June 18, 2012 8:00 AM
by Editor in Chief
Even though the technology may change and so do your tools, your mastery of traditional arts always pays off. And this week's winner—Michalis Zissiou—has proved just that. Being a traditional artist, he has turned Blender and others into a virtual "chisel-and-hammer." His array of renders have shown that as far as 3D digital stone sculptures are concerned, there seem to be few that would be his equals. So, it is with great pleasure that www.BlenderNews.org have as the winner of the Render of the Week Award for the week of June 18, 2012: Michalis Zissiou.
How, then, can you too qualify for this award? Please remember that this award is reserved for those that are on par with or that excel top notch works published by artists and studios. If such work does not appear during a given week, this award is not being given to anyone. To improve your chance of nomination, please look at your render and ask: 'Does this look like a real photo or a well-made drawing? Does this have a story to tell or is it inspiring?' And then, please submit your work to www.blenderartist.org or to the Member's Gallery of this site, or Contact Us to show where your work is available on the internet. It doesn't have to be a Blender render, internal or Cycles. A Vray render or any other render is fine as long as Blender was used as a part of your workflow.
Title: "Gargoyle"
Genre: Modelling
Renderer: Cycles
Final Image:
Wireframes and textures:
Artist's Comment
About Me:
I'm a traditional painter, having a lot of personal shows so far. This is how I live. As a second profession, a lot of years in DTP photography. And a jazz double bass musician for twenty years now.
My first attempts in 3D were started back in 1998, on a Mac using Strata3D and Bryce. In 2005, I started learning Maya, then in 2008, SketchUp with some commercial external renderer (Kerkythea based) for Arch Vidz needs mostly.
Very soon, I got interested in Blender, using it for constructing low poly meshes with UVs, texturing-baking and exporting them to SketchUp, sharing them with the community there. Blender became my basic 3D application, ever since. Then I bought ZBrush very soon and 3dcoat after some months…. Yeah, I'm a small collector of these kind of sculpting apps, LOL. In 2011, I was a beta tester for Pixologic , on the latest release of Sculptris. I really loved this tiny beautiful app.
About “Gargoyle:”
I found this excellent tutorial on how to implement dirt in Cycles, using vertex painting, similar to ZBrush! I also tested the cube-blended texture mapping as explained in the mango project blog. The Gargoyle has been modeled in Scuptris very fast, as if by “doodling.” The figurine is based on ancient Egyptian god Bess or Bes statuette, as seen on Greco-Roman versions. It's a DynaMesh ZBbrush sculpt. With 300 passes, it took 3 minutes to render in Cycles at 1600 px. For lighting, an HDRI map and a light source was used. No UV maps were used.
Follow the links above, they're very interesting IMO. A very fast way for decent preview-presentations, and an excellent solution for background props.
Related Links:
1. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?256634-Another-gargoyle-a-recent-cycles-test
2. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?201063-corinthian-order&highlight=
3. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?192825-TheMachinist&highlight=
4. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?230746-Dimitris-simply-sculpting&highlight=
5. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?251534-Conspiracy&highlight=
6. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?242612-A-portrait-sculpture.&highlight=
7. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?239823-A-grecoroman-terracotta&highlight=
8. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?190980-sculpture_a-portrait&highlight=
9. http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?183219-Scene-from-a-museum&highlight=