the image above, that I have broken the unique assets down into little sets so that I can work on one set at a time and it's more manageable. 

After that, all that is left to do is the foliage kit and the cars before moving on to doing the video. We are already considering what animation is needed for the video and we are asking people at work for help with this side of things. As mentioned in previous blog posts, this is a big project that will last most of the year but I really think the amount of portfolio work at the end of the project will be worth it and the biggest challenge now is just seeing this plan through. Whilst, I'm working on the environments, Caleb is busy making the characters and I think he will doing some blog posts on that side of things too.

Here are some close up shots of the props laid out.

Over the weekend, I have been working on the building set that you can see in the image above, this is assets like window, doors and wall trims. I have done a quick zbrush pass of these assets which can be seen in the images below.

These are just quick first pass sculpts that I plan on improving, I tried to keep the edges a bit softer for the concrete has I plan to use more harder edges for metal materials such as in the next batch of sculpts that I am doing which are the AC Vents. My next blog update will be sculpts for the AC vents, railings and pavements that can be seen in the image below.

That's all for this week and sorry that it's been a long post but there was a lot to show!

Thanks for reading:)

All the best,
Dom

Hey:)

Just thought I would do another blog post and share more work on this project. Over the last week there has been a lot of changes to the scope and timeline of this project. I have enlisted the help of my good mate Caleb that works at Firesprite with me and he will be doing some awesome character work on the project. We plan to do a small video at the end that really focuses on storytelling. You can see Caleb's portfolio here: https://www.artstation.com/calebobrien. 

The main difference visually for this last week is that I have now added a whole street level to the building whilst before I was only going to focus on the rooftops, you can see an image of this below. 

With the extension of the project to the street level there are now more props to complete which means that the time plan of the project will extend. Luckily, to help speed this up, I can use a lot of generic assets from my old projects to help set dress and all I will need to do is re-sculpt and texture them. This is assets such as bin bags, pallets, bins, benches and you can see an image of this below. 

I have a full asset list and there is a whole lot of work to done and some more cool hero assets such as cars and bikes that should be really fun to make. However, before sharing this to you all, me and Caleb are going to spend some time this weekend finalizing the plan of the project and adding the character work into the mix and then hopefully we can set milestones and deadlines for the project. 

You can see some more images of the project below in the meantime:

Currently, my main goal is to get all the assets blocked out so I know exactly what I need to finalise, once this is done, I will do a pass off the final modelling and then a Zbrush pass of all the assets. Soon, I think I may start to do one blog every two week has there will be less stuff to show has I start to focus on one model at a time.

I think that this project will take up most of the year to be honest which is sadly taking away from the planned concept art that I wanted to make, however, I will still get a lot of portfolio work this project, such as a post for each hero prop and hero material, a final post for the diorama and then another post for the final video that me and Caleb will make. I have another awesome project lined up after this one that will require a lot of concept and 3D work which I'm really looking forward to making. I have a lot of personal work planned over the next year and I just hope that I can keep up the motivation to do it all.

That's all for this week and in my next post, I will get a final asset list to you and hopefully a finished blocked out environment.

Thanks for reading!

All the best,
Dom.

Hey Everyone:)

I've been hard at work this week on my New York Rooftops project and I've managed to get the majority of my assets blocked out and you can see a few images of the modular kit in use below. 

Please bare in mind that at the moment all of these assets are just quickly modelled so that I could get the kit together, I will now need to go back through each asset and make an high poly sculpt for them. In my last post, I said my original plan was to do all this using trim sheets which is the better, more optimized approach but I may switch to unique sculpts for everything has the point of me doing this project was to show off some nice sculpted assets because my portfolio is lacking evidence of that at the moment. I'm still on the fence about this at the moment, so I'm going to move on to sculpting my main hero assets now which will give me a week or two to think this over.

In the image below, you can see the parts that make up this base kit and I've done my best to get variety so that I can make each building look different in the end result. I've made different variations of walls, wall trims, windows and windows trims to do this. 

As well as this kit, I still have lot of smaller elements to make such as ac units, vents, wires, flower pots, trash and more elements like this that will add more story to the environment.

That's all for this week and my next blog post will show the water tower hero prop that I'm doing and I will update you on a more accurate time plan has I'm thinking of releasing this kit of the Ue4 marketplace after I've finished so I will need to add extra time to get stuff set up for that. Thanks for reading!

All the best,
Dom. 

Hey Everyone,

This is the first week that I will be weekly blogging on my current personal work project that I introduced in my last blog post. This past week has been a slow one due to doing a lot of search for a star reviews for the Grads in Games competition. I've managed to do a few nights on the project this week which has mainly been planning and modelling.

I've started out by blocking out the main architecture modular kit and you can see a few images below:

I've kept the modelling very simple has I've decided that I'm going to use a trim sheet to texture this kit so all the edge chamfers and damage will come from the sculpting on the trim sheet. I'm going to do two trim sheets, one for all the concrete and another one that will have window variations, metal and a bit more concrete variation.

In the image below, you can see the plan that I quickly made of how I'm going to lay out the trim sheets.

In the first trim sheet, you can see I have a few variations of trim and generic damage along with some ornament variation. The windows on the second sheet, I will have two variants of see through/ dirty windows then I will place a plane behind the window glass that will be mapped to either blinds or curtains. The interiors are not the main focus of this piece and some will have ac units or flowers on the windows so I think that I will get away with it.

On top of this, I also collected more reference for the buildings and cherry picked what I wanted to use in the environment, you can see this below:

With the week just gone also being focused on the student reviews, this is now my first week that I will be solely working on this project so I hope to get a lot done and I'm going to count this week now has my first week on the project and will start to follow the time plan showed in my last blog post. I'm aiming to get everything blocked out, the architecture modular kit modelled and start to work on the trim sheet this week. I'm also going to add an extra week to the original project plan for the trim sheets. 

That's all for my update this week! Thanks for reading:)

All the best,
Dom. 

Hey everyone:)

I've just finished up working on my pirate themed concept that you can see below, so I thought I would write a blog post to show you my plans for my next project. 

I've been really enjoying doing these concept style images where I'm mixing game art techniques then painting over them in Photoshop afterwards. However, for my next project, I am going to be moving back onto creating another 3D real time environment inside of Unreal Engine 4 has this is my day job and want to make sure I'm keeping up my environment art skills.

A few years back, I did an art test for epic games which has inspired this next project. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to show the original test but what I'm going to do is redo the asset completely and change a lot of stuff to make it more my own concept, I will also be doing a full environment rather than one prop. 

The project that I'm going to be making a New York building/ rooftop modular kit in a mixture of the 'Sea of thieves'/ 'Fortnite' style. I will also have a few hero assets on top of the modular kit, I have done a really quick sketch of the environment below. 

I'm hoping that this project will take me around two months and I will be posting a weekly blog post at the end of every week to document my progress. I have roughly planned this project and broken down the asset list which can be seen below.

week 1- blocking out all the assets
week 2- making the architecture modular kit
week 3- brick texture
week 4- water tower hero prop
week 5- water tank hero prop
week 6- generic assets
week 7- lighting
week 8- feedback + changes

This is only a rough timeline and some things may go over and life may get in the way which tends to happen but I'm hoping to stick to this plan has much as possible. I have broken my assets down in to three areas, the architecture modular kit, generic assets and hero assets and you can see a list of these assets that I'm going to make below.

Architecture modular kit
- Door piece
- Window piece
- fire escape
- balcony trim
- Wall plain Piece
- corner piece
- drain pipe kit
- wall trim

Generic Assets
- Satellite Dish
-Ladders
-Skylight
- AC Vent Kit
- Planks of wood
-Trash/ debris

Hero Assets
- Water tower
- Water tank
- AC Unit


I will then do a nice brick material that mortar vertex paint blend and potentially set up all the shaders for world aligned snow.

The goal for this project is to show off some really nice stylized sculpt assets and I will move back on to doing some more realistic concepts afterwards. The final presentation for this project will be a few Artstation posts, one for each hero asset and the main brick material and then I will do one diorama image that matches the sketch above and I will then do a video flythrough of the kit in use in a full environment rather than in a diorama image.

It may seem strange that I'm switching between concepts and 3D projects and different styles but I'm trying to get an end result of a portfolio that shows the full game art workflow from concept to the final game environment in a range of styles which will hopefully help me gain a role as an Art director way later down the line.

That's all for the first post and thank you for reading! I will hopefully have all of these assets blocked out by the end of this week and I look forward to completing this project.

All the best,
Dom.

Hey Everyone:)

I hope that you are all doing well!

I just thought I would share some work in progress shots of my current personal project. I'm still playing around with composition and story but hopefully in the end these images will be one girl poisoning the other on a bright sunny day and the environment is set in the 1700's.

I have two variations of this image and I'm not sure which one to choose to take final, In the first image you can see one character passing a glass of wine to the other (imagine the wine glasses, not added them yet). 

  In the second image you can see the character to the left pouring the poison into the wine glass.

I'm still not 100 percent set on the story and compositions so if you have any ideas that could improve it please let me know! At the moment, I'm leaning more towards the second image has the story is more interesting but I think it's a shame to cover up the furniture behind the left character has I think that really sets the time period of the image.

I have to take a break from this project now whilst I do a bunch of student reviews for the search for a star, grads in games competition but once I have finished doing them I will be back to finish this project. My next steps will be sorting out the poses properly, remodelling the balcony railing and then start to texture everything before painting over the image.

This is just the interior shot, I plan to use the modular kit to make an exterior image after if I get the time.

I will keep you updated on how this goes!

All the best,
Dom.
  

Hey everyone:)

I hope that you are all doing well and keeping safe throughout the pandemic!

With 2020 over and done with, I thought I would take the opportunity to write a little life update blog and give you all an insight into what I've been up to and what projects that I have planned for 2021. If you have seen any of my projects before, you will know that I normally like to write blogs throughout my projects and show my progress. Over the past six months, I haven't wrote any blogs but I have been hard at work in the background learning new skills and workflows that will come in handy for the sort of projects that I want to do this year.

The last 6 months

Over the last six months, I have transitioned to permanently  remote working full time meaning that I was able to move back to my home town to be closer to the family. I have been really fortunate to be able to do this but it meant that personal work was slim whilst I packed up my life in Liverpool and moved into a new place near Leeds. In the new flat, I now have a separate room just for my office which is an absolute dream and it means that I'm happy to spend way more time at the pc doing personal work.

Personal work

I have a lot of projects planned and the goal for this year is to have a portfolio that shows a good range of 2D and 3D projects. The first half of this year is mainly going to be a lot of concept projects and one 3D diorama. In the second half of the year, I will take a few of these concepts and turn them into real time game environments. I really like doing concepts but my main job is a 3D environment artist so I need to make sure that I continue to improve them skills.

The sort of concepts that I plan to make are focused on storytelling and are more keyframe concepts. I really like these sort of concepts that Wojtek Fus does which can be seen here: ArtStation - The Verge, Wojtek Fus  If I can make images like that, I would be pretty happy with myself and I've tried my best to get this level of storytelling in my recent project that I just posted.

In the image below, you can see that I've started making my next project, this is a realistic style pirate building modular kit that I will use in three concept keyframes. The three keyframes will be two establishing shots and one interior shot. I'm not sure what program I will use for the final images has blender started to get a bit slow in my last project so I may go back to unreal for this next project. I hope to get these three concepts done by the end of next month. 

Current Work

I think it's good to reflect on your previous work now and again and below you can see my most recent project compared to a project that I did around 6/7 years ago, I think I was 18 at the time, I'm now nearly 26. I'm really happy with the improvement here and I'm looking forward to see what my progress will be like in another 6/7 years time.