Welcome back!

Here's yet another round of stylized art I've created recently. Done mostly for fun and on my free time outside of work and personal responsibilities. I wanted to challenge myself and make some pieces I truly enjoyed from IPs I loved. I hope you like it as much as I did creating these.

Gray Fox - Metal Gear series

Possibly the coolest character design in gaming history in my opinion. I loved every interaction and drama that revolved around this cyborg ninja the first time you meet him in an office. I created this mini-environment based on that stage

Created to look like a toy you could maybe find at a hobby shop. I had a great time designing it's diorama and stylized appearance. 

Zero - Mega-man Zero series

Keeping the theme of Cyborg Ninjas - this series had an iron grip on me when it released for the Gameboy Advance. Spending countless nights and draining so much AAA batteries in the process. The diorama is based off of one of the environments you play though in the series

Mortal Kombat Cabinet

I remember getting in a lot of trouble with my parents as they watched me and my brothers perform Fatalities and Brutalities on the SEGA genesis version of MK3. This was the moment they realize that games aren't just for kids. I pretty much had to sneak around to play this one in the middle of the night. The diorama is styled after the Arcade cabinets that used to be everywhere

Most of these pieces each took an average of about 35hours to create in Blender! 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my post! I hope you enjoyed looking through my Art. Check out my Instagram for more of these kinds of 3D art pieces: https://www.instagram.com/3d.ronin/

Here's another round of stylized art I've created recently. Done mostly for fun and to see what I could do with Blender. I wanted to create an art style that I enjoyed and can get behind. Here are a couple of my Stylized Art pieces.

Link's Game & Watch

I've always liked the Legend of Zelda franchise growing up. I started with Wind Waker on the Gamecube, I played all of the games released since. 

I've always enjoyed the art direction of the Legend of Zelda franchise and I wanted to make a proper homage to them. I think the world and the inhabitants of Hyrule is exceptionally fleshed out, so I closely followed the source material, but only stylized it to appear toy-like.

This piece was created entirely in Blender. 
6.15hrs of real-time modeling. 

Bardock This next piece that I used for exploring stylized character proportions. Was a lot of fun making this one as I am a huge fan of the franchise.

References for Bardock was taken from the Dragon Ball Super Broly movie. You can even see the Freeza ball from the movie in this render.




30hrs created entirely in Blender.

If you made it this far, thanks for being here! I hope you enjoyed looking through my Art. 
Check out my Insta for more of these kinds of art pieces: https://www.instagram.com/3d.ronin/

Welcome to Project Davao. A passion piece and a work in progress.
An art piece I'm currently creating on Blender and homage to a little known city that I grew up in back in Philippines. Thought it would be nice to document the process and write down some of the challenges and triumphs during this journey.

I started this project early January of this year (2023) and I've been on and on off with it since. I wanted to keep this stress free and put in the time whenever outside of work. This was meant to be a setting for a short music video I was making for an Armored Core piece but as the time went on and the scene become more elaborate, I decided it deserved its own post and title. So here we are... with a blog instead...

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00_Pre-production:
Before any project its customary to spend a little bit of time gathering references and inspiration for my work. It wasn't very hard as I already had a vibe I was trying to go for. So I spent a couple of hours hand picking my favorite scenes to reference from. I am generally looking for great examples of lighting and atmosphere, but also examples for level of detail. Helps to ask myself questions like; How dirty is the street, or do I want trash flying everywhere and how much of it?  

00-references from Zootopia & Big Hero 6

01_ From Scratch: 
2023-02

Now that I got some references to go from I started filling out the city with basic shapes. Some boxes and cylinders represent various buildings that I will later flesh out as we go. Adding a few then removing a couple, playing it loose until I get a nice overall silhouette that I generally like. I like to fix and update elements of the piece along the way, it helps me from being stuck on one thing.   

01a- block out using basic shapes. 
01b- Created a camera then added some detail to the market in center. Still freestyling as we go.

02_The Market & Plaza:
2023-02

Spent more time fleshing out the buildings that's most visible to the camera. Wanted enough detail to make out what each building was without overcommitting to any one idea.  I went with a groceries market and a small bar in one block then another plaza across the street. Aside from reference I am also using my own memory from my time there. This freedom of creativity allows me to add as much fun stuff as I like.

02a - "Buong Pagkain" is Tagalog for "Whole Foods" and Orly's Bar & Grill.
02b - "Ning's Plaza" next door can be home to a couple of shops. Something I can decide later down when I circle back to add detail  to the scene. 

03_ a Hotel, Mall, & a Night Market
2023-02 (Sounds like the beginning of a joke... )

 While the shape of the building might represent what I want them to be, like in real life there needs to be some kind of advertisement. Making sure that the viewer knows what they're looking at is important. To do that I try my best to elaborate on everything in sight. Add signage where it makes sense, add business names, food, and things that are commonly seen in that region.  

03a - "Hari" means King. I added a Hari Hotel behind bar and possibly the beginning of an open air mall structure. "Mall of Asia".
03b - Fleshed out the side alley in case the camera needs to pan or dolly down the street from left to right. 


03c - I couldn't get away with calling this place Davao if I don't include a Night Market. Like in real life, I will fill this space up with street foods and local delicacies.

04_ South East Asian Vehicles.
2023-03

Had a blast doing research and making these vehicles to populate the scene with. Also had a nostalgia trip about holding on to my dear life as I rode in several versions of these growing up there. Not the safest but I promise you will get to where you need to be.

04a - Trikes were common form of travel. I think it would also be in-authentic if I didn't have at least one of these guys in the scene somewhere.04b - Along with some Mopeds, Vespas, and a couple of motorcycles. 
04c - Because why not... a Boba truck.

05_Local lighting
2023-03

With a little help from Google I looked up the local altitude and plugged the numbers into a Sky Texture node and fed that into my background.  

05a - Now we have lighting that is accurate to the climate. 

05b - Simple lighting using nodes.

05c - added more small details to the background and even added the Armored Core for scale reference. 

06_ 4 Months Off
2023-07

At this time I spent it focusing on my personal life and health. I travelled with family and friends and did a lot of other stuff outside the world of art. However, coming back into a large project like this one after being off for so long can feel really overwhelming, but I have a plan.

06a - parked bikes from different angles. 

06b- Slowly adding smaller details that the scene is becoming alive.

07_  Basic Materials
2023-08

Started applying basic materials to the scene. Also added emmisive materials to a few of the windows and a couple of spotlights to give it some life.

07a - Applied basic procedural materials. I remember shooting myself in the foot here as I quickly over complicated the scene by adding too much complex materials that bogged the entire thing down. 

07b - After I ran into that last issue of the file being too dense and laggy, I decided I needed to start from scratch and link all of the objects into the scene instead of having them live there natively. Since I modeled each element in a separate file I was able to quickly instance all of the assets back into the scene for a fresh new take. This second attempt was more stylized and more bubbly, but I ultimately decided to shelf this idea for another project.

08_ Materials and atmosphere
2023-11

08a - After cleaning out the scene of its previous materials, I was determined and took my time over the last 3 months to find a style I generally enjoyed. Plugged in a couple of hours a day until eventually, all of the assets you can see in scene has some type of material on it. Added an atmospheric fog, sprinkled some salt, kissed my monitor, and its now ready for salad.

09_ om leh du Foliage
2023-12

09a - Can't call this the Philippines if there are no coconut trees and bananas! I took to Google maps streetview and cruised around my old neighborhood for some references and inspiration.

09b - Spent an afternoon to develop my own grass system for the first time. I felt like a mad genius for putting this together!

09c - The grass is greener where you water it. I have sliders for length, girth, density, and all of that, but not for water. 

Although there is already a lot in the scene there is still so much more I can do to liven up the place. 

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Work in Progress - Updated live - Please come back for the sweet updates.
2024-03 - upcoming uploads:

-Graphic design
-more environment props
-flesh out the scene to be more "alive" with world building elements

I thought it would be fun to share some of my past work that helped paved the way for the new. Enjoy!

Xenogears was a PS1 classic jrpg. I was a huge fan of the giant robots you got to pilot in the game but I never got far enough to finish it myself. The story I think was cool and the mechas were even cooler.

Lance A Little was a character I made for a side scroller game that never became. Still cool tho.

Oni Brothers was one of my first attempts at making Character Art in 3D. This was for a class assignment I believe... honestly its hard to remember.

These were personally a couple of my own favorite pieces inspired by the TMNT universe.
These pieces were up on my portfolio page at some point but I feel they misrepresent my art style of today. Stay tuned for more art.
-Lyndl

I always found it interesting to show the process in making art/craft. I grew up watching Bob Ross and have always been interested in tutorial books. And just like the masters I'd love to contribute my knowledge to anyone curious enough and want to learn. Personally Im loving 3D and I have only just begun to really expand on that interest over the last few years, but still I have so much more to learn. For now though I just want to share what I have learned in this journey so far.

The making of the Snake Way Cruiser

The idea is to make a retro-futuristic hydro-electric car... why not.
First step was to gather inspiration and a base shape for the vehicle. I wanted it to look 'normal' enough that it could almost pass as a real one. At this point I was imagining Zootopia-esque chibi proportions and was mentally preparing for a stylized look. I don't have a concept art to go off of so I looked up a few concept cars on Pinterest and got right into modeling In Blender.

Traditionally you are gonna want to have some kind of concept art to work off of, for this project I chose to go without. Down the line I will have to do some kind of look development as I model anyway and end up having to make up parts that the concept art doesn't cover. Basically I'll do all of the concepting in real time. This way I can exercise my creative muscles and still get some art done While moving the project along.

First block-in 07-03-2020.
Didn't look much but happy to get most of the pieces in there. I just have to spend some time working on the overall shape from there and slowly flesh out each part.

I tried drawing some ideas a little bit and realized that it was a much slower process at this point in time.  But somehow it still helped flesh out ideas that were swirling in my brain.

After a few sessions of experimenting with various hoods and grill placements, I decided on a design that suits the retro-future style I'm going for. But I was ready to move on to another part of the car to release some frustrations and work on something different for a while. I transitioned into the interior and started putting as much futuristic car stuff I could imagine. Good thing I had some good references to take me there.

Kept the block-in pretty simple only using primitive shapes to set things in place. I just want the feel of the interior, no need to go into heavy details just yet…

... that's what I told myself until I just started going ham on this thing. I got into my flow and just let my creativity do its magic. Some time passed, days turned into weeks, then months, my gold fish drowned, and before I knew it the interior was built out.

I was aware that these details were something you weren't really going to be able to see from the outside but its fun to put this stuff together anyway. It’s all about the details that no one is looking for. I just had to make sure not to overdo it, things just have to make sense where you put them.

These rims for example, designed aerodynamically so that it would naturally push air into the breaks system in relation to how fast you drive the cruiser. Does it actually work?… I don't know but it looks like it does so I just went with it.

12-30-2020 - Months later I finished the overall car and was ready to add some color to it.

Stage 2: Basic Material Block-in

01-08-2021 - car is finally finished
Used some pretty basic materials here just to get the feeling of realism, I still remember to keep things stylized. I just cranked up the emission for the lights, played with the metallic sliders and roughness. No (bake)maps were used. Basically I did some magic and now it has some color. I remember it took me a couple of days to get it to feel right but adding the materials also helped me to better visually tweak some elements of the car.

At this point I felt like it was done and finally ready for staging and lighting. I remember wanting a mountain but quickly remembered the ”Snake Way” road from Dragon Ball Z. So I gathered up more references from the anime and started modeling the body of the road, then slapped some HDRI into the background to help start the scene.

Stage 3: Building the Snake Way

This part of the process was pretty straight forward. I kept adding to the scene every time I got a chance to work on it. Started with the scales, the mountains, then the telephone wires with the birds.

Thought it would be hilarious to model out King Kai and Bubbles to complete the scene.

02-24-2021 - The intended render was completed!
Then I decided to render out an animation too. No problem - Put on my favorite film maker face and went straight into it.

I used the same camera I used to render this shot. Decided I wanted a little parallax effect and realized I can simply rotate the camera around a focal point during the whole animation to achieve the effect. Parented the whole car to a 'curve', wired the wheels so it would only rotate in relation to the roads surface. Spent some time smoothing out the animation curves. Animated the bird. Turned the tires in relation to the turn. And After some quick youtube tutorials on how to export animations from Blender, put the animation together in After Effects and by 05-07-2021 the project was finally complete.

The project started 07-03-2020 as a project to keep me busy through the pandemic. By putting an hour or two of my time into it whenever I could, I ended up finishing it by 05-07-2021. Around 500hrs of love done mostly on Blender.

I am proud of what it turned out to be and grateful I took on the challenge, it only made me a better artist! Thank you for reading.

Please view the Finished animation

-LyndlK

When Larian Studios dropped their first cinematic trailer of their next game Baldur's Gate 3, I lost my shit. I was so inspired by the visuals I started sculpting squidward here in Zbrush then continued to work in Blender. Pretty much with no real direction I started putting him together but quickly realized that I didn't like the design that much. Instead of completely scrapping the piece I continued to work on his skin and slapped on some basic materials on the rest of his body as filler-art. I used Substance Painter to create the materials.

Spent a good amount of time redesigning his armor piece to look a little more appropriate for one such as the Mind Flayer (whatever that even means). I figured these guys are like octopi-wizard-parasites so I made it's armor look like a battle wizard of sorts with Cthulu inspired designs engraved onto the shoulders. I know - pretty cool.

Now this piece isn't quite done yet but I am happy with where it's at for now. Stay tuned for some updates!

Started this project back in 2020 when I was brushing up on my Blender knowledge. I wanted to do something fun while learning so I decided to recreate an art piece into Blender as a challenge. I was doing nothing but furniture models in 3d before this so I was ready to try something new.

I found this: Credit to the original artist (they deleted their socials)

so... Easy enough - I quickly blocked in the scene and did my best to keep it simple by sticking to mainly primitive shapes modeled loosely. I wanted to capture the effortless simplicity of the design without looking like I put literally zero effort. Then I added a clay material to everything to give it a miniature kind of feel to it. Now it looks extra fun.

Spent some time dialing in the lighting and decided on a warm kind of tone, to feel homey. Even hand drew the posters against the wall by the computer to take the piece that much further. (lazer sounds) 

Final Render: Blender/Cycles

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Also, shout-out to Scotty Lord. He attempted a more realistic approach to the same art piece. These awesome renders are his!

Thank you for reading.