Astro1derboy's - Sketchbook

Hello. Welcome to my sketchbook. Have a look around and I hope you enjoy!


Here’s the original first-post as follows:

Attachments


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Love it,
What?
This only?
Astro, are these real displacements or just bumps? They look real.
I love the whole concept.

That picture has a very different feel to it. I really like what you did.
I agree with michalis, we need more of this.

Thanks for the kind words. I will be adding content here going forward. I thought about moving some of my previous images from within the threads over to here but decided to leave them where I originally posted them.

@Michalis - these are real displacements. I much prefer the edges that way. Otherwise the profile tends to be more basic and I love the more ‘chunked-up’ look. :eyebrowlift:

Here’s a new one . . .


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You should post more of these “creatures”
I know what you mean about real displacement
You’re among the few who understand what UV sculpting means.
How to control it.

@michalis - Thanks again for the kind words . . . but I have SO MUCH to learn. B3D is an amazing tool (thank you, developers)! I still feel like a novice . . . :slight_smile:

Here’s another. I didn’t really have a lot of ship design-direction when I started it. I mainly wanted a fresh look at my new paint-texture (including a new alternate RI logo I made a few weeks ago). Hope you enjoy.


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And here is another, sporting the same paint scheme as the RI Skylark Mrk2. This is “Twin Trouble” featuring the RI Stiletto Mrk2. Hope you enjoy!


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Some more excellent pieces Astro1derboy.

Your pictures have such a unique feel to them, far different from the majority of the other spaceship renders I’ve seen. Most seem to have super shiny, highly reflective surfaces with lots of glow and such, but yours have a much rougher texture which makes it stand out from the crowd.

Normally i am not a big fan of spaceship images, but your pictures just grab my attention and demand that I look at them. I think it primarily has to do with the texturing. Would you be kind enough to share a glimpse of your process, especially the background. Cycles or BI?, plane image or background geometry?, is it highly post processed to achieve the look?, compositor or photo shop?

Looking forward to more.

@Ryeath - Thanks! I appreciate the kind words.

Generally speaking, I set most of my ships within atmo even though, in my world, they’re capable of space flight as well. That being said, most of my renders will involve some large scale light source that encompasses more surroundings. I do intend to render some space settings at some point but that’s probably one reason my images may be different than others.

As far as texturing goes - I have (at least) two UV maps for the ship; one drives the base coloring and decals and the other is used as a displacement driver for the ‘chunked’ sections. I love that kind of look so I tend to overuse it. HA!! Anyway . . . lately I’ve been throwing on another UV map to weather the surfaces generally. I have spent a long time really developing my textures, to dial in what things effect the outcome. One of the key things for me was to learn to use .exr from within Ps. The level of detail is much more rich AND was a game-changer for creating the displacement map. (A big thank you to @michalis for his brilliant displacement thread.)

In the past I simply rendered highres .png files and composited everything in Photoshop (I have been a looooooooooooooooong time licensed user so I’m very speedy with it). However, lately, I have been setting up basic image planes to account for the background within Blender. Again, because I have had extensive Ps experience I tend to just render the components and composite there. I’m still fairly new with Blender’s Compositor but I prefer Ps because of my ease-of-use. It’s a matter of personal taste, I know.

I always render with Cycles. Ever since it was first introduced, I just liked the way the renders looked better than the internal renderer. Again, just a personal taste issue.

All in all, I like to grunge things up so most of my work will be ‘messy’. Most likely due to my long-time love for military flying craft and associated paint schemes and such. Although I do love some sweeeeeet glossy paint schemes.

I hope this helps clarify. I think I hit all your questions. If not, let me know and I’ll try to help. I still have a TON to learn and feel I’ve merely scratched the surface. :yes:

Thanks again.

Here a pair of Talmarran Cruisers can be seen, captured on climb-out from a remote FANS research area. Hope you enjoy.


I’m really liking these too! They remind me of 60’s SciFi novel cover art.

Thanks for the explanation. I have not used multiple UV’s yet. I will need to look into this method. I have only been playing with 3D art for about 6 month’s now using Blender and Paint.net. No prior experience so I appreciate it when more experienced artists share info. It helps greatly.

Another great picture. You have definitely developed your own unique style.

@Ryeath - thank you for the kindness.

And now for something different - I stumbled across some really cool YT tuts on sculpting and retopology. Been wanting to get back into the sculpting side of things lately. This shows you how much I have to learn in B3D but I didn’t realize you could sculpt in much the same manner as, say, Sculptris. Long story short . . . I was inspired to try my hand at the whole process and yet give it my treatment. I was really happy with the results considering it’s my first attempt at retopo. (I learned that for me, right now, retopo takes way too long and really fights my ADD. Ha!!) Thanks to @masterxeon1001 for the inspiration to finally take the plunge. Here is the result . . .


A 6-panel view, testing a new more weathered base texture; RI Solarius. Hope you enjoy.


I have several of these ‘panel views’ that haven’t been previously posted. I may post more soon, in addition to more ‘glory views’. Here’s a panel of the RI Dart Mrk2, the RI Reaper and RI Rift Runner Mrk7, respectively.






Some additional earlier panel-views for your enjoyment.






And here are even more . . . :smiley:





And a quick post-process concept idea . . .

Some more wonderful stuff. I really like the last concept image.

I only have two questions,

  1. Are these models your own creations or from a sci-fi series? I only ask because all the names sound so official. If it’s your own it seems you have created a total alternate world. I would love to see some environments and cities in your style.

  2. Why hasn’t this sketchbook got 5 stars yet?

@Ryeath - thanks again for the kind words. Yes, all of these are original creations. I strive to fully immerse the viewer into an alternate reality. Hearing your comments is great! Helps assure me that I’m achieving some of my goals at least. Ha!!

Here’s another selection. My goal was to re-create a scene based from a photo my daughter took last week. Of course, being an all-things-that-fly nut, I had to alter my concept to include a ship. (I used one previously posted and increased the sheen to play with the structural lighting.)



(This was so appealing to me straight from B3D that my post-work was the frame and title only.)