War Galley / Galera / Galere!

I am really proud to show these Galley (Galera, Galere) model I did from scratch in 3 insane weeks of work toward the end of my last semester... and yes if you are wondering i was like a zombie for those 3 weeks, but it paid off in many ways besides the obvious fact that I got a new model! It also was the learning experience that I got from working on a tight deadline as well as problem solving and trying to figure out things to make these ship as accurate as possible despite the lack of enough reference to figure out the rigging and positions of the sails and the way they work and look as believable as a real Galley would be on the Mediterranean sea.
These is a Work in Progress as I have to add more details and missing things!
2 weeks after I finished these renders In August of these year I went on a trip to France and Spain where I visited 3 amazing Maritime Museums that had not only great info of the Galleys, but they had in Barcelona a real life size replica of the famous Galera Real de Don Juan de Austria!!!
also I was able to take Tons of pics for reference, I bought the Blueprints for it! (i have to figure out a way to scan these bed size blueprints.

so here you go! hope you like these model and pics as much as I do! XD







these is the work in progress of my Venetian Galley model.

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And here are a few pics from my trip where i gettered a lot of reference and information that will help me finish these model with all the major details on it.




La Galera de Don Juan de Austria miniature model.



Front of the Life size Galley in the Museu Maritim de Barcelona!


Back of the Galley





and now from France I have these pics from the "Le musée national de la Marine" which had a scale model of the La Reale and life size decoration of it! very Impressive!! as well as some amazing collection of ships miniatures with some insane details!





there was another Great maritime Museum in Madrid, but unfortunately there was no picture allow.
but on the good side, i was able to buy 2 great books that are helping me understand everything about the galleys... but more on that on a future post! ;p
also now that I have all these great materials I can finally finish these Galley the way I want it!! Wo0t WoOt!!

Insomniac Games!!!

Whoowhoo!!! I am happy to finally announce that I am already starting my 3rd month on my internship at Insomniac Games
It has been an awesome experience in soo many levels!.
I have been learning a lot of new things, working a lot, while having a lot of fun at the same time!
One thing that I have learned is that there is a lot of things that goes on, into the making of a video game!. Certainly much more than what I thought!.

Here is the trailer that was shown at E3! for "Resistance 2" video game which is the game we are finishing up right now.



Also I am really glad to have the opportunity, to be working at the moment with such an awesome group of people that makes Insomniac games!

also in other updates.
Here is a preview of the work in progress of my thesis. Which I am showing Arlechina! one out three characters that I am working on.
these is a work in progress of it, which also shows a bit of the approach I took to model and do the character up to these point.






on these particular character "Arlechina", the concept art was done by my friend Rob!
You can check out more of his work on his blog. Which you can browse on the links!

At last a new update!!

Uff at last I get the chance to update my blog since GDC and alot of things have been going on since! , which I will reveal on my following posts... soo much things to show!! XD
So i will start with the Gondola I was working a few months ago, which has all the modeling done, but still need to do a few more details with normal maps for the extra details en decoration.




Gondola Render





Gondola Wireframe 1






Gondola Wireframe 2


So these Gondola Model is part of my Thesis project, that is based from the Venetian Carnivale Theme that I am doing!.
These is 1 out of 5 pieces that my Thesis consist of.
The other ones are 3 Characters and 1 environment (Dodge Palace)which you can see the WIP on previous posts.
Hope you guys like it!
Soon there will be more posts and a few cool surprises that i can't wait to say!

Getting Ready for GDC ! ! ! :D

whoohoo!! getting ready for my first GDC! woot wo0t!
uff it has been a lot of work these past few weeks working on several different projects for all 4 classes that i am taking currently as I am working on my thesis project and finishing texturing my airplane for my portfolio, which has been a headache to do, but hopefully it should come out good once is done... lets hope!
So here is a preview of what I am working on the environment for my thesis project!




wireframe pic of part of the column of the Doge Palace from Venice that I am working on.




Here is a render test preview of a corner of the wip of the Doge Palace!
(I have yet to finish modeling and texturing it, so it will look different on the final version, when done!)

Funny enough it kind of looks like a postcard!

any suggestions are more than welcome!
thanks!

uff can't waint for GDC to play the new Smash Brothers! hahah, hope they have it!! lol
and hopefully i can get and Internship for the summer! that will be awesome!!
can't wait!
see ya until next time!.

2008!.. :D

It was about time for me to put something up!
is already 2008! , A big year ahead for me to accomplish several personal milestones. Among them to Finish a new Demo Reel for GDC to apply for summer interships and with the hope to get one. Also finish some of my work to have it ready for the AAU spring show, and most important to finish everything from my thesis project on time is a must! So I can have it ready to apply, by the end of the year and then get ready for Graduation!!! w00t woot!
quite a lot of big challenges and things to do...

so here is a WIP of some of my thesis project!
in these particular one is a Venetian Gondola!



part of the decoration of the Gondola.



Also not everything has been just work... also a bit of vacation helps a lot to relax as well as get new ideas for things to do!
here are some pics from Isla Iguana in Panama, where I come from(not the island, but the country) from these past weekend!! it was awesome to visit these small island, and get a lot of pictures for fun, reference and textures, trying out these amazing little camera I got, a Nikon P5000! which has been marvelous for taking some pretty good images.. as you can enjoy now..




Isla Iguana!... can you find the monkey!




Me.. in the jungle of the island!








Mr Krab!!


the end...of the trip

B24D Render Tests

Hello Everyone! here are some render test I was doing earlier by using GI with mental ray at the new machines at school.. so nice to use dual core xeon with 4 gig of ram to render previews so much faster than on my machine! but still not good enogh for the Ship I did, which i am still trying to figure out a way to render without crashing maya 8(
anyway enjoy the HD pics for the meantime until next semester when I am going to do the texturing of the plane to hopefully achieve realism on the renders by composing them to a background plate.

Sculptures I did during the Summer of 07

Hi guys, here are some of the work I did in my sculpture 1 class these past summer!
as you can see, I have posted my progression of how we started with the basics of blocking the figure and making sure the proportions were right before jumping into adding details.

The early pieces took long to get the blocking done right using different methods to measure proportions in relations with the other pieces of the body as I was still learning the very basics!

It certainly wasn't easy to do, but it was a lot of fun to work on clay from live models! as well we had some great classmates that were a lot of fun to chat while working in class.





These was the 3rd standing figure we did in class, yet still on blocking stage.



These reclining figure was challenging as it was a bit hard to deal with the forth shortening perspective to work.



The portrait was very challenging to get the blocking as close to the actual person.




These was the 4th standing piece and perhaps the best I did because the extra session allowed me to take the time to add and fix the subtle detail of the forms.
It was hard to pull off the subtle plane changes on the body, and it was very challenging to do the face in that small size for me as i was struggling trying to make the face look real and not looking cartooney as the first couple of times i was trying out without success.
In the end I really enjoyed learning and working on these class and can't wait until next year to take another sculpture class.. as I have sooo much to learn and practice!!!