From reader Ashan, a question about character artist degrees and portfolio work:
I was hoping you could provide some answers for questions I’ve been having – if I wanted to become a character artist, would a degree in digital art/art be more valuable than a solid portfolio?
So: are character artist degrees more important than a portfolio?
Continue reading Reader request: character artist degrees versus portfolio?
Have you noticed that modeling heads and faces is really hard? So have I! Here’s why: Continue reading Maya 2016 female head modeling tutorial
Reader Ric Williams emailed me a raft of questions about animation with blendshapes versus joints, mostly for facial animation. I thought I would post my answers here, as others might find them helpful!
Historically, it used to be that blendshapes meant pre-rendered, and joints were used for real-time stuff. Continue reading Joints or Blendshapes?
So the first character modeling vid I published on YouTube still gets tons of hits… but it’s a bit long in the tooth. So here is the new improved version, updated for Maya 2016! Continue reading Maya 2016 female body modeling tutorial
The common thinking is that starting with a T-Pose for characters is the best way of building a model. However, after years of experience, I don’t use a T-Pose any more. In fact, I think modeling in a T-Pose is a terrible idea, and results in characters that don’t look right or deform correctly. Why?
So: why are triangles bad when poly modeling? This is a common question posed to me. And if you’ve watched any of my videos, you know I use tris from time to time. But a lot of people will tell you they should always be avoided. What’s really going on here? Continue reading Why are triangles bad when modeling?
New to Mudbox? Knowing Maya or Max gives you a head start, but like all software, Mudbox has its own quirks.
I’ve assembled this list of Mudbox tips for beginners, based on my experience using the program since version 1. It should help you use the program more effectively! Continue reading Mudbox tips for beginners
Welcome to Maya 2016! I’m kicking things off with a tutorial on creating eyes in a really easy way. Get good eyes in like 10 minutes, seriously!
Continuing the bodybuilder series, my Mudbox character sculpting tutorial lays out the process of creating detailed anatomy for a muscular character, a pretty standard piece that should be in every character artist’s portfolio.
People argue whether Mudbox or ZBrush is best for sculpting – but no one argues about which is the better texture painting package. Mudbox is the best, hands down – and we can use its tool set to create amazing, photoreal textures quickly and easily.
Continue reading Mudbox texturing tools make photorealism easy
