A late start in the lost world competition
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Sketched this concept drawing while watching 24...I figured that since all sorts of things turn up in broom closets, why not a lost kingdom

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Great concept John! Can't wait to see it!

Cheers!

That is awesome!

Oh this one should be sweeeeeeeeeet!!!! Looking forward to how you shove a lost world into a closet!

I love the idea! And I know you'll give it your own wonderfully querky twist. Colin Freeman is jealous of my idea...I'm jealous of yours... This is going to be a very interesting contest.

I had this nightmare vision once I saw your idea. Imagine you are in your underware and you open the closet to grab your work clothes and it opens up on the board room meeting you are supposed to make your presentation to and of course everyone in the meeting turns to look at you standing there in your skivies.

Love the idea and the sketch

GREAT IDEA!!!

HA HA HA!! I like it. Good luck.

Ha ha! Great fun!

I love the sketch. It's a sad testimony to the unfortunate times in which we live that 24, this season, actually gave us all reasons to roll our eyes away from the screen and to our sketchpads.

But I digress . . . .

Thanks for all the comments. It's been a while since I got to do something just for fun.
Just started to build the backdrop. Added a hole in the plaster to fill in some of the blank wall.
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This is a really cool idea! Looking great so far!

Lee

I'm thinking that maybe the kapsule in the armor should be standing in front of that castle! :-D

Nice update with the plaster hole there. Definately adds more to the image.

wow.... this is going to be great... nice idea and great start

Brilliant concept! I love your approach to this subject. The model is already looking wonderful! I can't wait to see the characters and castle come to life.

- Michael

Thanks for the comment y'all
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Just a small update in the modelling.

nice man lookin cool!!!

Looking good, John!

The door looks a bit short on top at the moment but everything else looks great.

A little bit more modelling and I've switched across to radiousity for the lighting.It's still pretty dark, but the general distribution of the lighting is getting there I think
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edit:double post of image removed...not sure how that happened

Excellent!

oooh very nice!

Great concept and very nice modeling! The lighting looks good, too. Here's an idea for you... instead of the back wall of the closet, a distant mountain range and sun going down, with the sun's light shining out into the hallway. It would give you another practical source for a light.

Very nice.... This last update in particular. Definitely starting to come together.

love the look & concept!

Oo looks really good

I think it would seem a bit more epic of a find if instead of the closet wall, there was a light blue sky of a sunny day.

I love the concept of it to.

Wow, that's coming along nicely. If you don't mind another comment/suggestion, then I'd suggest if you're going for the abandoned house on the hill (or just kind of run down), that some neighborhood kids are exploring (and the little one finds this), or maybe the attic of an old Uncle or grandparent, then the missing plaster (and the lighting with the window frame scrim) works well. However, if this is going to be more like your sketch, and more an accidental discovery on the child's part (or a figment of his imagination), then the wall should be in better shape (imho), maybe some crayon marks (maybe even a child's sketch of the castle), some grime marks lower on the wall, about where the tike can reach (we have these in our hallway...), and some dust along the top of the baseboards.
The family pic you have in the sketch breaks up the wall nicely (and I like the idea of the person looking at the child...or towards the closet).

Not much time to work on this so I thought I'd post some quick character development sketches of Billy and his bear. I always pictured the setting as Billy's grandparents house. The family manor with the patina of age and mystery that comes with older houses
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Very nice John!Indeed Amazing work keep it up!

started work on Billy tonight...
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Added Billy's hair, but it looks like the radiosity doesn't work correctly with particle hair(can anybody confirm this?) so I think I'll go back to modelled hair.
nb: radiosity doesn't seem to be the issue with the hair.

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Adding detail and colour...dear god, I was getting sick of grey.
Radiosity doesn't seem to be the problem with Billy's hair, not sure how to approach it...but I'll leave it for another day
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some texture refinements. Something strange is happening on the floor reflection and the grain of the radiosity is very prominent but it's getting closer.

Simply wonderful. Only crit is that the missing/broken plaster seems too clean, and in only one spot seems out of place. Still love it.

Doug

very very very very very cute. (when I say cute - that's a complement)

Love the window pane shadows on the wall - which makes me wonder how a more ominous looking figure (monster type) shadow on the wall sneaking up behind poor ol' Billy would also look? Tho might be hard to keep the window panes.

Really great, John!

Two little crits:

1) The skirting board is missing where the plaster is broken, which just wouldn't happen... unless that thing creeping up behind Billy was the cause.
2) It would be nice if you could get some of Billy's facial expression in there somehow.

Thanks for the crits all. The main change is the move to modelled hair for Billy and the additional texturing. 3d painter has been used exclusively, with decal tiles being used for Billy. No texture setup time and about 10 minutes to paint a simple character. I've got a floorboard texture which should be quiet pronounced but seems to be being wiped out by 20% reflectivity. Specular highlights and reflections seem to be flaring in the render(brighter than I would expect) so there's probably a rule here I need to discover, any ideas anyone? Maybe I need to build floorboards??

While I agree the plaster may not be completely correct, I like it as an element, although I'm thinking of removing a slat or two and adding some little people there. As for Billy's expression Paul, a lot of that depends on the time I have to finish this. So far, it's not much and having Billy face away has been a godsend.
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That may change, but I want to finish it to a certain level before I add to the challenge.

Looking great John!
Maybe it's been covered but a suggestion would be to extend the rocks past the door line (to the right and left) so it seems like there's a whole world beyond there too. Also, perhaps there could be people on the objects on the back of the door. Treating them as Gods or something......Ye Halloed Bristles. And finally, maybe some ivy creeping round the walls on to the picture.

Wow, looks really great!
the scene is put together so nicely.

Mike Fitz
www.3dartz.com

Originally I'd planned to use kapsules to populate the lost kingdom...but then I thought maybe little civilised mice...it's a cliche, but it's a little bit of fun.
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There's not much to them, but they'll be very small in the final image. Like Billy, they still need to be boned

great concept

little bits at a time...found an hour to start decalling the mice. A simple displacement map and colour map whipped up in 3d painter. Used the UV Tiles again so that I didn't need to waste any time decalling. The stripey bits on the arms are areas that still need to be painted.
The plan is to use this guy as a base model which I'll modify to create all the other mice.
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I dig the mice over the kapsule idea. Love how this whole thing is coming together.

Thanks Vong
The first of my mice...every castle needs some guards. Canned the render after 3 of the 16 passes so I can go to bed, although I still need to balance the specular highlights with the radiousity.
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and some mice to cart stuff around and carry out the garbage.
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Wow! This looks fantastic! Great style

Absoloutley incredible work John.One day i might be half as good as this with texturing.

Jay

Thanks Agep & Jay...
This might be the last of the mice, I had another 5 planned but imminent work means my playtime is about to be sharply curtailed. I think I need to go full steam ahead and get the rest of the image polished. It's just so much fun turning these little guys out though.
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Ho-ly *biiip*! The detail, the complexity, the smoothness... It just looks plain awesome and amasing.

Mr. Artbox, this is something special you've whipped up. If you have more to show, I can't wait to see it (boo work, yay play).

Cheers,
J

Wow, there's a story in those mice just waiting to burst out. Great job.

-Doug

Yup - love them mousies

Great stuff John. Looking forward to see the finished image.

Thanks for the comments.....it's always good to get feedback
Rough final....placed some mice in the picture but I've only used a couple of poses and they're too separated still. I need to pose them so they relate and interact with other mice and environment. Billy's got a basic skeleton but I haven't added finger bones. Painted a displacement map for the castle rock and coloured it with BitmapStyle. Lighting is my major issue, mainly the specular highlights / reflections are still way too hot.
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