Hello, still looking for work, still trying to get better at stuff. definitely didn't forget about this blog.  Here are some highlights of what I have been working on. I've been at a little bit of everything really, some characters, buildings, props, but mostly I have been wanting to improve and become adept with a wide variety of software and techniques.

 

Here's a building I made one weekend just to try work fast and simplistic. I wanted to achieve a low-poly art style.

This one was fun, I did all sculpting and texturing in ZBrush, besides the retopo which was in Maya. Wasn't a fan of looking at reference for it though!

I'll be honest, I have been playing a little bit of Divinity: Original Sin 2, OK, maybe a lot of it, and have played through it 3.5 times with the game only out a month. Im fine, I don't have a problem I swear!. This character above is based in that world. It was also the first time I tried out Substance Painter, and using a PBR (Physically Based Rendering) based workflow.

Below can be found some work from a Unity game I have been toying with, I have no real idea where it will go, but I find making the assets relaxing so its keeping me sane at the very least.

British Infantry

Lee Enfield, Gewehr98, MG08, Vickers MG

Pickelhaube

Stahlhelm

And last but not least here's what I currently have in the works, I'm tying out a hand painted texture style on a low poly model. Till next time, I am a bit better at updating my portfolio, where you can see most of the above work in more detail. Go have a look if you would like and if by chance you are looking for a 3D artist, I'm here!

Hello, as the hunt for work continues, I decided too keep busy when not pestering studios by having self directed projects. These are helping as I'm noticing improvement very quickly, getting to work on them for large chunks of time. Here's the result of this weeks character creation and and the previs of an environment that I feel is already is going to be a very large project to complete. 

 

The Alien Guy started out as a sketch from a good while back, that I found while decluttering a few weeks back. I could have spent a lot more time on his cloths, getting a real tattered and greasy look, When I have more practice sculpting cloth, I'd like to redo his clothes. 

The idea for the castle came from a Lord of the Rings marathon that I watched recently, and I really appreciated the architecture of Minas Tirith and of Erebor, so I naturally drew a lot of inspiration from there. I hope to sculpt the mountain the city is on to have giant statues holding it up, but I've get to decide on the style of them. 

That's me done hers for another while, til next time. 

Hello there, with college done I've been trying to have a short break before starting to look for work. With that time I've started to update and improve my portfolio. I've tried creating characters and environments from start to finish, working from concept to final product. 

Above is one of the environments that I've spent a good bit of time on, I had drawn a rough concept of a bar for a 3rd year project and wanted to create it in 3D. I paid extra attention to trying to create a warm atmosphere and replicating the roughness of the sketch, with the uneven counter and wonky bottles. 

Above are two characters I created and textured in Zbrush and retopologized in Maya. They were fun to do, getting over certain challenges was enjoyable if a bit time consuming. Next up I want to try create another environment, which you will hopefully hear about in the future. 

Well college is finished now, hopefully I didn't neglect any one hand-up too much! My final year project is far from done, but I had to hand up something, so I may as well show it here. I had hoped to get a lot more done, but I'll continue to work on the project in the future, adding to it when I can. I started this project with minimal past experience in unity, but over the last year I have learnt a significant amount about making a game in it. 

I had started wanting to recreate the game play of star fighters in Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2009) having really enjoyed the movement of them in those games. I themed the game around 1915 London, and spent a lot of time researching the look of the architecture from the time.



I have so much still to do, but I'm happy enough with the progress I've made so far, and the amount I've learnt in the past year. The project helped me get a better grasp of what is possible in the time I had, so future projects and work will benefit from this greatly. I still plan to add cut scenes to this game, and clean up some of the more glaring visual issues. after that, I'd love to try create other environments and just slot in the plane controller on a different model and try make another "level" to the game.

If you want to give the game a go, feel free to download here, just download both things, and have them in the same folder directory. Clicking the "JohnArmstong_ProjectTestBuild.47" should get the game to run. You can see controls in-game by pressing "P", If you have any feedback, that would be greatly appreciated. 

Hello! with me having to think about getting work as college comes to a close in the coming months, I took some time this week to go over my CV, and more interestingly, my show reel. I haven't looked at it in a year, being so focused first on work experience and then on fourth year, so it was definitely about time. I have still not finished my final year project so I was only able to add some assets to the show reel. when I'm done with that ill probably update the video with some game play from it, showing off the environment.

 

I kept a lot from last years show reel, as I liked most of it, but I was able to start getting rid of the pieces I was less confident about. I have a lot more to choose from this year with my advert from last year being completed, and all I did last summer as an intern in a game studio. 

I found it worthwhile just looking back over previous projects, and being able to see improvement over time. Getting to look at my work with a fresh, critical eye really helped me see things I still need to work on, and decide which parts of my work wasn't up to scratch. Looking over all of them, the projects where I focused on environments were the ones I was happiest with and was also the most enjoyable at the time. 

Thanks for your time, hope reading this was interesting to somebody. 

Hi, Been enjoying an internship recently, taking up a lot of my time, making models, again and again, getting lots of practice. I've also been looking again at ideas for my fourth year project. Since the announcement of the new Battlefield, I've been looking at other ideas for games. 

Coincidentally I was watching Battlestar Galactica at the same time, and trying to find time to enter a competition to design a spaceship. this gave me the idea of making a sci-fi game of some sort. A lot of the designs I came up with were heavily inspired  by Imperial ships in Warhammer 40,000 and Star Wars. Although these Ideas have been put to the side for now, I might get back to them eventually, 

One thing that I'm really trying to do is merge my rather rustic, messy drawing style with the more structured medium of 3d, trying to get the texture to look right for me, Looking towards Borderlands and telltale game for inspiration.

I've been working on trying out new things a lot this summer, many of these things aren't very aesthetically pleasing, unless you like looking at C# or dodgy character rigs. But ill only get better by trying! 

Hello! College finished for the summer, after lots of work and exams, although I enjoyed most of it, I'm looking forward to a small break before starting my intern-ship. The last two weeks was getting assignments done, studying for exam and sneaking in some Overwatch beta when I could. 

The assignment I've been working on was an advert for one of my favourite games of last year, Witcher 3. I tried to replicate the 2.5d style  seen in the intro film to the game. I just loved the style, how they made the painted images come to life. 

Well I'm off to catch up on games I've been neglecting, bye!