The Journey of a Newbie

Let's begin by chronological order:

Lonely Robot - Lights Out

(Original concept art by Matt Dixon)

This was my first 3D project, a little robot meant for learning the basics about modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering with a small "easy" project (that meant the world to me due to my absolute lack of experience with 3D at that time)

It was really funny to use EVERITHING I could to make the model, but honestly, sometimes less is more, and I learned that with this first project where I had to learnd the whole process of producing something in 3D

Here you have it's turntable!

Hellwalker Weapon Modeling Project (3D fanart of a Borderlands 3 weapon)

When starting this project I thought to myself "I'm dying in the next two weeks" so I decided to make a Shotgun and surprisingly I made it through and ended up not only being more conscious about the use of topology but becoming more precise on UV mapping and texturing with details.

Then the devil walked in to literally pull me against the reins, and it did in the form of a car, accurately a Marcos 1800, the HARDEST project I remember and the one that gave me the most headaches. BUT that was the cost of learning long-term values for my future projects and works and getting to actually understand what I was doing wrong and how to avoid doing it again:

When finished the incredible challenge it was to me to make this car, it was the turn for animating it with CRAFT and make a short secuence with my own environment and models (and also get to learn how to use assets from Quixel  and other resource pages)

Oh, did I forgot to mention that the composing was made with Nuke? That incredible program that at that time I understood mostly nothing, but that opened the window for Postproduction, fixing mistakes and adding much more to the final result (Nowadays I really like Nuke and actually understand it, but putting on view, it was really hard for a newbie to make all these projects in 3 months with none of previous experience, and also launching into Nuke)

Thankfully I learnt quickly and was ready to face the next challenge, the Environment:
(Original concept art by Asen Lyi)

With this project I learnt a lot about how concept art mixes with 3D, and also got to learn about MASH using many of its Nodes (Offset, ID, Random, etc) But the most important thing was learning to get the vibe in the concept and put it into the 3D model, that was something that I took really care from there on.

Now Its turn for the Project that made me learn about the look development process this custom clothing, Xgen for hair creation, etc... and how to Optimize the most out of my renders and the many different methods to do so, the Look Development for and animation:

(Animation made by Raquel Camarrillo and Base character (Bee) by Juan Solís)

Starting with the weapon, I decided to take an step further in difficulty level, so I chose to recreate the Bloom revolver form Borderlands 3 (Same as I did with the shotgun few moths earlier) It was not only a Modeling challenge but a texturing one since I had to create an infinite pattern to replicate the drawings of the metal on the original weapon and keep its vibes, also this weapon has a knife attached under the cannon so it made me model a blade too.

And now, the project that showed me how much I've learnt, and how capable I am for adapting myself to different problems just to finish what I start, including the hugest plot twist that I've made in any project: Modeling a car with much more detail that was only meant for a simple renders and ended up using it as the main attention spot of my lastest environment while learning a whole new render engine to maxime my productivity and learn even more: RenderMan by Pixar Studios and also end up learning another program: SpeedTree. 3 birds with one stone!

(Original Concept art by Sylvain Sarrailh)

Modeling Process and SpeedTree project

Inside and CloseUp

Then Summer holydays ended, and the time came for 3D animation!

The firsts three months were totally intended to understand the 12 principles of animation and how to create good, likeable and balanced poses in 3D, and this was my first Module DemoReel:

Then we moved onto body mechanics, starting with or fellow BOLO, who was meant to behave as the main COG and to introduce us to legs behavior and acting. Then Marianico, to understand how the upperbody works and behave with the lowerbody parts, and finally, a full body character: Mariano, who showed us expresivity, secondary actions, advanced overlaping, and most important balance between upper and lower body:

It has been an incredible challenge all the way here, but sincerely, I has been completely woth it, I feel I'm taking out the best of myself and also feeling really happy with all the 3D stuff and it's endless posibilities. I'd have never imagine that moving fron 2D to 3D will  make me such happy and curious for something!

Hope you liked all my journey and improvement along this last year, and please, feel free to leave any coment, I'm completely open to any feedback or advise that can provide more possibilities and knowledge ^^

And that's all! But not for long, since I am still studying animation at the 3rd Module, and then will move onto Character Modeling after summer!

See you on the next RookieAwards with all the new progress that I'll make!