High poly modeling

I was always curious on how to produce high quality models for movie and cinematic purposes. I was introduced to a new features in Maya that I never though of using.

We started modeling a knife. We have used a plane with a picture displayed on it as a base for the model. Using simple primitives we started building the knife. The first thing that we tackled was a handle. It was quite challenging to get used to at the beginning but as I went deeper and deeper I got more comfortable with the technique. By pressing 3 on the keyboard we had a preview of a smooth view. At first it looked very unpleasing but as you go along and add additional edge loops it gave a nice curved edge.
I've also learned about topology. It is very important to make your objects flow with the item you're modeling. If I was to do a face model I'd create my topology based on the muscle flow which would add a lot of realism to the model.

More concept work!

As our level is starting to look  more solid I am being given graybox screenshots of the game and I am being asked to paint on top of these to give my team an idea of texture looks.
I decided to go with two ideas. One of the buildings could look technology advanced where the second building could look more generic and as if it really belonged to New York.
I consider my first painting as not successful. I don't really like the final outcome. It looks very unpleasant for the eye. The colors are too bright and saturated and the general color palette does not fit my vision.

In this painting I evaluated all my mistakes that I have done in the previous painting and I decided to make this one more realistic, more eye catching. 

As mentioned before this building had to look like these in New York so I applied a lot of brick work, windows and graffiti. Also I have made two variations of the painting. We wanted to have rain in our level but I gave my team two possibilities of the level look which I think was worth in the end. 

In the conclusion, I think I've learned a lot during the process of making these over paints. At first I wasn't really confident with where it was heading but as time passed I learned more and more and I applied that in further works. 

Bust concept art

Looking back at the first sketches my team decided that we needed some sort of bridge that could connect two buildings together. We came up with an idea of a sci-fi bus that crashed into the building as it flew by. I was asked to design a bus for the project. Having some experience in designing vehicles in 1st year of the Uni I started exactly with the same process. I went inside Maya and I created a gray box model of the bus. In my mind I kept the idea of a New York bus which was mainly yellow and was quite long.

I decided to have two carriages and these would float above the ground. The second carriage was meant to be used as a bridge for a player to cross to get on the other building.

And here is the final outcome. At the time of making the bus I did not know anything about texturing or laying UVs so I put the whole model inside Photoshop and I painted on top of it. To be honest I enjoy this process a lot more. I find it to be quicker and easier to handle than laying UVs and applying textures. The only downside of this was that this project wasn't ready for my team to use as a game object. Unfortunately my team wanted to use this as a final model that was going to be used as a game prop, but when I was creating the gray box model I only modeled one side because I didn't need the other side simply because it would not be shown in the painting. Also when they put the model inside the Unity it crashed due to some problems with hidden vertices and other objects. 

Texture exploration

As my concepting work is coming to an end I am set with a task to start texturing the game level. As I am more of  a 2D guy I wanted to make my life easier so I quickly drew those building examples that could give me and my team some idea of some of the textures we could have. I bounced from many different types of buildings. Majority of the buildings that I have done have a modern look to them (full of lights, glass construction), but I have also included more of a destroyed looking buildings because we decided that we wanted our level to have a post-apocalyptic feel to it. 

To produce these I have used a simple perspective method. I created a cube in Photoshop and later on I applied textured on top using skewing to align textures with the cube.

New York concepting

I am still exploring different styles in which I'd like to see my level presented. I decided to draw few props and concepts that could help my team to see my vision of the game level.
At this point it's all guess work. I am looking through internet to find some references and inspirations. As I mentioned before we wanted our level to look as a cut out from Blade runner, but with the first concept I went a little further. I wanted to see how far we can push our level and how it could look if it was highly sci-fi influenced.

Here's some props that I made. At the time I was very much influenced by the new Alien Isolation game and I loved the looks of it. I drew these just to give my team an idea of how some of our props could look like.

In this sketch I explored a contrast between sci-fi and modern elements of the surroundings. I have combined generic brick wall and a steel doors with a sci-fi crate and a display screen on the wall that could be required for a player to access the room.

New York rooftops.

As a part of second year course we have been set with a task to produce a virtual cut of a New York rooftop. This project required of me to work in a group with a set role. I have chosen to be a Concept Artist as I feel the most confident with this. Also, when my job as a concept artist is finished I want to help my team in texturing buildings, assets and other objects. In my concept art stage I have been asked to produce some initial ideas of how our rooftop could look like. Our original concept was to follow the idea of Blade Runner. We really liked how the movie presented futuristic New York but did not go over the top with the Sci-fi features like Star Wars.
 I have produced few sketches of how I wanted our level to look like.

As you can see from the top two sketches we wanted to make two playable buildings surrounded by other buildings that were out player's reach. Also the initial idea that has stayed with us until now was to make these building flooded. We wanted to give a post apocalyptic feel to our level which I think works really well.