fantasy creature

A concept design for a creature I did in the summer this year. Though it was supposed to be a CG character, it had to have real world features to interact with in-camera objects.

animal portraits

These are some images from a series of animal portraits I have done last year for a fine art book print project. They where sculpted in ZBrush, textured in Mari and rendered in Maya with Arnold. The fur was done in Shave and a Haircut.

Mercedes Benz print commercial concepts and render

Last year I have been working on a couple of print campaigns for Mercedes Benz, which required several designs and models for background buildings. They all had to follow to a certain degree MB corporate identity, so I did some sketches first and after the client made her decision, I went into Maya and built the models. Above is the finished model for a MB store with a small garage to the right. This "preview" rendering was done in iray for Maya. Below are the concepts for the store as well as some for a separate garage and "grey-shaded" renderings.

desert cave snuggler

Since I had been modeling a lot architecture lately, it was fun to do something pure 2D and organic again. Some of my friends looking at my recent creatures thought I should do something more cute - so here we go. This creature lives in the desert but stays inside caves during the heat of the day. When it is getting dark and the ground is cooling down it goes on its hunt for little insects or some delicious flowers. It is about the size of a cat, maybe a little bit bigger. Pure Photoshop work, no 3D here.

saurian guy

This one started as a quick sculpt in Zbrush. After a quick remesh I brought it into Mari, did some textures and reworked the sculpt based on that color reference. Rendered in Maya, I finalized him in Photoshop.

Tree Snatcher

The Tree Snatcher creature lives in the tree tops. It's tail usually dangles down below the branch it sits on. With the moist and smelly part, it attracts lots of insects, which in turn lure bigger prey close to the snapping claws. Once caught, there is no escape and the prey gets brought towards the mouth area of the Tree Snatcher where it injects a poisonous and decomposing liquid. Very much like spiders digest their catch. I started and finished this one as pure 2D in Photoshop.

fish creature

Started as a head/bust Zbrush doodle, I took this one further and gave him a body too. Also I remeshed him and prepared a Maya file for animation, though this will take some more time to finish. As a concept for texturing I rendered him in Maya and did some paint over in Photoshop.

DeWalt 20V max render / some more iray

To gain some more knowledge on iray for maya, I recently spent some time to set up this scene (NURBS drill model by Onur Aytekin). Since iray for maya handles its custom passes through light path expressions it was a good opportunity to look into that too. The final render took about 9 hr on my machine in 3.5 K resolution. As with the last project, defining materials and light setup in iray for maya is just a pleasure!

Wasteland Stalker (design and model by Paul Braddock)

Recently I have completed a CGS Workshop "Animal Skin and Scales in Mari 2.6" taught by Alwyn Hunt. This is the final result. The "bare" model was provided (i.e. no bump or displacement). All texturing, lighting and rendering was done by me.

perfume flacon / iray testing

Here is something that might please my commercial clients a bit more! I was testing Iray for Maya recently and had to come up with a project not too labour intense, so I could get into testing quite soon. I decided upon doing a perfume bottle and after sketching some rough silhouettes I went into modeling. The bottle was done in Maya, while for the background I did some detailing in Zbrush. Especially setting lights in real time and tweaking material attributes was a great pleasure. Iray itself is fairly easy to learn and a lot is self explanatory. To use Iray at full speed your entire scene has to fit into your graphics memory, which is not possible with geometry heavy scenes or when you have very large textures. All in all, using it was a good experience though I am lacking a bit the possibility to fake certain things. But that is inherent in the tool -  it "only" gives you real world behaviour ;) Obviously I put some post work into the final image in Photoshop.

spaceship concepts

These are some spaceship concepts I have been working on. Eventually I will take some of them into 3D. Not based on a particular story, they are the result of filling in some interesting silhouettes. At different scales and purpose, they are meant for armed missions, interstellar travel or personal transport. All done 2D in Photoshop.

Service Robot - final Concept

This is the final Concept (and Model) for my Service Robot Design. In comparison to the grey-shaded Version I posted earlier I have added some minor details here and there. Modeling was done in Maya, Rendering in Mental Ray, using GI and FG and some post-work in Photoshop and After Effects.




Animation and Turntable for my Service Robot concept to better illustrate the overall design and the working of its arm folding mechanism. Modeled in Maya, textured in Mari, rendered in Mental Ray and compositing done in After Effects.

futuristic water power station

This was a concept I did last year for a project I have been working on. It was part of a commercial campaign for Mercedes Benz Nutzfahrzeuge and their Unimog. It is a combination of two seperate concepts you can see below. Sketched 2D in Photoshop.

Narnia like Deer Soldier concept

Doing another character with Fur for a commercial project at the beginning of the year led to this piece. It started as a ZBrush sketch and evolved into this Narnia like character. I used Mari for texturing and Shave and a Haircut for Fur. The castle and the character are actual geometry, sky and fire effects are handpainted / photo-bashed.

These are some concepts I did to explore possible versions for the buckles on the belts - went with the one in the center.

Predator

Thowas Pygmy Cow

This creature lives hidden in the deep forests of a distant planet named Thowas. Since she is a herbivore her only means to defend herself against attacking predators is to inflate her back body, hence exposing poisonous spots and making her appear bigger. She also splays her nostrils and ears thus showing off the brightly colored insides - pretending to be the scary mouth opening of a very dangerous animal...

Robot Concepts

Back again with some work I did throughout the year so far. This one is the first of a series of robots and other concepts I developed for an add agency. It was briefed to be a service robot in a "near future" maintenance setting.

This was the one the client chose. I started it as a rough model in Maya and sketched on top.

Above is the finished model with no textures yet.

a hidden place - WIP

A preview version of how the final animation may look like. I did not like this table, so I made a different one which I still have to render. Also I want to incorporate some animated effects like a flickering candle flame, moving shadows and things like that.

To keep up my hardsurface modeling skills I started this project for an interior scene. It belongs to a well known unknown person from the late 1900s, who lived in a now also famous district in London... I will give some more clues during texturing. I am done with modeling now and these are renderings with ambient occlusion and wireframe.

hopper

bat character

This is a proposal for a bat-like character I am working on. I started in Zbrush, rendered in Maya and polished it in Photoshop.