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CGArena

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 4, AUG - SEP 09

Get Attention in the Computer Graphics Community

PAINTER INTERVIEW PHOTOSHOP


Portrait of a Magic Warrior Marta Dahlig Making of Radhey Shyam

GALLERY ZBrush 3DS MAX


Latest 3d inspiring art Making of DinoMonster The Dreams of Street Cat
VOL

Get Attention in the Computer Graphics Community


Volume 4, Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009

Issue Contents

05 Interview Marta Dahlig


15 3D Challenge Accident
20 Photoshop Making of Radhey Shyam
30 ZBrush Making of DinoMonster
38 3ds Max The Dreams of Street Cat
48 Painter Portrait of a Magic Warrior
54 Gallery Showcase of latest 3D art

Magazine Edited: Ashish Rastogi, India


Magazine Cover Image: Barnali Bagchi, UAE/India
Magazine Design: Yousef Ikhreis, Jordan

www.cgarena.com Page 2
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Industry News
CGArena

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The course covers everything from basic visual effects to advanced tech-
niques. This is training that everybody needs, from Directors and DPs to
highly professional Visual Effects Artists.

www.cgarena.com Page 3
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Interview with
CGArena

Extremely against
Marta Dahlig the nude shots
which are chauvin-
istic, disrespectful
or devoid of any
Q. Hello Marta, can you give our readers a short in-
troduction please; age, location, employment etc? thought

Hello! :) I am 23 years old and live in War-


saw, Poland. For my official employment,
a “regular” full time job – I currently work
as a media planner at MPG media agen-
cy. I know – not too artsy... In fact, it’s an
extremely analytic, number-crunching job.
Maybe it doesn’t fit well with the image but
I like the challenge the contrast is giving
me…

Illustrating I do out of passion. Currently I


work as a cover illustrator for a few Ger-
man publishing houses as well as prepare
tutorials for Future Publishing’s ImagineFX
magazine on a nearly monthly basis.

Q. You are doing a professional paint-


ing from many years, so you started it
just as a hobby or did you see the po-
tential for your career?

I started painting since my early childhood


and treated it as a hobby for many years,
never seeing it as a potential career path.
At the age of 15, I moved into digital media
out of curiosity and will to experiment, still
with no intention to become professional.
However, soon after I discovered all the
possibilities standing before a CG artist
and became tempted At the same time,
however, I still wanted to try other things,
such as something connected to advertis-
ing or marketing. In the end, I decided to
take the middle path and am doing both
things at once.

www.cgarena.com Page 5
Sky Pirate © Copyright by Future Publishing
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Interview with
CGArena

Marta Dahlig
Q. As you are self taught young artist, so you have any specific drawing techniques or tips for us?
If yes, then please share with us.

Basically every artist has their own spe-


cific way of working. I work mainly in Pho-
toshop, with highly transparent brushes
and apply layers of paint gradually, as it
lets me control the outcome from the very
beginning. Aside from that, I always paint
on 4-5 layers tops and try to stick to as
few basic custom brushes in Photoshop.
Basically, my main tools is a regular air-
brush and a Hard Round brush with its
edges ragged. Depending on the occa-
sion, I can also use more detail-oriented
custom brushes, such as photo textures
and the like.

Q. Looking at your portfolio you have


painted mostly the women’s, there is
any specific reason of this, men’s are
not so bad :-)

There is no hidden message about it real-


ly, I just find women a much more grace-
ful subject to paint! Lately I have been
expanding my horizons a bit, however,
painting not only men, but also animalistic
characters. Some of that art should soon
be uploaded to my online galleries!
© Copyright by Future Publishing

Q. After more than a year, we get a chance to view your new personal work, so where are you busy
before that?

I know it must’ve seemed I was lazy but in reality it has been the most intense year ever! I spent my whole
painting time on commercial assignments, such as various cover illustrations and already mentioned Imag-
ineFX tutorials. During that time I was also preparing my part of D’Artiste: Digital Painting 2 book as well
as handles a few still developing projects. All of that has left me with no time to really do anything just for
myself.

www.cgarena.com Page 7
Q. Have you used Wacom Intuos 4? How you rate this product (pros and cons) and how wacom
tablets helps you in your artistic journey?

My Intuos 3 broke just before the new version came out, so I purchased a medium Intuos 4 as soon as it
was on sale. I absolutely love its looks and the feature I love the most is the detachable cable, as it was the
cable part which first broke in my old tablet. I didn’t have the occasion to use the new wheel yet, as I still
somehow cannot adjust my workflow to it. The only thing that for now bothers me a bit is the speed I seem
to use the pen tips in – I’m already on my third!

Speaking about Wacom tablets in general I have to say they have been nothing less than a blessing. I used
to work on some cheap, low quality tablets before and the difference in workflow quality is astounding (not
to mention the cheap ones used to break after 2 months of usage on average). The pen pressure levels
in Wacom tablets are amazing and improve application of little details as well as encourage more finesse
brush strokes.

Q. Please tell something about your latest work “Judith”, from where you get the inspiration and
idea to paint this beautiful lady?

I think it was around 8 or 9 years ago when I first heard about Judith. Ever since, I found her to be one of
the most fascinating characters in history. There aren’t many strong ladies you can read about and what is
more bold than a woman first seducing, then decapitating the leader of enemy’s army? ;)

It’s hard to count the number of times I tried to depict her – each and every attempt was different: portrait
shots, full body poses, standing, sitting – you name it! I think I have done around 8 or 9 sketches throughout
the last 4 years and none was really good enough to be completed. This piece I started around October
2008 worked on it on and off till May 2009 between other projects.

Q. Various times we heard the negative point of view of female painters on painting the nude female
to represent the skills or art or as a piece of entertainment, so as a female painter what’s your take
on this and in your painting “Judith” where story actually demands but different pose can reduce
the artistic nudity?

I am extremely against nudity which is depicted just for the sake of it. Nude shots which are chauvinistic, dis-
respectful or devoid of any thought are not my thing at all. Nudity, in my understanding, is an artistic means
just like any other.

Nudity has to make a statement – if I paint a nude character, there has to be a true, strong reason for it. In
case of Judith, I had two reasons to display the character nude: firstly, I wanted to create a deeply sensual
scene. Secondly, I wanted to achieve a contrast between the body and the abundance of different textiles
around the character, which couldn’t have been done with her being dressed.

www.cgarena.com Page 8
Story of Judith
“In the second century B.C., as the powerful Assyrian army invades the Near East,
the town of Bethulia is besieged by the cruel and domineering Holofernes, foremost
general of the Assyrian emperor Nebuchadnezzar. If Bethulia yields, the whole
country will fall into Assyrian hands. Discouraged, the city’s elders agree to sur-
render the famine-stricken city if they are not rescued within a few days. Judith, a
young widow and most unlikely savior, challenges them to take responsibility for
the future of their community. She enters the Assyrian camp where Holofernes,
smitten with her remarkable beauty, invites her to a banquet. When he retires
to his bed in a drunken stupor, they are left alone in his tent. Judith takes up his
sword and decapitates him. With the Assyrian army thrown into confusion, Judith
inspires the Israelites to launch a surprise attack from which they emerge victori-
ous.” - Read and Watch the Detailed Making of Judith HERE

www.cgarena.com Page 9
Umbrella Sky © Copyright by Future Publishing
Moths © Copyright by Future Publishing
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Interview with
CGArena

Marta Dahlig

Q. What are your hobbies and please describe your free time, if you have any or are you the kind of
lady who lives for her work all the time?

Due to having a full-time job, I rarely have time for anything else other than painting in the evenings/nights,
and at best end up having ~5hours of sleep during the night. On those rare occasions I am free, I do really
typical things: I like to read (anything from historic novels to thrillers), watch movies, go out, spend time with
my dog… The regular stuff. :)

Q. Anything you like to add? It is your chance now to state your opinion about anything!

I am not really good with closing words, as there is no way not to sound cliché - it is the usual moment to
state: “remember to be yourself”, “strive for that dream!”, “you can do anything” and all that….

Cliché or not, I believe in that! If you are willing to work hard, really hard, with a bit of talent, luck and sweat
you are able to accomplish anything you want. The biggest success factor is the right motivation, patience
and readiness to use the various opportunities that life places before us. If you know what you want and are
willing to work your hardest day and night to achieve it, you are bound to be successful :)

Thanks a lot Marta for taking out sometime for us from your busy schedule. Hope you continue to paint the
beautiful women’s and sometime men’s too.

Blog: dahlig.blogspot.com

Online Gallery: blackeri.deviantart.com

www.cgarena.com Page 13
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
3D Challenge
CGArena

Image by Antonio Peres Vieirafilho

CGArena is proud to present “Accident” 3D Challenge, 10 Aug 2009 - 1st Oct 2009. Winners will be reward-
ed with special prizes from Side Effects Software, Pixologic, E-on Software, Eat3D and ambientLight.
Express your creative ideas in a new and interesting way.

Your Mission

Create a 3D image which justify the theme of Accident, this can be realistic or toony. This can be physical
accident, attempt to stop the accident, accident of emotions or whatever you can think of. You can express
the theme in a single shot or in several shots inside one image. You can even replicate the scene from a
movie. You are allowed to show the artistic nudity in the image. This Challenge is a Work-In-Progress Chal-
lenge -- all contestants are required to post their work-in-progress images for community to critique/com-
ment in order to qualify.

How the Challenge will be Run

This challenge will be a WIP (Work in Progress) Challenge. Each challenger (teams are not allowed) is re-
quired to post Work In Progress (WIP) images, from the initial concept sketch to the final render to the post
production on regular intervals in the CGArena forum. The purpose is that everyone can learn from each
other, offer feedback and critiques.

1. Enter the Challenge by registering yourself on CGArena forum under Challenges > Accident > Your Real
Name - Country

2. Submit your work in progress images in forum on a regular basis. Concept sketch/shot need to post within
a week from the date you register yourself in the challenge.

www.cgarena.com Page 15
3. Participate in the community by critiquing other challenger’s works in the respective threads. Only con-
structive critiques/feedbacks are allowed to post, please avoid postings like “Good image”, “Wonderful Go-
ing”, “Nice Image” and so on... Don’t try to insult any artist, artistic skill, concept or country. Otherwise you
can be disqualified from the challenge.

4. You are allowed to use any 3d software for the creation of artwork. Premade models or preset based
softwares/plug-ins which allows creation of human models are not allowed to use. Sculpting softwares are
allowed to use.

5. Once concept sketch is posted in the forum, you are not allowed to change the concept. If two similar
concepts are posted then second similar concept participant is allowed to change the concept in the next
48hrs.

6. If you replicate the scene from a movie then that will be judge on the basis of realism and similarity with
the shot. Try to add all the elements/props which are available in the movie shot.

7. Registration for the challenge will close on 15th Sep 2009, midnight 00:00 GMT.

8. Submit your final entry till 1st Oct 2009, midnight 00:00 GMT.

9. You are allowed to use any type of post- production in the final image to make artwork better and richer.
Please avoid to add the elements in post-production which are 100% made in the 2D program or photo-
graphs.

10. There will be 3 winners, Judges, sponsors, CGArena decision will be final.

11. Winners will be announced on 9th Oct 2009. All prizes will be available in the downloadable format from
the sponsors website.

Terms and Conditions

1.) Entrants agree to give permission to the sponsor to use all or any part of the artwork entered in this con-
test, (hereinafter, the ‘Work’) in the Company’s demonstration tapes (reels), promotional materials (ads, PR,
etc.), booth graphics and presentations for the promotional purposes.

2.) Entrants will retain all rights to the Work. In addition, the Company will not sell for profit any materials or
demo reels containing images or animations submitted by the Entrant.

3.) All the winners are requested to create a Making of the Image and only CGArena owns the right to
release that making online or anywhere else. Without the consent of CGArena not allowed to release the
making anywhere else.

4.) The Company, in exchange for this release, will provide a credit for the Work within the material in which
the Work is used.

www.cgarena.com Page 16
Final Image Size

- Your final image dimensions should be print resolution (300 DPI). Do not send in a low-resolution.

- A guideline is minimum 1680 pixels wide and/or 1050 high, JPG, 300 DPI.

- Send your final image in zip or rar format with your name, complete shipping address, email, telephone
number in a text file on email address accident@cgarena.com with email subject “your forum username”.
When we received an email then you will get Automatic reply confirmation email.

First Prize - $9770 worth of prizes

Houdini Master worth $7995 USD - Houdini Master is a full featured 3D animation and visual effects soft-
ware renowned for its particle and dynamics tools. Houdini Master is perfect for visual effects artists, techni-
cal directors and CG supervisors who want to experience total control over their pipeline

E-on software Vue 7.5 Infinite worth $895 USD - Vue 7.5 is the most efficient and advanced solution for
creating, animating and rendering natural 3D environments. It offers a high-end 3D scenery solution for SFX
studios, animators, illustrators, architects, matte painters and CG professionals. It is strongly focused on
power, productivity and inter-operability with existing toolkits.

Pixologic ZBrush 3.1 worth $595 USD approx. - ZBrush 3.1 gives you access to unparalleled power and
control previously unknown in digital art creation software. Controls enable sculptors to create with a stylus
and a tablet as intuitively as if they were using their hands on a block of clay. If at the end of the contest,
ZBrush 4 will ready then provide ZBrush 4. Otherwise, provide the license available at that time, with a free
upgrade to ZBrush 4 when released.

ambientLight Multibuy Texture Bundle worth $175 USD approx. - This includes our entire range of Tex-
ture Packs. All of our packs are at a minimum of 1024 pixels square and are hand edited so that they tile
perfectly, whatever application you use them in!. This pack includes Plant & Trees, Natural, Sky, Architec-
tural, Roads textures.

Eat3d Training DVD’s (2) worth $110 USD approx. - Our focus is to have the highest of quality training
videos geared toward 3D Artists. We put an obsessive amount of time and effort into our work, and we are
very proud of the results. So sit back and join us for a refreshing course in high quality next gen art. Winner
can choose to download any 2 training DVD’s.

Second Winner - $1392 worth of prizes

E-on software Vue 7 Complete worth $599 USD - Designed for experienced 3D artists and small studios,
Vue 7 Complete provides a complete solution for natural 3D scenery. Vue 7 Complete includes all 12 addi-
tional modules for Vue 7. Vue 7 Complete also ships with an extensive collection of preset trees, buildings,
scenes, characters, etc.

www.cgarena.com Page 17
Pixologic ZBrush 3.1 worth $595 USD approx. - ZBrush 3.1 gives you access to unparalleled power and
control previously unknown in digital art creation software. Controls enable sculptors to create with a stylus
and a tablet as intuitively as if they were using their hands on a block of clay. If at the end of the contest,
ZBrush 4 will ready then provide ZBrush 4. Otherwise, provide the license available at that time, with a free
upgrade to ZBrush 4 when released.

Eat3d Training DVD’s (2) worth $110 USD approx. - Our focus is to have the highest of quality training
videos geared toward 3D Artists. We put an obsessive amount of time and effort into our work, and we are
very proud of the results. So sit back and join us for a refreshing course in high quality next gen art. Winner
can choose to download any 2 training DVD’s.

ambientLight Plants and Trees Texture Bundle worth $88 USD approx. - All of our packs are at a mini-
mum of 1024 pixels square and are hand edited so that they tile perfectly, whatever application you use
them in!.

Third Winner - $691 worth of prizes

E-on software Vue 7 Complete worth $599 USD - Designed for experienced 3D artists and small studios,
Vue 7 Complete provides a complete solution for natural 3D scenery. Vue 7 Complete includes all 12 addi-
tional modules for Vue 7. Vue 7 Complete also ships with an extensive collection of preset trees, buildings,
scenes, characters, etc.

Eat3d Training DVD worth $55 USD approx. - Our focus is to have the highest of quality training videos
geared toward 3D Artists. We put an obsessive amount of time and effort into our work, and we are very
proud of the results. So sit back and join us for a refreshing course in high quality next gen art. Winner can
choose to download any 1 training DVD.

ambientLight People Texture Bundle worth $37 USD approx. - All of our packs are at a minimum of 1024
pixels square and are hand edited so that they tile perfectly, whatever application you use them in!.

Respected Jury

Alessandro Baldasseroni - I`m a 35 years old self taught artist. I was born and grown in Milan
(Italy). I`ve been professionally in CG since 2001 and currently employed as a senior character
artist at Blur Studio.

Francisco Cortina - I’m a professional 3d artist who originally started out as a traditional artist.
For some time now I’ve been operating as an independent contractor, running my own com-
pany called “Cortina Digital”.

John Hayes - My background is in sculpting and 2D animation as both were my primary focus
in Art College. Working in Sega as Senior Character Artist on Golden Axe, and became Char-
acter Art Lead part-way through that project.

www.cgarena.com Page 18
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Barnali Bagchi, UAE
CGArena
Software:

Making of Photoshop
2D
Radhey Shyam
INTRODUCTION

This artwork was a personal project, an abstract representation of “Rasa Leela”. The ‘Rasa Leela’ or ‘Rasa
Dance’ is a part of the traditional story of Krishna (Incarnation of Lord Vishnu), described in Hindu scriptures
like “Bhagavata Purana” and literature such as “Geet Govind”, where he dances with Radha (His beloved)
and her Sakhi’s (friends). This piece was created in Adobe Photoshop 7 without a graphic tablet. It was
completely done with mouse and took me a little more than 10 days to complete.

Since I wanted to render a 2D image of a dance form, the biggest challenge was to depict the rhythm and
motion of the dance. So I hunted for reference for quite sometime before I came across some beautiful
paintings by Shu Mizoguchi. His work is immensely inspiring and a great contribution to the digital art com-
munity. You can visit his website here: http://shu-littlebit.com

In this tutorial I will share my techniques and will walk you through the many steps taken from initial concept
to the final rendering of the image.

INITIAL SKETCH

I sketched the figures on a piece of paper to get the


proportions right. I then scanned it to my computer
and kept it as the base and reference layer. This is
how it looked.

BACKGROUND AND
BODY COLOR

Once I had the reference image it was important


to decide the background colour of the final image.
Deciding the final background colour helped me to
select the colour of the main image. In this case I
decided to keep the background colour ‘black’, thus
I had a greater colour palette to work with as far
as the main image was concerned. Since this is a
traditional dance form, colour ‘gold’ was chosen for
the ornament and the dress. However it was impor-
tant not to outline the figures with any colour and
stick to ‘black’ to differentiate the hands and feet.

www.cgarena.com Page 21
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Barnali Bagchi, UAE
CGArena

Making of Radhey Shyam


Note: If the background colour is dark, the image should be drawn in lighter shades so as to make the main
image prominent and vice versa. If the background of an image is black, it’s important to put the background
in a ‘layer set’ and turn it off clicking the ‘eye’ on the layer window while working on the main image.

I then outlined the figures with black


brush strokes. I used hard round brush,
diameter 3 px and also filled the body
colours. Krishna is traditionally painted
blue and Radha in flesh tint. Also paint-
ed the eyes and the lips.

Note: To fill an area with colour, draw a


path using the pen tool Right click
on the path and select ‘make selection’
and use the paint bucket tool to fill
the colour. Then hit Ctrl+D to deselect
the path.

COLORING THE HAIR

After outlining the figures and filling the


body colour, I painted the hair. I filled
the hair with a base colour, in the im-
age I used ‘black’ and then to draw
the hair strands, I used a hard round
brush with 3px diameter and control
‘pen pressure’ to stroke each path that
I made with the ‘pen tool’. I used 3 lay-
ers for Radha’s hair and 4 layers for
Krishna’s hair. In each layer I made
several brush strokes and then applied
gradient to the layers individually.

www.cgarena.com Page 22
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Barnali Bagchi, UAE
CGArena

Making of Radhey Shyam


For Krishna’s hair I used the gradient and for Radha’s hair I used the gradient

Making the Peacock


Feather and Flowers

After colouring the hair, I painted the flowers, leaves and


the peacock feathers. For the peacock feather I used hard
round brush with diameter 1px and made random lines

on a layer, then made another layer and made


even more lines with the hard round brush,
this time with the diameter 2px. I then applied
two different gradients to the two layers and
also applied inner shadow to one of them.

After this I painted the flowers and the leaves


and played with the colours and gradient to fi-
nally decide the best one.

www.cgarena.com Page 23
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Barnali Bagchi, UAE
CGArena

Making of Radhey Shyam

Painting the Dress

And then I started to draw the dress. First I


traced the outline of the dress with a hard
round brush and applied ‘gold’ colour to it.
I then turned on the background layer.

Note: You can apply colour to a brush


stroke by using the ‘blending option’. You
can either use the ‘colour overlay’ or the
‘gradient’ tab to add any colour or gradi-
ent to a brush stroke. (To get the ‘Blend-
ing Options’ dialogue box, right click on the
layer and select “Blending Options’ from
the menu).

I then coloured the dress. I selected


Pink, Violet, Blue and Green for Radha’s
dress and Orange, yellow and brown
for Krishna’s. To apply colour to the se-
lected sections of the dress, I traced the
path with the ‘pen tool’ and selected the
area keeping the feather radius ranging
from 5-8 depending on the amount of
softness I wanted to render.

www.cgarena.com Page 24
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Barnali Bagchi, UAE
CGArena

Making of Radhey Shyam


Painting the Jewellery

After painting the dress I painted the jewellery,


mostly in ‘gold’ colour.

Note: To copy a layer (in this case the coloured


balls) hold down Ctrl+Alt and drag the layer to the
desired location.

I then painted the flute in brown. With this the


painting of the final image was complete.

www.cgarena.com Page 26
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Barnali Bagchi, UAE
CGArena

Making of Radhey Shyam

This is how the final image looked like, after colour-


ing the dress, ornaments and flute.

This piece was not complete and I felt something was


missing, so I thought of putting some flowers and
leaves at the base of the image to give it a complete
look. I painted some individual flowers and leaves in
Gold and coloured them with the same colours that
I used for the figures, mainly Pink, Blue, Yellow and
Green for the leaves.

The Image was mostly complete and I used some


custom brushes to add the final strokes to the flow-
ers and leaves.

www.cgarena.com Page 27
Here is the final completed image. I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and thanks a lot for
reading it.

More Artwork: moonbeam1212.deviantart.com


Email: bagchi.barnali@gmail.com
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Damir G Martin, Croatia
CGArena
Software:

Making of ZBrush
3D
DinoMonster
I love comics, cartoons, movies, video games, and can’t stop admiring all the great art spawned trough that
mediums.

A dream from my childhood, to become professional CGI artist (after seeing Jurassic Park 1993) combined
with my affection towards Dinosaurs that I started liking since I was a 10 years old, resulted in DinoMonsters
concept. Idea behind DinoMonsters actually came to me when I was modeling one Dinosaur model.

I started thinking how cool would be to make humanized dinosaur, or a dinosaurized man. That’s how it all
started, and before you knew it, I made up 6 characters. At first I thought I had original idea, but later I dis-
covered several similar concepts involving Dino man characters. So, you could say, they aren’t original, but
by the great feedback I received from the 3D community from different forums, I guess I did a good job.

The difficult part of DinoMonsters was to give them all distinctive look, and again, to keep the visuals to-
gether, as if they belong to the same team, and exist in the same universe. As an aspiring character artist,
thinking about characters is more of a reflex to me.

So, making them apart was easy, but getting them out of the head and into viewport is more challenging. But
even if it was hard at some point to create them, with today’s great software it is all achievable.

When you think about making


something like this in 3d apps
like Maya or Max few years
ago, it would take three times
longer period to get it done,
and still wouldn’t look as nice
as it looks today. We, who love
and live CGI, are lucky to be
living in renaissance era of
CGI. It’s on us now to make it
memorable by producing great
and inspiring imagery for our
future ancestors.

STEP 1- This is how it


looked in the beginning. Low
poly model for DinoMonsters
character. Same low poly ob-
ject rendered in multiple an-
gles.

www.cgarena.com Page 31
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Damir G Martin, Croatia
CGArena

Making of DinoMonster
STEP 2 - In the below image, above the characters you can see the set of brushes I use to shape low
poly object. To get the desired proportions and major shapes I use Move brush. Standard and inflate brush-
es are the best when you need to add volumes across the mesh.

Clay brush comes in


handy when modeling
muscles, especially
later as you start to
subdivide your mesh,
and start adding more
distinctive lines to the
character.

STEP 3 - This is the phase where I am pretty much sat-


isfied with the overall shape. Now I start with subdivisions,
and gradually add more and more details to the model. In this
phase, the model is more or less ready for next level. Acces-
sorizing!

www.cgarena.com Page 32
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Damir G Martin, Croatia
CGArena

Making of DinoMonster
STEP 4 - In my case, I wanted to
add some accessories to my DinoMon-
ster. This is the good point for acces-
sorizing, before you continue adding
more details and color. I wanted things
like pants, shirt, belt and guns. In the
image shown, you see the shirt paint-
ed on top of the model. Basically, you
need to mask part you want to turn into
clothing.

Select standard brush, stroke to free-


hand and by pressing ctrl, paint the
mask where you want it to become
clothes.

STEP 5 - After finishing up the mask


where you want your clothes to appear, you need to go to Tool/Subtools palette and press Extract. The size
of extract depends on couple of factors, so, If your clothes extract too thick, you can delete that subtool and
try again, by adjusting the thickness setting.

Rename your new subtool to ap-


propriate name, so you don’t have
problems later if you decide to make
entire subtool tree into one mesh or
any other complex subtool operation.
Also, the newly extracted subtool is
extracted at the subdivision level
from the originating mesh.

The lowest the better, too low, inac-


curate. It just depends of what you
want to do with the model later. If you
intend to export it with all its subtools
in third party app for say, animation,
you would need to keep your poly-
count within the reasonable count. If
you are staying in ZBrush, then you
can be little bit less concerned with
the poly count.

www.cgarena.com Page 33
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Damir G Martin, Croatia
CGArena

Making of DinoMonster

STEP 6 - Here you can see all the


subtools created and refined. The guns
were modeled outside ZBrush. When
you complete all the subtools, you can
carry on applying more details to the
base character.

STEP 7 - I have couple of customized alphas that I


created myself. When I decide which ones are the most
appropriate I set up my brush. Specifically here I have
used standard brush, stroke set to DragRect, and my
preferred alpha. Z intensity was about 10- 14 set to sub.
When the brush was setup, I started dragging texture
rectangles across my model. When I’m done with textur-
ing, I start adding the color.

www.cgarena.com Page 34
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Damir G Martin, Croatia
CGArena

Making of DinoMonster

STEP 8 - In this case, I used poly-


painting technique. Basically, you se-
lect brighter matcap material, prefer-
ably white matcap, and start painting
directly on the model.

When you finish painting/coloring your


model you can start preparing for ren-
dering.

Now, the model is posed and prepared for


rendering of different matcaps for later com-
positing in Photoshop.

www.cgarena.com Page 35
This is the final image. On the sides, you can see differ-
Web: www.damirgmartin.com
ent matcap combinations used to create the image. In the
www.dinomonsters.com
compositing, I have additionally placed smoke, and water
drops. Smoke is partially derived from photo, and partially
Email: airartg@gmail.com
painted. Water drops were painted in Photoshop.
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena
Software:

The Dreams of 3ds max


3D
Street Cat
INTRODUCTION

Hi friends! I finished my new work, named “The Dreams Of Street Cat” and I will show you how I did this
project with big pleasure. Usually ideas come to me during my rest, but not at this time. Someone disturbed
my rest and it was my father. I needed to help him with repair of our apartment. It is very boring, I know, but
it was needs to be done. Once, during repair, one cat came from the street to our apartment. A look of a cat
was very sad and sorrowful, maybe cat was ill or simply got tired? Who knows, never mind, so the idea of a
cat sitting in old room came to me as I saw this picture. So, let’s start.

REFERENCE

In this time I wasn’t needed to search different pictures for a project in the web, because all was in my hand
and even a cat. I took the camera as a pistol of sheriff and began to shoot around. Room, windows, doors,
old things, shoes, objects, all got under the shot of camera. When the set of pictures and textures was ready
I began the modeling.

MODELING

For this project I used 3D Max 9. Above all things,


I began work with background of cat, in order that
our cat was not so alone in this strange world. Our

cat needs a house, sounds like that. I needed basis of picture, so I created floor, drawing the line and then
extrude it. Walls and ceiling was done by the same method. In a window and door opening I inserted simple
boxes and then put simple lighting, although I know that cats can see very well in the darkness. Usually I
light my scene from the first steps of work, because I can initially see the work with light and it is better to
imagine the end result.

www.cgarena.com Page 39
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat

When basis was ready I started to model different objects


and things. At first I did a door, simple window, plinth, radia-
tors and cornice for ceiling, using simple objects such, as
Box, Cylinder, Plane, Lines and modifiers such as Extrude,
Bevel, MeshSmooth, Edit Poly and few others.

www.cgarena.com Page 40
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat

Aborting old things from rooms I found an old, red scooter. I


dreamed in childhood about such but now this lies in a trash
dump, since I took picture of him. It is so sorry. So, I decided
that a scooter would be well placed in my project.

Step by step I created new details which I


found in our family apartment. Probably it
was very funny for my neighbours and they
look to me with surprise, how I ran in an
apartment with a line and camera, studying
different, old, nobody not needed objects like
a mad man.

www.cgarena.com Page 41
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat


Moving forward, to fill the room by different
things I decided to do slippers and shoes.
I created slipper with a Plane and then
converted it in Editable Poly. When slip-
per was ready I created Unwrap in those
places where the UVW Map did not work
correctly.

Then I copied slipper in an order to do a few other


variants and simply modified them. It would be ab-
solutely amazing, if I could copy things in reality, I
would be able to do many useful things, but we still
in 3ds Max.

www.cgarena.com Page 42
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat


As a type of shoes I decided to choose
Converse, because it one of my favou-
rite types of shoes, they are very com-
fortable, they practically not destroyable,
and it is good to run from someone or
from some problems in them and they
look much better old than just from the
counter of shop hehe. For Converse I
also used Unwrap in some places.

In an order not to create disorder room, like many of my friends


do when coming from work or playground, I decided to do a
shelf in which I put slippers, shoes, box, and also an old suit-

case, probably same old as grand-dad.


Mainly, all is done from simple objects like

box, cylinder, plane, lines, nothing


difficult.

Attention, attention, to all habitants


of room, a cat wants to eat, repeat,
a cat wants to eat - a radio began
to speak! Oh boy, I forgot that a
cat needs a food. I created banks
with a food, bowl for cat and feed
different forms, to interest a cat.

www.cgarena.com Page 43
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat


Moving forward, I did a few details and finally
finished with background. Last step in a model-
ing is our cat which I also did with Edit Poly and
then Unwrap it.

For fur I used Hair and Fur modifier. For me this is comfortable
enough and there are many interesting instruments in him, like real
master of style or hairdresser, and this
works also good with lines. So, I needed
a fur and scissors, and also I needed a
cat, which was running round me. But we
worked in 3D space, so for this purpose I
opened the new scene in which created
a sphere and used Hair and Fur modifier
for it. It was necessary to play with prop-
erties and after a few hours, when a fur
of my shaggy creature was done, I saved
these properties.

www.cgarena.com Page 44
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat


Then I created the lines of direction of growth of hairs on a cat with Snap Tool and then chosen these lines
in Hair and Fur. Also for the color of fur I used texture of a cat which I done before. I had to do a cat in other
scene with Scanline Renderer, because Hair and Fur does not work with Vray. Maybe it was possible to con-
vert fur in geometry, but then there would be too much polygons and my old computer would not survive.

Fur on a shoes brush also did with Hair and Fur and then converted into geometry. The same method I used
for a carpet and for a floor brush, and then converted into proxy.

MATERIAL AND TEXTURES

As I already said before, many textures I taken through the shots


of camera and then, corrected them in Photoshop. Also I used a
few textures from www.cgtextures.com. Here you can find large
collection of textures which collected on a different theme in a
high quality. Here are few examples of materials and textures
from this project.

www.cgarena.com Page 45
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat

LIGHTING AND POST-PRODUCTION

For lighting I used VRay Sun and VRay Physical Cam-


era, and also one Vray Plane for lighting distant part
of room.

I did a few Render Elements, and then combined them


in Photoshop. I needed render of all my scene with a
cat, pass with fur and also foreground objects.

Else, I created ZDepth channel, which I combined with fur.

www.cgarena.com Page 46
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Andrew Averkin, Ukraine
CGArena

The Dreams of Street Cat


A little bit of colour correction, chromatic aberration and final picture was ready.

So, I got much pleasure and experience in the process of mak-


ing of this project, a cat also got his sweet portion and repair of
our apartment is waiting for me. Big thanks to all, hope you will
take something on your own from this story.

Andrew Averkin
Email: andrewaverkin@yahoo.com

www.cgarena.com Page 47
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Chaichan Artwichai, Thailand
CGArena
Software:

Making of Painter, Photoshop


2D
Portrait of a Magic Warrior
This is my personal work that I’ve made for fun. It’s all start from a doodle sketch which become a finished
piece and there are no references or planning in this work. I used the Painter 11, Photoshop CS 3 and
Wacom Intuos 3 for creating this image.

Let’s start the first step of this image. I have chosen Pencil-Brush in painter 11. At the first time I try this
tool in painter 11, it is really great tool for sketch
and simulate pencil stroke very realistic especially
if you use it with intuos3 or 4 that can control the
angle of the stroke softly. If you never touch it be-
fore I recommend!!

As I have said before this is just a doodle sketch that


I was playing with new tool, so it’s not much planed
work. In the sketching process I’m not concern about
structure so much. Just keeping the emotional of the
line, control the tablet like its part of my hand and let
the feeling burst any elements to appear in the frame.

When I finish from the painter I save the file as .psd file pre-
pare for working in Photoshop. For the coloring process
I always think in term of value at first because it important
more than color but it’s doesn’t mean color is not important.
A good composition come from a good arrangement of black
and white value which impact the eye at first and we will talk
about color later.

www.cgarena.com Page 49
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Chaichan Artwichai, Thailand
CGArena

Portrait of a Magic Warrior


Create a new layer and set to multiply blending mode or if you
have separated layer from painter just create a new layer under
the line layer and fill it with middle value in gray scale slider.

After filling with the middle value, I was thinking about the focal
point of the picture it is a portrait and the face should be a good
choice to be a focus and I want to make its white object by the
skin which fills with the light from above. There are lot of tricks
to make a good focal point and this is basic by make a big nega-
tive shape in the picture as a focal point and in this kind is a face
which become white when turning it into notan.

When the main value of any objects in the picture already filled
I will not use pure black or pure white as a value always keep it
about 95% in black value and 10% in the high white value(you
can see color percentage in the gray scale slider in Photoshop).

I always use
the normal
round brush
with a little
customize in
this process.

www.cgarena.com Page 50
Issue 4 Aug - Sep 2009
Tutorial by Chaichan Artwichai, Thailand
CGArena

Portrait of a Magic Warrior


Then it is time for coloring, fill the new layer with a green in low
saturation value and set to multiply blending mode. The first color
that I choose to fill in the frame is the main mood color of the pic-
ture also.

Then I start a skin tone coloring by using soft light in blending mode
try to get a bit red shade to make it pop up from the overall green
environment.

Normal Mode Softlight Mode

Detail 1 Detail 2

The final process is polishing by


keeping the percentage of the color
in the whole picture filling any ele-
ments into it as much as you want by
thinking about the value, adjustment
image by using the power of Photo-
shop at the end.

www.cgarena.com Page 51
Issue 4
2 Aug
Apr --May
Sep 2009
Tutorial by Chaichan Artwichai, Thailand
CGArena

Portrait of a Magic Warrior

I hope this tutorial make you


enjoy to painting more and
if you have any comments
you can contact me by my e-
mail….Thank you.

Web: chaichan-artwichai.blogspot.com
Email: t_artwichai@hotmail.com

www.cgarena.com Page 52
Hyejin Moon, Korea
bluemoon727@naver.com
3ds Max, ZBrush, Photoshop
Antonio Bonora, Italy
principe_antonio@hotmail.it
3ds Max, ZBrush
Massimo Righi, Italy
info@massimorighi.com
Maya, Mudbox, Photoshop
Hugo Costa, Portugal
lw4d@hotmail.com
Cinema 4D, Corel Photo Paint

Anto Juricic, Bosnia and Herzegovina


monty.band@gmail.com
Maya, Silo, ZBrush
Saman Khorram, Persia
samysuns@gmail.com
3ds Max, XSI, Photoshop

Federico Scarbini, Italy


fede@federicoscarbini.com
ZBrush, Photoshop
Jorge Suarez, Argentina
info@buildmultimedia.com.ar
Lightwave
Kirill Boutourlin, Ukraine
cyrilbut@gmail.com
XSI, ZBrush
Ke Weilin, China
keweilintuke@sina.com
3ds Max, ZBrush
Ivan Stalio, Italy
uno@ivanstalio.com
Modo
Farkas, Hungary
info@visualharmony.hu
3ds Max, Vray
Karan Shetty, India
karan.crazymonkey@gmail.com
Maya, ZBrush, Photoshop
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