Strange Behavior (Illustration) Entry: Gijs Leijdekkers

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191976051_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191976051_large.jpg)

Hi there!

As I haven't missed a challenge since Machineflesh, I will neither be missing this one. You might think I'm somewhat late to participate (3 weeks before the deadline), but I've been sketching/making ideas on it from the first week. I only didn't do the real job (3d-modelling etc) yet.

As I live in a student-room since last week, I can concentrate on the work, which is... more fun! (as I now can work full nights, without making someone angry! ;) )

As for the theme: I really like it! It is far more open then the more recent themes, Journey Begins and EON, where we were quite restricted in our ideas. Also 'strange behavoir' as theme, does allow me to come up with surreal / 'weird' artwork, which is quite my style. (as you might have seen on my EON-entry, for instance).

I have had about 12 different ideas for this challenge (about 4 'developed' to something worthy), but will first only show the one I'll use for the final image. I'll probably show the other sketches later one (if there's some time left ;) ).

The sketch you see here, shows an egg with a girl breeding on it. In the egg a prince just opens a crack of the egg, and looks at the girl.
There was not yet a real 'strange behavior' in this idea, but I just liked the setting.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191976801_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191976801_large.jpg)

After some more sketches and ideas, my 'breeding' idea, evolved into something more interesting.

The story behind: as I quite liked the setting of the previous 'egg/breeding' idea, I wanted to continue doing that, but I did think it was too much off the theme. Also time is getting short, so I probably couldn't make something complete (in this timeframe) of that concept.

I began sketching some other ideas (totally different from the egg-idea), and came up with the idea to have a character in a 'lightbox'/'photoshoot' environment, in which the instruments (camera, tripod, lighting devices) would still be visible in the final image. That would bring me a nice surreal, modern, interesting scene.

Then: 'eureka, let's combine the egg with the lightbox-idea'.

So that's what happend... Keep following the upcoming uploads! :)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191978190_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191978190_large.jpg)

Time for a little explatation on the idea behind:
The scene has a big egg, central in the 'lightbox' (a very global lighting stage), which is heated by a sandwich toaster, watercooker, an iron, a hairdryer etc. All those devices are plugged into a multiple socket, which leads out of the scene.
The egg has a crack, and a girl in it holds up the upper part. She holds it up on a grab inside the egg, as this egg is her improvised, imaginairy own world. As she is being a bit 'alternative', she has dreadlocks and a little piercing.

And as not everybody does setup a bunch of devices to be able to 'live inside of their own world', you can speak of a 'strange behavior', can't you?! :)

In this sketch you can see some of the female face ideas. They are far from good, but I'm getting closer (then 5 years ago) to 'how to draw a woman'. So hopefully the 3D-model will also look famale and... interesting! :)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191978549_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191978549_large.jpg)

Here you see some veeery rough doodles of the heating devices that are set up on the floor. See my previous post for the explanation of their presence.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191978851_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191978851_large.jpg)

Here I show you a more defined concept sketch, so that you get a clear idea of the composition and colors etc.

I created this image mainly with CorelDRAW (as a vector image) and finished it in Photoshop.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191979173_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191979173_large.jpg)

And here you see a little crop of the previous image, so you can see some more details.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191980514_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1191980514_large.jpg)

As I'm not completely satisfied with the geometrical central placed egg, I have experimented with the composition.

Can you tell me which one you like the best?

I think I do like composition 2 the best at the moment, as the subject is not central anymore. This way you get a viewing line along the electrical cables, up to the girl's face.

Updates soon: I'll probably begin 3D-modeling the girl's face later this week.

What do you people think of my idea and composition? Please tell me - I'll be happy to hear! :)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193011412_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193011412_large.jpg)

"Time left: 8 days, 12 hours, 1 minutes, 3 seconds."

Hmm... That's not to much, but I'm still in the mood for finishing this challenge! :)

The image shows you my modelling proces of the girl. To this point it took me about 3 hours, which is interesting as such things once cost me days! Practise makes faster: proved! ;)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193011656_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193011656_large.jpg)

And here I show you the model as it is at the time. I'll be tweaking it some this week.

Can you tell me what you think of the shape? How can I put in more (sweet & nice! :) ) personality? I'm not very experienced in modelling/drawing regonizable faces, so maybe you can help me!?!

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193012072_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193012072_large.jpg)

Here you can see a little mockup of what the hair will look like. The girl will be having dreadlocks, so with some clever texturing methods I won't have to use complex hair simulation tools. Besides it's just interesting to get realistic dreadlocks, as you don't see dreads very often in CG!

Updates soon: nobody will have to complain when I'm working a full night, as I now live on my own! :twisted:

[Dutchman]

I got

One full day: at least 15 houres effective
A cup of coffee
3dsmax
Photoshop
Wacom tablet
A good mood :)
That should do it! Lets ramble! :twisted:

:bounce:

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193058722_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193058722_large.jpg)

Here you see the first prop I modelled for the scene: the sandwich toaster. This prop will provide some heath, so that the girl inside is not getting a cold.

As I'm Industrial Design-student, it's interesting to model these props. It's really an intersection of both CG and Industrial Design, which makes it big fun!

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193102967_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193102967_large.jpg)

After a full day working (but sadly not 100% effective) I got some more props now.

I'm still very positive about finishing this project within a week, as the scene geometry isn't that complex or big. Soon it's just about merging all models together, and beginning tot texture/light/render/post-process. With those 7,5 days left that's gonna be allright!

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193103252_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193103252_large.jpg)

I just placed a 'biped-rig' inside my egg, to test the proportions, and wanted to place a screenshot of that over here. But I got it into Photoshop for a quick color-correction, where I accidentally began painting around it. Now (30 minutes later) it ended up as a nice impression of a possible (alternative) mood. (as my intention was/is to make it look like a 'cold' lightroom).

Can someone give me some C&C about my work for now? I'm curious about your opinion! :)

[Ordibble-Plop]

Hi Gijs, I like your last sketch. The outside has a very cold, metallic feel and you could contrast this more with the egg by giving the egg warmer tones. I think this might help to give the idea that the egg is a safe coccoon the girl goes to in order to remove herself from the cold world.

As far as composition goes, I thought it might be interesting if you used your number 2 composition but move the multiple socket closer to the bottom left corner away from the other appliances so it is more by itself. The cables from the appliances would then feed into one place and not be so jumbled. You could even coil the cables together a bit - the idea is to have the cables and the multiple socket represent a kind of umbilical cord, which would fit with the egg theme.

And for the face, you could make the chin rounder rather than pointy and make the cheeks fuller to sweeten her up.

Good luck for the end.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193293959_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193293959_large.jpg)

Here you see the model of the hairdryer and of the iron. It's funny that they both came out a little more spacey then meant, but maybe that makes them even more interesting. ;)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193294189_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193294189_large.jpg)

As the girl was planned to have dreadlocks as hair, they had to be modelled. So that was one of the ways to fill last night!

They're basically just all renderable splines, which also have autogenerated mapping coordinates, so that the texturing and shading will be quite easy.

I'll be trying to have modelling and texturing finished by today, so you can expect some updates over the day. :)

[Dutchman]

@ Ordibble P. Lop: thanks very much for your constructive and very helpfull feedback! :bounce: I'm very happy to see that you get the point of my image (the egg as cocoon-concept) and that you come up with some good solutions. I'll be using your words in my upcoming descisions! :)

I've been working 24 hours straight on it now, so I hope all my model is completed soon. I'll post some new WIP-images very soon! :arteest:

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193315464_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193315464_large.jpg)

Finally the modelling is (largely) done, as you can see on these screenshots. The top screenshot is not taken from the 'final camera angle' but the final composition will probably look quite similar.

I'll now begin texturing the girl and her hair, and I hope to be rendering the first passes tonight... We'll see - it's allot of hard work (much hours!), but it might be worth it! ;)

If you see something in the modelling that really should be corrected - please tell me! :)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193330937_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193330937_large.jpg)

Here you see some choices between different POVs: what composition would be the most appealing?

The right one of the bottom two is just a mirrored one. (as we all know the trick of mirroring an image to check out if the composition is well balanced).

The choice of making it portrait aspect ratio is because all elements seem to fit in well, and a landscape format would make the egg too small. A square composition might work (and would be interesting) but is not very practical.

In the bottom comp the cables leave at the bottem, which might be better then on the side? Also I feel that the comp in the top is a bit distorted, probably because the broken egg breaks up the viewing direction. In the bottom comp that's not the case.

About the mirrored view: I found out a nice trick in 3dsmax: you can mirror a camera! That way you can setup both ones in a viewport, and play with the position untill it's balanced in both views. :)

If you have an opinion: don't be afraid to release it! ;)

[Peter-Eriksson]

I would go for number 2 left one, I think that the background on that one is better.
Suggestion: Why not have the light coming from the camera view and have "scary" shadow falling on the egg shell. An Idea that could make the "angry" house hold objects a little more hostile.

Good luck!
/peter

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193354545_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193354545_large.jpg)

I just wanted to have a nice ending of my 36-hour-day, by making a quick lightingsetup on the scene and rendering/retouching it. This way I keep focussed on the final image! :)

I have now setup the basic shaders for the different objects. I'll be tweaking them in my rendering process.

About my upcoming rendering process: I'm planning to render different Scanline-passes, plus one beautypass in Mental Ray. By combining those later on it all should end up quite photoreal.

I'm very happy to be quite well on schedule: I still got 4,5 days left for tweaking the shaders and rendering, which is allot in my terms! (on MachineFlesh I began rendering 10 minutes before deadline... which is probably also the reason I didn't get it in before the deadline ;) ).

Let's hope my final image will be worth it all! :)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193653157_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1193653157_large.jpg)

Just to illustrate my rendering process of today, I show you a WIP GI-pass. I'm having 2 computers over here, so I hope to be rendering effective during the day. In my planning this night won't contain much sleep, but the more post-production productivity! ;)

[OZ]

This one Is CRAZY! :scream:

[Dutchman]

@ coolconrad: Thanks for your reply! :) In fact about that composition choice: it was about the shapes and position of them, rather then the lighting etc. But still I like your idea of the placing of the light, and I'll see what I can do with it in the final image! Thanks! :scream:

@ OZ: Thanks for stopping by... and I just hope that 'crazy' ain't a bad thing in your eyes! :shrug: :twisted:

About the deadline extension: whee, I can have some sleep tonight! :) It came really unexpected, so I'm quite happy there are 2 more weeks left! As I'm allready quite far in the making (I have my final setup, and began rendering my passes allready) I think I can polish the image till the end. Which should result in something 'deliverable'! :bounce:

I'll keep you up, and let me know what you think of it! :)

[Arias]

haha ,i like the lovely egg and your sketch. let's keep on till the last:thumbsup: ,my friend. I 'll look forward to your process. now it seems the role in the work isn't very well. well, it's just my opinion.
I expect a vivid , lovely and funny role appear step by step! keep on~ : )

[nwiz25]

me with OZ! crraaaazy concept man! :eek: i think .. a big grin on his face will pull the viewer's attention even more ;) more than the egg his expression has do the trick :p waiting for your next update! ;) good luck dude! :thumbsup:

[Dutchman]

@ Arias: thanks for your reply, and it's good to hear you like it! :) I only don't get what you mean by 'the role is bad'? :shrug: (what's a role in your sentence?)

@ nwiz25: thanks for stopping by to reply! :) Good to hear you think it's 'crazy', as I suppose that might be positive?! :) About 'his' face: it was meant to be a 'her', but I've heard lots of people not understanding that. So today I'll be tweaking her face a bit more, so that I can then finally begin final rendering. :)

Updates soon, as time is running short again! ;) ('we creative people never understand it: even after the deadline is shifted 2 weeks ahead, we need to stress till the very last moments!' ;) )

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1194810878_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1194810878_large.jpg)

As the deadline was extended, I did get some more time to get some reactions from people. I heard from allot that they think the character in the scene is a male, so I took some time to correct the model to be more female.

At the left you see the 'old' model, at the right the corrected one. For now I've mostly worked on defining a better mouthshape, as putting in more volume will make her look more female.

Do you people have suggestions to make her look more female? :)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1194901161_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1194901161_large.jpg)

I've been working some more on the girl model, and have created a quick photomockup to test how the girl would look with eyes and hair. I think it's heading in the right direction now: only the mouth seems a bit big.

What do you think: is she becoming more sweet (and above all: more female ;) )?

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195140342_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195140342_large.jpg)

I'm now almost finished with the rendering process. I did allready render some GI passes, an object-ID-pass, ZDepth etc. Then I'll have about 10 hours left for the post-process - let's hope that will do it! :)

The render you see here is a lightingpass I did with a custom lightingsetup, rendered in the default Scanline-renderer.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195169260_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195169260_large.jpg)

I finally got all passes rendered now, so I just made a quick mockup of the passes combined. Still 6 hours left for further compositing, painting and retouching, so I'll be working hard to get a nice final image. :) Stay tuned! ;)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195181364_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195181364_large.jpg)

With 3 hours and 13 minutes left, I here show you a WIP of the post-production in Photoshop. I just finished the dreadlocks, and will be focussing on the girls face for now.

[mb]

Good luck! GOGOGOOGOGO:)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195191044_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195191044_large.jpg)

Yeah! I made it! :)

It's not photorealistic, but at least it... might make you think of some strange behavior. See the story in the upcoming post of the final image.

Because I want the final image to be thumbnailed, I first show crops of the final image, and then the full one.

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195191139_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195191139_large.jpg)

Here you see another crop of final image...

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195191317_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195191317_large.jpg)

And the last crop... Grab tight and beware: final image online within small amount of minutes! ;)

[Dutchman]

http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195192158_medium.jpg (http://assets.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/19/14085/14085_1195192158_large.jpg)

Here I present you: my final image for this challenge! :)

The story behind it:

A strange, alternative girl lives in her own world - an egg. She placed warming devices around the egg, so it will be nice and warm inside. This way the egg functions as a cocoon, so she can totally ignore the world around and live in her own egg.

The images is created with 3dsmax 9.0, rendered with the Default Scanline Rendered, and post-produced in Photoshop CS. The full resolution is 3996x2920 pixels.

Thanks for the support around here in the thread! I hope you all enjoyed my process and my final image, and hope to see you all again in the future CG-challenges!
-Gijs

[Dutchman]

@ marcelbaumann: Thanks for the encouragment! It helped me out of the well known "damn, taking some sleep won't be that bad"-moment. :bounce:

I'm very happy to again have finished a CGTalk-challenge, as I've always created a final image since GSO! It has been worth the short sleep and cookies! :D

After taken a good rest (as I submitted my final TIFF 5 minutes before the deadline, which was 7am over here!) I'm very curious for your reactions. I'm open for comments & critiques!

In the big deadline-night there was a little 'whaaa... :argh: noooo :sad: :banghead:'-moment 3 hours before the deadline. I was saving my compositing-Photoshop file (I hadn't done that for 45 minutes as it always takes a while for saving a 200Mb file ;) ) and stretched myself, so I hit the 'on/off' button of the computer! Not very handy to lose 45 minutes of work so short before deadline!

I think it's a pitty that I did not use my 15-passes very effective, as the lighting still looks quite flat. I'll be recompositing within some weeks, so I can present a final image that I can be proud of! :)

C&C please :)

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