The Unfortunate Outcomes of Freelancing Ep. 1

I've decided to post some of my freelancing experiences, maybe to help warn newbies of the risks they will need to take and the inevitable side-effects of life. It's easy to catch out those who want to trick you into making something for free, but sometimes tragedy strikes and it is genuine (or just a really cruel lie).

When there is no contract involved, you always run the risk of not getting paid- no matter how trustworthy you think the client is. Something life-changing may happen to them that will stop a project suddenly, and is likely to stop them from paying your work's money.

The lack of a contract of course means you have every right to show your work, and use it as you please, so there is always a silver lining.

Bleed Girl

Really old, finally finished. It was inspired by the artist Bleedman.

Sculpt Study of David's Head WIP02

I know the lighting sucks... :(

Mage Pouch DIY

Did some DIY today, got me some leather and crafted a Mage Pouch. :)
http://gemmasuen.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5qn5yc

Sculpt study of David WIP01

Joined a cool face study with some polycounters on G+, directed by +Joseph March :)
We're doing these bit by bit every session, progress can be found on this polycount thread.

Here's my first progress shot of David's head. More to come soon!

A rough monster I drew for Giles Ruscoe, he and I are concepting a monster for each other to sculpt in zbrush. :) follow up sculpts will be posted soon.

Here's Giles Ruscoe's sculpt of the derpy dog thing:

Victorian Bedroom- Further Progress

Took my bedroom scene from UDK and placed in Maya 2012, rendering with viewport 2.0. Lighting is SO. MUCH. BETTERRR.

A New Roof (WIP)

I've been trying something new with zbrush, making tilable textures and trying to reuse uv space. Overlapping UVs yes. Since I was actually taught not to do that >_>...

Quick Victorian Window concept

Victorian Bed Diffuse/Spec WIP

There really wasn't much to do in terms of the Diffuse Texture or Spec. A lot of the work was done from the normals and AO, even the SPEC brought it to life. All that's left is the aging process. Thought I'd post it looking brand new... also maybe a different bed cover, that looks quite boring!

Bed Normal/Ambient Occlusion maps baked

EDIT: I improved the shape, polycount and everything, also was too dull to realise marmoset wasn't using the AO. Hurp Derp. You can see the difference by comparing them:

---OLD--

Finally, I thought I'd never get this done. I spent a good few hours trying to bake the maps. Xnormal proved to be much faster, but for a few bits like the drapery, it didn't seem to recognize which side it was meant to bake. So then I had to open up Maya and painstakingly wait for the viewer to actually catch up. Anyhow, the diffuse is coming soon, I'm thrilled to have this complete.

Bed WIP

Been working on this for a little while, it doesn't help that I had trouble with baking parts of the map. I decided I'd do each part separately to prevent Maya from crashing! So on the left is what I'm doing in Zbrush at the moment, and on the right is a marmoset render showing off the finished bedposts.

It's a pain, because I made the mistake of using dynamesh and then turning it off which prevented me from going back in sub-divisions. It was also way too high poly even after I halved the polycount. So... lesson learned. ><

Room: lighting improvement

Had enough time to mess with the lighting a bit more, added a lighting importance mass, ambient occlusion to the level and some items like candles. I removed the chandelier because it really got in the way and didn't look pretty. Just not sure if the changes made much difference.

Dissonance: Room improvement

So I've been improving some items for the room, I'm still in the middle of it, here's a few screenshots. I've shrank it down because it was very big before.

(Boring) Cabinet model

I've improved this model more:

Then... altered the texture again.

Cabinet Model WIP

Today I was feeling a bit down, so my progress has been slow with this. I scrapped my old cabinet model because it was so bad and started again. Got some references too. It looks better (much better than my old one).

I'm pretty stuck on how I should alter the geometry on the feet of the legs... they take up 360 odd tris alone.

Bookcase, an improved model

I made this not so long ago, after a bit of feedback I went back and halved the poly count from 1321 Tris/716 Faces to 633 Tris/322 Faces. Thought I'd keep it posted here for comparison.

Old version: 1321 Tris/ 716 Faces

New version is also clearer because I was really silly with the UVs last time.

New Version: 633 Tris/ 322 Faces

Final Version:
Edited the Specular map and normals.

Sci-Fi Soldier Model WIP03

It's been a busy few days, as I had my graduation two days ago :)
Here's the base mesh ready for zbrush. I also took such a long time on the hands! Damn appendages and their awkward edge flow.

The hands took me a day! But I think I understand how to do it quicker next time.

Finished, and added some edge loops to create a more even square mesh in certain areas.

Sci-Fi Soldier Model WIP02

I got some feedback saying he needs a bit of bulking up. I tried to shift a few polys, but I think most of the bulking up will have to be in Zbrush. :)

Sci-Fi Soldier Model WIP01

I've done a bit of modelling, it's going rather slowly. I expect I have really poor technique when it comes to modelling. Hopefully I can learn from this.

Starting with pieces separately, and joining later.

Improved topology and progressing further