The Lost World - hosch

[hosch]

I would like your thoughts before starting my project to see if you think it would meet the criteria. It is somewhat fantasy due to the lack of fact, but it is also a real people that existed during the iron age. The Philistine people would be my subject matter for the most part.

I would show my impression of their city of Ashdod and their temple of Dagon along with a party scene in the temple and then Samson destroying the temple as his final act.

Please let me know if you think this would fit the criteria. I have started some roughing in on the resources needed, but will not submit any images unless you think it does.

The Philistine people are of course wiped out now and we have no written language discovered yet. There has been one small fragment of something that might be writing, but we can not dicipher it at this location.

Since there is no real architectural knowledge of this culture I plan to use Assyrian and Egyptian archeology in a slightly blended method since both of these cultures had a large impact on the Philistine religion and culture. I would think they also did on their architecture, but they were not likely as good of craftsman since they were a more seagoing people and warring culture.

It is not known who defeated the Philistines as a force to be reconned with (Israel or Egyptians are the believed forces responsible), but we do believe that they were totally destroyed a few centuries later by the Babolonians (modern day Iraq).

Thank you.

NOTE: My naming convention may not fit, please correct if possible.

[senon]

I would think that your idea falls with in the rules. The idea sounds awsome. Our goal is to produce a depiction of a lost world and it sounds you may have some history/story line to it. That just adds to the sense of it being lost to the mordern/present time.

seeing the working process. The sketches, renderings, artwork, and problems overcomed.. is what'll make it a true original art work.

and as long as your not sketching from book cover or someone's art rendering of the subject you have chosen.

I think would be fine, but the judges have the last say so....

[hosch]

Thanks for the input. I am taking the "storyline" of the Philistine/Samson story in a very different direction visually from anything that has been done to my knowledge.

I will post some of my sketches and concepts over the next few days as I scan them in.

[hosch]

Here is a little doodling toward the final scene in my idea.

I envision the camera starting at the sea and ships at the dock (since these were sea faring people) and moving through seemingly abandoned streets of their city (wisps of dust to give effect) and move through the city toward the obvious center of the city which is the temple to Dagon (the philistine's primary god) as the camera enters the mood would imediately change...

There is a large celebration to their god and then the mood changes as the center of attention (Samson) transforms from a docile figure of ridicule to the raging strongman and yells out in Hebrew his final words as he pushes the main collumns down.

The scene goes to black as crumples of rock tumble and screams are heard.

Would like to know if this sounds like something the judges would consider fitting into the criteria of the competion, I am going to do it regardless, but just wanted to know if the time it takes to do posts are worth it:).

[DreamWalker777]

The excellent beginning!!!

[maksy]

I agree nice start!

[hosch]

I always like to get my most complicated work out of the way first so I will start on the character that will be my base model. The next post will be my base model character. I will use that model to create Samson, Philistine guards and nobelmen since it is quite easy to change a base model from one size to another.

I will be using the following programs (this list may grow):

Modeling/Animation/Rendering: Autodesk 3ds Max
Detail/Sculpting/Deformation/Normal Mapping: Pixologic ZBrush
Texturing: Adobe Photoshop

Plugins: Digmation Quickdirt (3ds Max)

Since creation of a base model is such a basic task I will not post interrum renders. I will post the final project in a couple of hours once it is done. See you on the other side of my base model:).

[Real3d v.2]

Nice Start, loking forward to it!

[hosch]

Thanks for the encouragement guys:).

Here is a very rough model sheet for the Samson character. I normally prefer to utilize photo reference, but also like to have the model sheet done at least to get the feel of the anatomy. I obviously did not take a great deal of time detailing this since it is my own concept and I am not doing it for someone else...also I am in a rush to get this underway:).

Remember, according to the story, Samson had his eyes burned out and then was shaven. It would have taken at least a year in my estimation to grow his hair and beard back to the length that returned his strength. During this time he was under harsh treatment, hard labor on a grind stone and no doubt torture. With all this I would imagine he was just this side of a monster in appearance.

I think he would have been well fed though since they enjoyed his labor and having someone to taunt at parties.

[hosch]

Here is my birds eye sketch of the layout of the interior of the Temple of Dagon.

The two columns in the Samson concept piece are the two center columns in this picture. That should give you some idea of the massiveness of the structure that I am planning.

I should have the Samson base mesh finished in a few more hours or by morning and will post that next.

Again, this is like 15 minutes of work on this so consider it a rough sketch, not finished artwork please. This is just meant to get my thoughts down on paper for future reference:).

[Real3d v.2]

I see ur good at sketching, thats a gud skill to have :)

[hosch]

Here is the base mesh that I will use for Samson. Due to time constraints I may just alter this in ZBrush and use it for the guards and nobelmen as well. If I have time I will alter it in max first though. I have found that ZBrush is great for detailing, but not so great for modeling with the way I prefer to model. I have seen people model in it great, but I just have not caught onto that craze yet I suppose. I like having the ability to manipulate the verts directly like in max.

I finished this fairly quickly since I have worked on other characters that are similar in the past, but found that I had some mistakes in the base mesh when I got into ZBrush so I had to rework some things.

I had placed my setting of vert welding too high when I collapsed my symetry and it messed up too many other verts so I had to pay close attention to them on my second pass.

[Joiko]

you're going with a good rythem, with good results...
Go on...

[maksy]

Nice modeling!

[DreamWalker777]

very good!!!