Image: The Beast
Max Puliero shares this awesomely modeled and textured monster on BlenderArtists. You can follow its creation process in the videos that he published on BlenderArtists.
Max writes:Hi guys!
Here is my last workI made in Blender.
Rendered in Cycles.This work took me a lot, but I’m totally satisfacted about cycles capability, especially about the material editor.
Here is my gallery on CGHub.com LINKFor any question, don’t esitate to ask!
Link
thanks guys! :D
Honestly, is this all you can do as a 3D artist, just a beast, is this the culmination as a 3D artist, is this all 3D software cand do? All 3D forums are full, over saturated of „beasts”. Not to mention that representing ‘ugliness’ is an easy thing to do, it does not require any skill, because ugly is kind of default. I am sick and tired to see another beast.
lol
indeed lol.
Where does he say that all he can make is a beast? lol. This is just one render.
I think forums are over saturated with pinup style girls with big breasts, and those aren’t “ugly.” I guess you are okay with those because they aren’t ugly?
Overdone? Sure. “Ugly”? ….That’s debatable.
No Oskarkar it is not an easy thing to do. The are two kinds of artist out there observation or “retinal” or conceptual artist. Observation artist are able to work only when the have some kind of reference in front of them a model or a photo and conceptual artist who can work from imagination.
Working from imagination is the harder of the two. The are good observation artist who have zero imagination and creative and will be absolutely paralyzed when faced with a blank page or screen.
This beast is a work of fantasy but it is also testimony of how the artist understands good character design. Read up on things like silhouette, rhythm, forceful shapes, forceful forms and You will see just how well Max understands these things and has applied them to this work. Appeal is a word you will hear character designers toss about and this work has appeal.
Frankly all your post just read like someone who doesn’t like this particular subject matter or genre of art, which is fair enough but if you don’t like fantasy art than don’t comment on such works especially when your own personal bias might cause you to unfairly rant on someone.
So that is my 2 cents if you don’t like the fantasy or sci-fi genre take your own prejudiced out of the question and don’t comment on such works. I am sure a realistic head sculpt or another cg work will come up which will be more to your taste.
I’m a bit shocked that you had said these things.
Representhing ‘ugliness’ is an easy thing to do – that is a ay oversimplified statement. Yes it is easy to make ugly (as all of as has probably done countless of times) but pressenting ugly in an artistic way is difficult. There are many art that are ‘ugly’ in someways. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pablo_Picasso,_1910,_Woman_with_Mustard_Pot_%28La_Femme_au_pot_de_moutarde%29,_oil_on_canvas,_73_x_60_cm,_Gemeentemuseum,_The_Hague._Exhibited_at_the_Armory_Show,_New_York,_Chicago,_Boston_1913.jpg
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon.jpg
would you say that this women looks beautiful? Honestly they are not. Is it artistic? Yes! And you just can’t say that is this all oil on canvas can do. It is an old medium that has been used for centuries. And surely these paintings are not made without any skill as people who tried to copy the style found out.
And some more:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_Grotesque_Heads.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Grotesque_Head.jpg
And if your know the artists of these works (there are two), it might be assumed that they are becoming sick and tired to see another perfect face.
Another of such ‘ugly’ artwork are graffiti and many modern art works (Andy Warhol)
It has been sometimes said that ugly is just another form of beauty. Still whatever your view of ugly and beauty is, that is not what art is about. Art is more about expression and the beautiful is just one form of expression.
You know what’s the funny thing? You can choose what you wish to see in the forums. Ain’t that something? By the way, you apparently don’t frequent places like CG Hub enough–there’s art of just about anything you can imagine there.
Leonardo da Vinci had a habit of drawing grotesque faces. The earliest known painting by Michelangelo is “The Torture of Saint Anthony” which depicts various demons. You may also want to look at some of the works by Hieronymus Bosch. Depicting “beasts” is not something brand new that just started with 3D artists; it’s a long-held tradition among artists. Learn how to see beauty in the grotesque, and appreciate the artistry involved.
I disagree with Oskarkar completely. I think this is a great piece of art! Beasts are not easy to create as you cannot look up their anatomy in a text book. In my opinion, they take a great amount of creativity and you certainly demonstrated this in this piece! Keep up the great work! Also, I would not wanna see this guy in a dark ally haha
`their anatomy in a text book` Exactly, because there is no refference at all one has total freedom which requires no effort at all: it is kind of driving a car on an empty field: whatever you do is fine.
Looking forward to seeing your work Oskarkar.
If it takes no effort to create a beast give me one impressive beast. draw it with crayon, or marker if you have to. It takes imagination, and skill to create a beast even if you are fabricating its anatomy it still should look convincing. i
Of course… Because doing something out of a textbook exactly makes you a “real” artist, instead of making something that is only in the same vein as other works. I can’t wait to see your color by numbers portfolia Mr.forum troll. Constructive criticism, look it up, please :)
By „Constructive criticism” do you mean Wow! ???
No, and your failure to understand that is humorous. I see you didn’t look up the definition as my constructive criticism of you suggested. Lamentable, really.
Just because something has no real world reference doesn’t mean it took no effort to make. Have you ever seen a living dinosaur? No, nobody has. Yet there are tons of renderings and paintings of dinosaurs out there, with great attention to detail. And you say because there is no real world reference it was easy to make? LOL.
You don’t get the point: not the effort is the problem but the result, that is what you do with all that effort?
You’re wrong ,good sir. It takes a good sense of anatomy to know how to convincingly deform it. Any good classically-trained animator, gag cartoon illustrator, or caricature artist will tell you that much.
I share somewhat the point of Oskarkar: nice modelling and such, but when it comes down to it, it’s just another derivative ugly beastman without much imagination that can be found in countless numbers on any CG-focused site.
So because other examples of the ‘beast’ genre exist, and are done frequently, that somehow minimizes every ‘beast’ model? Or are you saying that if anyone wants to make/show a ‘beast’ model, it has to be something that revolutionizes the ‘beast’ genre? But then that would just negate any future ‘beast’ models, or would that still be just derivative?
To some of us, just being able to execute something like this is impressive. The attention to detail is great, the texturing is great, expression, pose, etc. Is this model the greatest, revolutionary vision of a ‘beastman’ ever? Probably not. But I couldn’t disagree more with “it’s just another derivative ugly beastman without much imagination”. I’ve got ‘the imagination’ to imagine something amazing, but lack the skill to execute it. This piece, in my opinion, shows imagination and skill, and based on that alone, it’s worthy of the share, and doesn’t deserve such vague, negative comments.
Like others have said, if this takes no imagination, I’d love to see just a sketch of your imaginative ‘beasts’. Maybe you’ll convince me I’m wrong in being impressed by this piece.
“that somehow minimizes every ‘beast’ model?” – yes, it does.
yeah, thats right, like beautiful women or superheros.
Practically anything can be found in countless numbers on any of the major CG-focused sites.
I landed my eyes on this picture. OK, it’s a beast. But something in his expression, maybe in his eyes, show us goodness and even nobility. I suspect he was only a little farmer on some planet lost on the galaxy and was kidnaped, still young, by some evil army.
you got it! :D
Why is there a zbrush stage, is it imossible to do that high res stuff in Belnder at the moment?
I know you’re asking Max, but thought I’d give my reasons, and maybe someone will tell me what I’m doing wrong in Blender.
The two ways I’ve seen sculpting approached in Blender is dynamic topology, and multi-resolution.
For me, dynamic topology is awesome for generating a base mesh, but using dynamic topology on a non-retopologized mesh for details doesn’t make sense (to me). Once i get my sculpt close to where I want it, I retopologize it, then sculpt in the details. I can see using dynamic topology for a fully detailed sculpt, but I could imagine there would be issues that would crop up trying to work with bad topology. And since your base mesh is all that matters (if you’re baking out displacement/normal maps), it seems ‘better’ to sculpt on it, rather than on a mesh without a defined topology. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
As for multi-resolution, I get horrible performance when i go up to even 3 or so subdivisions. I just tested it out with a mesh with 3200 faces, and at 3 subdivisions, I get a slight ‘lag’ after every smooth stroke. It’s not a computer issue, as I can work on really high poly meshes in zbrush with no problems, until I get around 13 million polygons, and even then, it’s not too bad.
because I have a license and because supports better making and highpoly count. ^^
Do you think Blender will get to the stage where it can do the high poly stuff? Is that months away or years away?
zbrush is a dedicated application, blender can handle it pretty well, but again, I used zbrush for small details just because I’m familiar with it, thats all. :)
Wow. Really nice model/render/etc. I really hope this ‘Oskarkar’ guy is being sarcastic, otherwise, please post your non-beast masterpieces for our critique.
Being a humble amateur, I hesitate to even say that I don’t think the spikes coming out of his right shoulder look ‘right’, but this Oskarkar guy must be really talented to just dump on your piece because it’s a ‘beast’, and ‘ugly is easy’.
great concept! details, clothes, silhouette, textures, materials – a lot of work has put into it.
What is the great concept? Could you please illuminate me?
Goods images are those ones that tell us a story. It’s the case of this image. My impressions: he don’t born warrior. He does not even have a helmet. And you may notice the knots misdeeds in their belongings. My guess is that he was a poor man on some little planet and was kidnapping still young by some evil army. His eyes convey loneliness. This detail reminded me of King Kong’s eyes. Sad story…
Oh, Shut Up!™
Outstanding piece of work Max!! Loved it instantly!
thanks! :)
Nice modeling skills!
And, what an Amazing texturing job!!!
I’ve seen your render before, but that up close one, I mean Wow!
Congrats on this model :)
thankyou, I hope the videos help :)
Very nice work! Very well executed!
the poor artist tried to make a beast and you say it is nice!!!
thankyou, Stay tuned for the next one :)
`Image is a new kind of garbage` said someone recently. By promoting such things you make 3D a new kind of garbage.
Every beginner artist gets so angry at the first encountered criticism. I know, it is your child and you love it from the deepest of your heart. My intention was not to hurt you, but to show you that there are numerous other ways of using all your skills and efforts(which you have plenty of). Keep up all the good efforts and skills and try a different direction, you will be amazed of what you will find!
Now, this is much closer to constructive criticism. Your points are
valid. That area of artistic expression may be overflowing and the
artist may have been better served in some way to try his hand in
another area despite it being an excellent amount of effort. Beginner
artists do get hurt by early criticism, which is why the best mentors
don’t just tell you your work is terrible and chastise you for it, they
tell you how it can be better and how to go about doing that. You still
sound pessimistic, but you are not required to be happy about
everything. Glad we all get our own opinions. :)
Hi Oskarkar, I’m NOT an artist, I’m a 3D modeler, I’m a techincal operetor of computer graphic. I’m not Picasso or Andy Warhol I do CG for money and for passion, that means that there is a company that pay me for what I can do and I don’t mind about artistic message, I’m just studying to improve my skills and share my knowledge.
This asset is not my favorite one, is just one of the most, I did it in my free time, I’m pretty happy with it, I understood a lot about cycles and skin modifer, in this asset there is almost 0% of art, it is just a mix of techincal & anatomical skills plus a kind of good sense of what’s a nice character.
Next time I will do a robot or a beautiful woman, who knows? I don’t like to be criticized about what I do in my free time, considering also I’m spreading for free all my knowledge.
So, thankyou for your comments and take it easy!
And thank YOU, Max, for making the internet just a little more level headed. Oskarkar, it’s one thing to offer constructive criticism. It’s another to reply to every post with some comment about how “thi5 sux!”. I love the blender community (most of them, anyway.)
Very nice work indeed. I dig the shaders and the facial expression as Roberto pointed out. Perhaps next time you can do a more grotesque monster of the cute child troll?
Max, I think you did an outstanding job on this character, well done, keep it up and don’t mind the trolls.
thankyou guys! I’m very happy you like my Beast! I’m planning to do some hardsurface for the next project :)
Frankly, I’m appalled by the treatment Oskarkar has received in response to his comments. It should be obvious to anyone with the least human sympathy and understanding that, from Oskarkar’s point of view, the portrayal of trolls is naturally going to be an extremely sensitive issue!
I agree with Oskarkar: every time I try to sculpt a pretty girl I end up with a nightmare creature. But I like The Beast, he has kind eyes…
I was dead sleepy the moment you posted that magnificent work on facebook and instantly i had a huge BUZZZZZ. So i spend 5 hours to watch without skipping all the procedure. I bow in respect. Your work is a proof that Blender is a COMPLETE CGI software and yes we need more monsters :D
ehehe, thankyou! :)
Wow congrats, awesome work Max. It is absolutely incredible.
thanks :D
I hope you ignore the few pretentious merely looking for attention with their superiority complex–I see no problem with freely choosing to create such a subject matter, in your own free time, especially when you’re sharing some of your workflow with people.
Some people just always want to be the authority over what’s “true” or not, all the while displaying the poorest of attitudes about themselves. Having a problem with things you can readily avoid for yourself is truly dishonest.
Just being perfectly honest, I don’t particularly find the overall design that endearing (just in my own view, he’s a bit sterile of facial emotion and no real expression to his pose), but I don’t find it a bad design, either–and I most certainly don’t find it offensive as a subject matter.
I love monsters, as well as everything else we see as subject matters. I don’t see the need in limiting my taste to some other guy’s sourly-given opinion. If I did, I wouldn’t be much my own mind.
Sometimes a piece speaks to you, sometimes it doesn’t. This one didn’t for me personally, but I still respect it, and I still respect your general repertoire of work overall. I also appreciate your videos, as I always find some nuggets of inspiration for such videos–especially yours.
And I do see that, regardless of what Oskarkar says, did take skill and a working knowledge of anatomy to achieve. Proportions in anatomy is not an easy thing to achieve, and you do have good proportions. And your skin texturing is nicely-seasoned. I can read its texture well and almost smell his peculiar stench.
Anyways, just wanted to voice my support for you, Max. I look forward to seeing your next creation.
thanks!
Cool design
Nice work, I hope I can learn that. Aside from patience and creativity what graphics card would you recommend to create something like this? Do I really need to go for quadro? those cards were pretty expensive. :/