Progression Progression!

I'm still trying to figure out the layout, composition , level of details and the general concept of things. It's nice to just do fast and dirty speedmodels as it's quick to mock up new things and try out various designs. 

The latest direction is to remove the stone head, sad as it is (may the stone head rest in peace). The only reason why I kept the head in there for so long was to make it work with the "remake" of my old environment. Seeing as things have already changed a lot, it's no longer really just a simple remake, it's almost an entire different diorama piece. I'm now playing with a suggestion I got from one of my viewer (during a streaming session) to go for a ornamented door or just a carving in the mountain. Keep it simple, keep it clean. Let the diorama breath a little and lead the eye towards the pond/tree.

Blockout + Speedmodel iterations

Quick blockout is helpful for determine the initial layout and sizes, does't really tell me much about the composition or how the various individual object plays together. By iterating on each piece to the same amount of details all the time, moving in between the objects, it helps giving a hint on the potential final look. 

As with the head being out of the picture, I didn't end up wasting that much time and can continue on finding a solution that would fit the overall scene more.

A lot of my later speedmodels consist of super quick-low-res zbrush mehses, as the example to the right (latest speedmodel iteration). Sometimes I already have a library for speedmodel meshes and sometimes I have to make them quickly, like the tree example below (made quick speedmodel bark pieces to test out if it would be a potential look combined with roots).

 Cheers!

So new project! Thought it was about time to update the Art-blog with some WIP from the previous streaming sessions.

First stream was all about moodboard and reference gathering, putting pieces together and figuring out the direction for the scene. Keeping the theme and spirit of my old student project, while improving on overall layout and composition. I quickly made a blockout to starts to visualize the shapes and construction (I can't draw so I always do blockout in several steps, but always start with really blocky shapes).

So the diorama kinda increased in size (I always start grand and then scale down). Last stream I took the blockout a step further and started to refine and improve on it, making very rough and quick shapes in zbrush, to see the silhouette a bit better. This process also helps me determine which pieces that should be modular and what requires a more unique touch. 

So the layout is starting to shape up, but there quite some steps left before I feel that I am done with the 3d concepting phase and can move onto some proper modelling. At the moment I have a Nordic setting with some star gazing stone to the side, a gigantic stone carved head (I know looks like a creepy baby face right now!), wooden logs to form a stair; sunken into mud, mossy cliff formation in the background with some rune stones ornaments. 

So next step is to grasp the story. Why and for what purpose did someone build this? Is it a ceremonial? A meeting place? Maybe they just started construing everything and nothing is really completed yet?

I also started to consider using Unreal Engine for this project, instead of the initial plan to render it in Marmoset Toolbag as the old diorama is. I feel I might need material blending and be able to paint moss etc, something that isn't really supported in Marmoset (there are some community made scripts though.) However, it was a long time ago I used Unreal, so that would be something I need to investigate in before starting to import the blockout pieces into an engine.

Until next update, cheers! 

"Det va länge sedan!" As we would say in Swedish. It's been long hours of work in the summer heat, but there's finally lights in the end of the tunnel. It started quite hectic for me, 5 moths at DICE have passed by in a blink of an eye. Battlefield V is almost done, and we can finally start going back to our everyday life after work.

Yesterday I started streaming again (Yes finally after being radio silent for a while!) I have a new streaming schedule that I will update now and then, but for now I will mostly keep it on Tuesdays. Hopefully I will be able to squeeze in some more days here and there.

(Speed sculpt of a ham on a plank stabbed with a knife! Why?! Well hat's how my throat felt yesterday due to my cold)

So as a new fresh start of the season I decided to start on a new project! I saw that the artstation challenge started again and considered participating in one for real this time. But! Since I'm quite aware that life has it's ways of getting-in-the-way, I decided against it. Instead, while pondering on what to do next, I looked at my old student work and thought "urk what the actual f--- did you think when you created this":

(4 year old student piece, that I will remake with my new mastered skills!!)

Some of you have probably seen it on my Artstation page and/or portfolio. It is an old student project of mine, 4 years old now (☉_☉) (time just fly!!) We had to make something for the Zbrush course in school (yes I was learning Zbrush with this piece) and I was also panicking as I needed something for my portfolio. Quixel came out at that time as well, so I baked it down on dirty geo and just slapped on procedural materials, put a light in marmoset and voilà! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  So what's with this story then? Well! My new project is to make a new diorama with the same type of theme, Nordic (but proper Nordic and no "mumbo jumbo"... can anyone see the Asian inspired dragon in there...*face palm*) So starting next week, I will stream while working on a brand new project :)

Cheers! <3

So it's summer and even in Sweden we are melting in the heat!

I started my new job at DICE just 2 month ago (exactly on the day on Saturday 14th of June woop woop!). I have been quite busy with learning the ropes but I have still tried to be online and stream once a week.

I'm now working on a new piece, since I finished the skull barrel one already! (Yay!)

This time the concept is from Becca Hallstedt, a stylized crossbow. I'm making it in a similar fashion as the skull barrel, same type of stylization :)

Below are some WIP pics from my stream and the current state of the project. Only thing left to do now is the cloth pieces and the ropes, which I plan to wrap up in the next streaming session.

First blog post here at Artstation!  I have a lot of updates I want to share, but who would read a 5000+ word long blog post, right? So I decided to link my recent articles I have been working on and then just start to use this blog to post frequent updates!

So I quite recently released two articles at 80LV! It covers the methods and know-how of our approach to the stylization in realism of the art in Apex Construct as well as one for VFX and animation breakdown.

Apex Construct. Part 1: Stylization in Realism

Apex Construct Part 2: VFX, UI and Animation in VR

If you are interested in reading more about realism and stylization, I wrote an article last year covering my take and methods for working with realism and stylization. It's an article I wrote as a summary of my breakfast talk I held at DICE, If you like to read it you find a link below!

Realism vs Stylized

Speaking of DICE, many thought when the article was first published (and a lot of people asked) that I was an Artist at DICE. At that time I was still working for Fast Travel Games, developing Apex Construct. Well I am very excited to say that I am actually starting to work at DICE in May! So hopefully I will be sharing some cool stuff from there the coming year!