So Wayne..how do you come up with all these sculpt ideas?

That's probably the question I've been asked most over the years. I've heard it said many times that doing monsters and concept sculpts is 'easy'. But people often find that if you sculpt enough you start to run out of ideas or repeat yourself a lot. I've sculpted thousands upon thousands of concept sculpts and speed sculpts ad very rarely repeated myself. So how do I keep coming up with the ideas? Well these ideas I'll be outlining in this and other blog posts aren't new for the most part an many have been done in 3D and 2D before. but it amazes me how many people don't know about them. I figured it was time to change that.

So here's a couple of videos that'll be far more helpful if I explain what the heck your seeing.

Pareidolia

Using a random picture of clouds

Pareidolia is something I've found very useful over the years and the best thing is I can tell you what it is and how and why it works but as each person is unique, chances are you'll always end up with something that looks different. The chances that you have exactly the same brain as me or any other person are very very slim. This makes it powerful.

The best way to explain Pareidolia is the way you can look at clouds or random shapes and 'see' shapes that make sense within them. Our brains are hard coded to recognise faces and patterns so if there is a often random arrangement it tries to make sense of it and often you see a face (for example the 'face on mars' is nothing more than pareidolia).

I use this either with 2D art or images (or sometimes even in real life) to 'see' shapes that I later sculpt. I also sometime use it on an existing sculpt of mine by turning it upside down and then seeing what shapes and forms pop out at me that I then develop into something. It also works well along side the next tip and I consider them 'twins' that work very well together.

Now the brain is like any muscle in your body if you keep exercising it you'll find you get better at seeing different shapes to other people see. In my opinion some of the best 2D concept artists work in exactly the same way. I can promise it'll always be a source of new ideas.

Using a Random Starting Shape

This is something I've developed over the years as making something truly random is actually harder than you think as the brains ability and need to have order in chaos and see 'patterns' can have you ending up with a not so random shape. I've recently added to this using the technique my son came up with that allows me to have a truly random starting shape. The trick is to have a shape you wouldn't normally use as your starting base shape but not so odd that it would be impossible to sculpt anything meaningful with. In the video shown here I start 'gently' by doing some random pulls on a sphere (which I find works best for me, but feel free to adapt that if you want). I then see if I can see a shape in it....

Sometimes you hit lucky as I did with the 1st sculpt of 5 I did in 70 mins and it looked to me like a sort of weird elephant guy. So that's the direction I headed in. Now my tip is not to go nuts on details like fine wrinkles and skin pores. Why? because to be blunt you could end up polishing a turd. If something looks good without the fine details it sure as hell will look just as good (if not better) once you do a proper sculpt of it with all the details and textures.

However...... if it's a weak idea then no amount of polishing is gonna make that turd smell sweet. So what you do then is to move onto the next sculpt. Never get too attached to your designs when concepting, they are disposable and treat them as such or you can paint yourself into a corner figuratively speaking.

The 2nd sculpt is a far more standard shape which I immediately saw as a sort of bird guy. As for the 3rd sculpt, well you remember above I mentioned sometimes you hit on with a nice shape straight away? well other times you don't as in this case. So this one I skipped through fairly quickly as I knew chances are it'd not end up as a design that I would ever be using. now this isn't to say that you or anyone else can't see a really fantastic idea in it..that's what makes the ways of concepting so powerful they work differently for everyone.

Number 4 & 5 work together as sort of a 'ideas set' as I think of them. I start with puling a shape and adding a neck and lower jaw to it, then once I am done with that sculpt I then remesh it to a low poly level (about 68 on Dynamesh in this case as I was using Zbrush for this..mainly as it makes it far easier to explain and how). Then I moved onto using random meshes added to it as explained in the workflow my son came up with a few blog posts back. in the case of this one I 'saw' initially a weird Japanese geisha, but didn't want to do another cartoony one after that damn star shaped thingy, so looked a little longer and saw a character from my daughters favourite TV show. (The TV show is 'ZingZillas and the character is 'Tod' by the way). So the damn show has nearly drove me nuts I took the 'tod ' character and did sort of a slightly evil twist on it.

Now I finished on this one (even though its technically a existing character), because it illustrates another problem you can come across from time to time, where you do a random shape and cannot get past seeing a well known character in it. in this case I saw another one after the geisha but before the 'Tod' character. As it was so well known a monster / creature it meant I had to have an 'exit strategy' so I could continue concepting and not simply get walled into a series of existing shapes from a character that's already around. IN my case all I could see was the damn predator lol. So a large comedy monkey janitor from a kids' TV show was preferable in my case as there was more 'wiggle room' for creating either something new or an acceptable alternate version.

Now what I haven't mentioned is the steps I take mentally (simplified a bit) but often it is just a matter of taking your shape, seeing something there and then wrapping /warping human or animal anatomy around that shape. It sounds simple and to be totally frank it is, it just takes a bit of practice.

Now I have many more ways I've collected and came up with over the years and I'll share more of them as I have both the time and inclination to. But for the love of all that's holy don't get caught up on the 'how's of sculpting when learning these techniques, leave those for other sessions and simply enjoy coming up with designs you can later use. Technique and anatomical knowledge is important but its best kept for separate practice sessions, especially if your just starting out. I often twist and warp anatomy to see how far I can take it before it 'breaks' and cases to make sense. But to do that you have to have that knowledge as a starting point.

So there you go, I'm not in the habit of teaching people 'how to think' but in this case I feel it's a rewarding enough way for some of you to do lol. I'll cover another few ways as I have time etc....

Some Tuesday Doodles

Here's a couple of doodles form yesterdauy (Tuesday) The 1st one is unfinished and a Zbrush one and I have no idea what it'd have turned out to be as I was completely freestyling it. The 2nd was done in mudbox and still freestyling but turned out a better design.

Turntable:

Nothing so far today as been having a lazy 'can't be bothered' day.

A Few Doodles

As a side note I'd like to say a thankyou for the goodwishes and emails I recieved after the last blog post. Apart from a mention on my video blog on youtube I'll not be banging on about it any further.




A couple of doodles from last night or two. Tonights went awol due to a crash, so as recompence here's a few turntables....

The Stroke You Never Knew I'd had

Back in the early hours of 1st July this year while only hours away from my final lecture at the End User Event I suffered what turned out what was diagnosed when I got back home to be a mini stroke. Up till now only a handful of close trusted friends in 3D have known this even occurred as I've waited until I felt things were back to normal. I was intending to never mention the whole thing as it could feasibly be a kiss of death to my career, but a mate in 3D pointed out it was such a crazy story I had to share it at some point. Plus as I primarily work as a freelancer anyway its less important than if I was intending to work for a company. Because let's face it after this no company on earth would want to touch me as minor strokes are big health risks and scare the shit out of them.

But I digress...

No doubt you want to know the why's and wherefores..so let me explain what happened from as much as I'm able to remember or have managed to piece together. On the night of the 30th of June after months of only sleeping 2 hours a night working on my short (that very few people saw before I canned it), 'Of Gods and Men', I was on the ragged edge and felt at least twice my age, looked worse and was mentally drained. I felt worse than I ever had in my life. As this was the 1st public day of End User Event 2011 and I had done my lecture during the day, some of the guys from the Autodesk 3D Max team and a few others went for a drink alongside myself till well into the early hours. Without going into the gory details we all had probably a one or two too many and I know I was taken back to my hotel about 3 or 4am.

I passed out face down fully clothed on the bed (something I never do...well not since I was 18) and woke up at 5am feeling very strange indeed. Although I didn't realise it at the time this was directly after I'd had a stroke in my sleep. It's probably the hardest thing to describe in any way that makes sense as its impossible to put the parts you are probably interested in into words, but it felt like I was living with someone else's brain and body. My entire left arm was numb and my coordination was well off . So much so that it took me 15 mins to get to the bathroom (large amounts of liquids will do that to a person lol). I couldn't think straight and it was like having a food mixer in my brain.

As I stood there taking a leak trying to work out why my left arm refused to move the way I wanted it to and why I felt like I was thinking through treacle, I came to the conclusion that it was a combination of way too much alcohol and maybe I had been lying on my arm... so I thought. I made an 'executive decision' that as I wasn't due to lecture till 2 or 3pm that I'd go back to bed and 'sleep it off'.

I got a call from Joep Vander Steen who is one of the guys who run's and organises the End User Event (and a good mate of mine as well) asking if I was still alive. Apparently word had gotten to him about the 'epic night out' the night before and he was a tad worried. My speech slurring, I told him I'd be there in about 45 mins and proceeded to try and get ready. I'll spare you those details but suffice it to say this was far from easy as my body was not cooperating and I had to concentrate more than I ever had in my life just to get my damn pants on without falling over. Buttons proved particularly troublesome as they didn't seem to make sense to me.

By the time I'd gotten to The Florin where the End User Event was held my arm was less numb although my middle finger was still totally dead and remained that way for over a month. The very 1st thing I did was get myself 3 espressos and down the lot one after another. I was later told this was in that particular case the best thing I could have done and it may have saved me from having another massive stroke within 12 hours after the 1st one. I sat down outside next to my mate Alex Morris and vaguely remember telling him I felt as rough as hell and my finger was numb. I probably sounded still a bit pissed I imagine, my memory is sketchy of that part of the day to be honest.

I got through my lecture which was no mean feat and had I been without my notes I'd not been able to do it (we'll cover why in a moment), and the day after next I flew back home.

For weeks I still felt terrible, my head was permanently spinning like I'd been on a rollercoaster day and night, I had suddenly got to the stage of being unable to sleep more than 2 hours at a time (I seem to have been left with this as an after effect of the stroke). I had lost all my knowledge of organic sculpting and couldn't understand it..it was like I'd never done it before. Everything I'd ever learned or knew was wiped out in a single mini stroke. But still I put off going to the doctors.

I couldn't think straight, I had massive holes in my memory and have lost amongst other things, entire years of my life and the memories of the births of both my kids. I found it weird that hard surface and non organic were totally unaffected. Which was lucky as I was working on the cathedral for FXPHD at the time. So whenever I see that model now I remember with pride it was done in the aftermath of a mild stroke, that I managed to tackle and rise to the challenge in the face of one of the worst moments of my life. I am proud of it for that reason alone above all others. I will also always remain grateful that Mike and John at FXPHD kept faith in me when any other people would have run a carpet mile.

Eventually my family became worried enough to gang up on me one afternoon and make it very clear I WOULD be going to the doctors whether I wanted to or not as something was obviously very, very wrong. I think in my heart I suspected something but hoped if I ignored it, then it'd go away.

So I got an emergency appointment with my doctor. He did a load of tests, asked more questions than I've ever known him to and immediately dialled for an ambulance to rush me to the stroke unit at Durham hospital. When he told me he suspected I'd had a stroke I thought he was joking as he shares my own often dry humour. But when it dawned on me that he WASN'T joking it hit me like 10 ton of shit. You know those bits in horror movies where the foreground rushes towards camera and the background rushes away? That's what it felt like when I was told. It floored me.

I wasn't keen on going to the hospital but as it was over 3 weeks since I'd had the stroke I was told I was in extreme danger as the type of mini stroke I had are usually followed by a massive one inside of 28 days! I was put on some pills and treatments that would stop a 2nd bigger and far more damaging stroke. But there was a catch.... the pills would take nearly a week to be fully active in my system and in that time I was in danger of the massive stroke. So for a week I had to remain totally unstressed and even tempered and keep off caffeine and cross my fingers that it was enough to stave off the 2nd stroke that was hanging over my head. Thankfully it was.

I made a couple of decisions then such as I started learning myself to sculpt organics again. I had the best teacher in the world....me. I relearned from my own videos, books, articles and tutorials by lots of hard slog. Luckily the muscle memory was still there , so the rest was just 2 months of cramming and wall to wall practice as I was determined to get back to where I was. I now believe I have and also explains to the more astute of you that noticed a bit of a slight change in my style here and there. It also explains why I am using Zbrush as well as Mudbox again as I started sculpting in zb and then moved to mud, so had to relearn in that order. After relearning myself from scratch in2 months I'm hesitant to drop it again, so now I use both....I think I've earned it lol.

Now The hospital still aren't sure how much damage was done so I finally had my brain scan last week after being on a 'emergency waiting list' since the end of July. Although I won't get the results of it till December. There is damage that the doctors know for a fact it's done, it's just a matter of finding out how much and what percentage of my frontal lobe is affected. Also compounding matter is the fact I've suffered from a very rare brain condition since I was 17, and not even the neurosurgeons knows how that'll affect things.

But it seems the way I've recovered that damage is either minimal or just knocked out a load of memories. I'm not at deaths door so don't get the wrong idea for gods sakes! But it proves what everyone probably knew all along, that doing months and months of 22 hour work days is not healthy and certainly not when combined with my coffee intake each day. It's meant I had to simplify my life and so I passed mudboxhub.com to Cris from 3d-palace.com to run and stopped the DVD's and free tutorials. If and when I start doing them again is open to debate really. I am certainly back up to speed and more than capable of it both skill and health wise, but the desire right now is not there. Plus I like doing the stuff for FXPHD and will always feel that I owe those guys a debt for sticking with me when everyone else would have ran like the wind.

I didn't outline at the time what was going on because firstly it was a bad time for me and I didn't want a zillion questions, and also I didn't want to mention it until I was sure I was back to my old skills. So those of you who I told and kept the secret, thank you. So there you go, the ironic true story of how I ended up having to relearn sculpting from my own damn videos. Which I have to say is a surreal experience listening to yourself teaching something that you have no memory of ever doing.

It's an experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and could have been so much worse. I count myself as lucky to have got a warning. Yes its left me with years of my life now with no memory but that's a small price to pay. It's a journey I am proud to have came out of the other side of and one that has changed my attitudes forever.

Now I realise this could be the kiss of death to my career but in reply to anyone or companies that feel like that I say this:

"In the aftermath of my mini stroke I started and finished the image below. So I don't think you have anything to worry about. ;) "

Rant:: Stop with the crazy emails already!

It pains me to have to post another blog like this, but after the massive increase in the weeks following the last lot of vids of mine to be pirated we've had the usual influx of crap emails.

OK I'm going to say this one last time....

I've asked nicely (and sometimes a bit less than nicely) to please remember I am not a extended version of Autodesk's tech support for Mudbox. Do not send me emails about how your viewport suddenly has large floating pigs in it or you mesh exploded taking half your house with it. (Or indeed any variations of the above).

It is not my job.

My job is a freelance artist, tutor and sometimes author, I am not here when you cannot be bothered to read a help file or search Google. I am certainly not here to solve problems you may have after you've bid for a freelance gig you realise you have no idea how to do or as a allegedly faster version of Mudbox tech support.

I also do not want to hear about how lucky I am to be asked to work for free on an 'awesome project' of yours that pays nothing, has no one working on it and of course has you as director lol. As the joker said 'if your good at something you don't do it for free...' No artist worth their salt will work on a free project from someone without a good track record unpaid, and certainly not (if they have any brains at all) when the only person working on it is a guy no one knows who insists 'its awesome'.

If I do something for nothing for a person you can bet your arse they are either:

A - A friend

B - someone with a vast track record who I like both in their job and as a person.

C - it is to get a person from either A or B out of a hole they are in by no fault of their own.

D- they are famous lol

E - It's someone I know well

It will never be for:

A - someone I do not know

B - someone I have never met

C - someone with no track record

D - someone who wants someone else to do all the work on 'their awesome project'

E - Someone who wants to use a model of mine in a fan film as they are too lazy to make one themselves or hire someone to do it.

F - That coincides with one or more of the above as well as shortly after a DVD / book or whatever of mine has been pirated.

I do not care how amazing you think it is, I do not need the 'free publicity' as I'm more than capable of making as much of that as I need myself. I am aware you think your making the next big thing and you think it will be so totally awesome it'll make you a millionaire, but trust me when i say this...99.9% of the time it won't. I realise you think you are a special little snowflake but your not, your the same as everyone else. After 40 years on this earth thats become very obvious.

So stop with the emails already! Jesus its getting beyond a joke, if you cannot do something then do what the rest of us do ....and learn. If it is outside of your skill set and you don't have time to learn then be prepared to pay as you wouldn't ask any other profession to work for free so please for the love of god don't do it with me or artists like me.

So that's my very simple rules... respect them and you respect me, ignore them and expect an email telling you to fuck off (and that's if I'm in a nice mood....which most times its only fair to warn you..... I'm not lol).

Doodles

I love doodling stuff as most times I have no idea what's going to pop up until its nearly done. In fact anyone who has watched me sculpt knows that for 75% of any speed sculpts I do it looks ropey as hell until the last few mins. The exception is of course pre-planned pieces. But it's sort of a trademark of mine...




Anyways, here's a few doodles I've selected from the last few nights, non are serious and all done in my typical 'I have no idea what I'm going to sculpt' mode. I may be able to show a client pice done for a kids TV thing I did for Space Digital soonish..in fact I may be able to now, I've not checked yet lol. Not because I have some mega halloween thing planned, because it may suprise some of you to find out I actually hate halloween. (Mainly because like guy falkes night and carol singers it means people knocking on my sodding door when I'm trying to get shit done. lol)

Sort of lost my way on these ones when my son decided to come and 'help daddy' lol

A Brand New Way to Concept Sculpt by Kane Robson aged 6 1/2

You see this 6 yr old little monster above? That's my son Kane, who besides seemingly trying to send me and my wife crazy... is obsessed with art and has come up tonight with an amazing technique to break out of the box when concept sculpting. It's not often I see a technique that literally changes the way I sculpt them, but also I feel is so good that I am compelled to share it.

The theory behind it (that I'm sure Kane had no idea of when he come up with it tonight) is similar to when a 2d concept artist maybe use a series of random shapes and then similar to a Rorschach test 'see' the idea within it and then flesh it out. Sort of in a similar to one of my favourite apps 'Alchemy' does in 2D. The beauty of Kane's idea is that it's exactly the same thing but in 3D.

If you take note of the 1st few seconds of the video above, you'll notice I create a random shape in Zbrush (as Dynamesh works perfectly for this), and then use a series of random placements of lips and noses to create and interesting shape. Then I see in this some things I meld together with the clay build-up. I keep this up until the sculpt 'emerges' from the randomness. Then it's just your usual concept sculpting / speed sculpting.

Obviously this is not just limited to using noses and lips..you could use any low-ish res shape at all, but I urge you if you're a sculptor to give it a try. I ask only one thing that as my sons came up with this wonderful idea that he does get credit for it and not ripped off wholesale as has happened to idea of my own in the past. He's 6 years old and to be honest it'd be a bit fucking harsh if the 3d world starts using this and then 'forgets' the little boy who came up with this wonderful idea. I'm sure many will lay claim to this technique, but the bottom line is this...no one shared it with the digital sculpting world.period.

This could be done equally as well in 3DCoat as well of course....although not as easily in Mudbox as you'd be reduced to using vector displacement stamps and stencils.

Now in my workflow at the point this video gets to mid res / locked down(ish) I'd export to Mudbox and continue from there and only retop if the design was approved. (Until if / when mesh creation that could be used for this appears in Mudbox, which i would hope it does.) The strong part of this technique is that as artists we can often get locked into a family of shapes and forms that we find ourselves treading out time after time and that can lead to staleness. I often feel that models done in a group can end up feeling stale to me using the same shape language. This forces you kicking and screaming into new shapes and forms. To me that is probably the biggest change to my concepting workflow I can get!

Hopefully many of you can see the power of this way of concepting once you give it a try. I'm calling it The Kane Technique.