O'Donnell's sketchbook

[Xenzo]

I got that new gumroad video from Anthony jones, followed along and tried to understand what he's doing. So much fun; Love this stuff!!

[Nowio]

That snowy environment on the last page? Awesome! :D

Heya, great sketchbook! Haha I dig the armor dude, hope AJs gumroad is helping ;)

[Xenzo]

Nowio - Thanks man! Aj is awesome love his stuff too much :)

So i've tried to apply stuff from memory so frustrating!! - 90% of the heads on here are from memory, then couple of the creatures are from a harry potter book , tried drawing them from different angles aswell.

[Xenzo]

Just finished up the last blockout for this Dominic Qwek tutorial, spend a good few hours following along, taking notes and trying to understand everything he's doing. It was very difficult and I had a fair few hair pulling moments! He's a great teacher though and this tut is a goldmine of knowledge.

So the next stage is evaluating the blockouts, he picks this one though so i'll be learning how to take this to finish with keyshot etc.

[Xenzo]

Couple of monster things, first one is a spitpaint 'infected grizzly'
Second is a bit longer just started of trying to find random forms for practice

[Xenzo]

Some recent studies

[Xenzo]

This is a late night sketch experiment, trying some new techniques after spending the day in zbrush

[Xenzo]

More sketching, The McGregor Monster!

[IrishWhiskey]

Holy shiz balls! your style is amazing!

you should tweet or send "The McGregor Monster" to Conor and see if you get a reply because that picture is unreal! 

i really look forward to your future updates!

[Xenzo]

@ IrishWhiskey Cheers man! Great idea I just tweeted him there, you never know haha! :)

Haven't been to active the past week been away at a funeral and now a christening today but got a couple of bits in , started the Sam Nielson's advanced lighting course on schoolism, it's awesome! This was the week one assignment.


And then sketched around creeper, love doing these!

[Bookend]

Oh wow, amazing values man. Really cool. Don't stop!

[Xenzo]

@Bookend - Thanks a million man! :)

So just finished up the week 2 assignment for Sam Nielson's course, brilliant so far - loving his approach.
I spent way too long on this but felt it was necessary to correct as many of my mistakes as possible, and try and understand where I was going wrong. It's difficult inventing lighting like this.

[5e8i]

dude, the amount of work you are doing is realy inspiring. you got the IT.

[Bookend]

Really interesting way to approach lighting, I think. Looks good! Hope to see more.

[Xenzo]

@5e8i - It never feels like enough man! I've so much I want to do, but just setting little goals each day I think helps a lot.

@Bookend -Indeed check out the course if you get a chance and thanks! 

So Week 3 was based around reflectivity etc, with some of the lectures my brain was ready to explode - he goes quite in depth into the science of how it all works. 

So the assignment was this ,to make a chrome ball and two other objects that were not so reflective fit into this environment. First image I went straight into after the lectures to see how far I could get from imagination. Then the 2nd image was after looking at some critiques and then I applied those corrections to my own. Onto Week 4!

[Xenzo]

This is from the week 4 assignment, In this section I learned about - transparency, translucency, subsurface scattering, refraction, caustics, chromatic aberration and iridescence. Brain exploding stuff! :/ So this was the assignment. So onto week 5!

[Xenzo]

Some more work from Sam Nielson's course, this was the week 5 assignment - the focus was fur/hair and to keep thinking about all the things from the previous weeks.  First one is the file he gave us and then my version. Onto week 6!

[Agerkvist]

Hey man, the stuff from the AJ tuts is looking really good - just keep at it and those awesome values will soon be even more awesomer! :P

I think on the latest one you did really well with the fur - looks pretty photorealistic. Impressive if it was all hand painted. The hair doesn't have the same level at all tho and that's really too bad :)

[Bookend]

Agreed with Agerkvist-- You're gonna want to put the most level of detail into your focal point (In this case, the awesome monster's face and/or expression). When you go in and do the fur, we're impressed with this quality, and it looks awesome-- But it also detracts from the main view. So, bring up the detail and it'll be rockin'.

And keep it up!

[Xenzo]

Agervist - Cheers for the kind words, yeah by the time I was finished with the fur I think I got lazy haha tried to just get the right values etc with it. 
Bookend - Cheers man yeah it was just laziness really I wanted to move onto the next project :)

So i've been inactive for a while, i've gotten a few gigs with a German company, biggest job i've ever got - unfortunately the images are under NDA right now. I can't wait to show them :)

This is something i've been working on recently a personal piece, still nowhere near finished - still lots to do on it but I thought i'd share :) As always any thoughts are welcome ! Cheers