Luigi, Completed Model

I finished modeling Luigi.  Here are some renders of the mesh.  I'm planning on going back and doing some texture work later but I'd like to move on to Wario before I do that.  I think the next step is to get all the brothers completed and adjust their textures together so they look a bit more cohesive.

Luigi's Body WIP

Quick update of Luigi's body blocked out.  The nice part here is that I've been able to use some of the geometry from Mario (reshaped of course).

Luigi's Head

Spent a little time on Luigi tonight and was able to finish the head mesh.  I purposely gave him sharper angles than Mario to give them some contrast when they stand next to one another.

Mass Update

I thought I would drop by and update the blog really quick...so hello everyone!  I'm just about wrapping on the big website/resume/blog/linkedin updating push.  It's been a real journey for me during the last week.  I actually can't believe how fast all the different pieces came together.

They say (whoever "They" is) that you should update your demo reel every 6 months.  While this sounds like a no brainer, in reality it's difficult to keep up with. Life always finds a way of intervening with your art.  Also when you work an insane amount of hours the last thing you want to do is come home and work on your demo reel.

But moving forward I definitely want to make more of an effort to do this.  The last time I made a demo reel was 2007 and for years my old reel sat around while my art progressed, mostly off the grid.  This new reel displays my talents much better.  It's format is almost much more friendlier to updates.  The template allows me to just swap in new characters in place of older ones.  Atleast until I do a major change to the format.

I'm also thinking that I would like to either do an environmental art reel or a generalist reel.  I have enough stuff that I think it would be kind of fun to put it on display.  Environments are really fun to render because you can move through them (the down side to rendering characters).

I also made a plan for new pieces that don't include any of the new Mad Mario stuff.  These are brand new and will be made to display very particular skills.  So look for news on that in the future.  For now, check out a shorter cut of the demo reel: http://www.dennisflath.com/projects/4452321#1
  

Website!

And now, I'd like to present......

http://www.dennisflath.com

I finally have a dedicate website up to host my work beyond blogger.  It feels great to get all my work collected and visible for potential clients to see.  I'm honestly having a great time looking through my portfolio and selecting the best work to display.  When I was in college, it was a real struggle to get enough work up there to showcase my skills.  It really is nice to be able to sort though a large portfolio and only select the best of the best.

On a completely personal level, it's a thrill to look at all I've done and feel proud for each piece of artwork (despite the flaws that are so hard for me NOT to see). I'm truly able to see the work for what it is.  I'm also able to see where I need to improve.

When I feel more comfortable with the website, I'll move on to a new short character project before returning to Mario.  I'm looking forward to both!

So check out the site.  I hope you enjoy!

Luigi-Continued

Just a quick update of the head. I filled in the gaps a bit.  Here you can see me working out the profile...trying to get it into an interesting shape.  The addition of the eyebrows and beard are making this look closer to the original concept, which is great.

I'm also intentionally trying to work a bit of Beaker into him :)

Luigi

I've been doing some texture painting and sculpting at the office so I'm taking a little break from the Wacom tablet and using the mouse while at home.  I'll finish up young Mario in a few weeks.  In the mean time I'll be jumping onto Luigi.  I created several dozen sketches for him and really liked the design below.  (As a side note, all the characters and environments I intend to create for "Mad Mario" were concepted out sometime last year.  I'm holding off on posting each one until I work on the model.)

Luigi is a bit of an innocent in comparison to Mario.  He was fun to design since his shape and personality is the complete opposite from Mario.  I didn't bother to created a full rotation of the character in 2D.  I'm comfortable enough to go straight into 3D to work out the other views.  I thought I'd give you a glimpse into this process below since it's some what unconventional and a method I don't use too often.

I always start with the head when I don't have all the necessary concept images (front, side, back, etc.)  What you're looking at is a few "strips" of polygons that I've used to outline the basic shape of the head.  This helps me to work out the proportions as well as set up the edge flow of the geometry.  I love this method since I can see the entire character's head in about an hour.  

From here I begin to stitch the different landmark areas together (eyes, mouth, ears, nose, and jaw).  You can see it's taking on a similar flow to your facial muscles.  This is intentional and becomes very important for animation.  Setting this topology flow from the start is essential.  

 Here I begin to focus on the eye shape, socket, and the zygomatic & zygomatic arch.  I enlarged the eyes slightly here.  Even though the size matched my reference, they looked a little too small and plain.  This type of deviation from a reference image is necessary at times.  Often 2D drawings don't translate well to 3D or they loose their appeal.  When doing personal work like this, I don't hesitate to make big changes like this.  

I also added the moustache here.  This addition brings out more of his personality.  It also brings the face together more for me.  From here I'll fill in all the gaps you see left and move on to the hair.  

So theres a small look inside how I'm creating Luigi.  I've used this method for all the characters in "Mad Mario" thus far.

Detail Update

Getting a little more into the details here.  Most of the time was spent on the hair.  I end up using a lot of stitching and filters to get a somewhat painterly look to look to the hair. One of the visual pillars of this project is never going too cartoonish or too realistic.  It's always somewhere in the middle.

I've been reading "The Hobbit" again for the dozenth time.  That's melting a little into the character, since Mario is taking on a slight Bilbo appearance.  I'm embracing since I feel like young Mario is also somewhat innocent and aloof. 

Also something worth of note is the eyes.  That's the very first bit of detailing I do to characters, especially with children models.  It sets the entire tone of the character.  I always recommend working that out from the start.

Young Mario Base Color

Got a little time in tonight on the texture.  Mostly "under the hood" UV and ambient occlusion cleanup work.  However I made enough progress that my base hues have been chosen. I figured I would try to update a little more often with young Mario so you could see my process in a bit more detail.

The red and brown look of the original Super Mario (NES) was always interesting to me.  They switched him over to red and blue clothes later on.  Since I'm telling a darker origin story, I want to get back to those warmer colors.

I'll tackle all the texture details at the same time (face, clothes, boots, pants, etc.) however the head is where most of my time will go.  Children are very difficult to texture because they have such soft features.  My approach this time around will be to concentrate on the pinks and reds where the fatty tissue is.  You can already see part of this with the ears.  The nose and cheeks are next. 

Doing The Time Warp

Hey everyone, really quick update.  I finished young Mario's model sometime shortly after my last post.  Unfortunately the hand-me-down PC that I was donated kicked the bucket and I was without one for a while.  However I'm back up and running (with a new PC might I add!).

I'm all setup for texturing the character now.  Should be pretty smooth sailing from here.  The base texture is all worked out.  I just need to play with the colors and detail it up.

Young Mario Compared to Old Mario

The fun part of this is making a character at two stages of his life in 3D.  I love trying to make young Mario look like old Mario while still retaining that baby face.  I have to say, I'm really looking forward to making Luigi and the rest of Mario's extended family.  That's all I'll say for now.