Nielson Art

Mostly my personal art.

[vnielsart]

A while back my sister @sheliesshattered sent me @alefvernon's concept art of ten swords inspired by the (at the time) ten albums of Taylor Swift. It looks like they have since added more swords for the recent double album, but leading up to that I was able to create these 3D models of each of the ten. I'm really pleased with how they all came out.

I modeled them each entirely in Maya as well as doing the UV mapping, which allowed me to create the textures in Substance Painter. I then lit and rendered the scene(s) using Arnold in Maya.

I also have some turntables of each sword, some with some fun animations! (Butterfly wings flapping, fire crackling, the clock hand spinning, that sort of thing) But! Tumblr apparently has a problem with uploading more than one video in a post, so I will be uploading those separately.

Credit to Alef Vernon for these incredible designs; they were done so perfectly it really made it easy (well easier) to create these models.

[vnielsart]

I posted this elsewhere yesterday for the solstice, but forgot to share it here! This is a Zbrush sculpt of Marta Kost's Summer character. I really enjoyed making her. I sculpted, painted, and posed the character in Zbrush, and I created the hair, clothing, and flowers in Maya. I also retopologized the character in Maya, and lit and rendered the final in Zbrush.

[vnielsart]

My most recent 3D project. I tried this once before a long time ago (with Lego people and no concept of lighting or texturing that time), and I'm really happy with how this version turned out.

Modeled and textured in Maya, characters sculpted and foliage generated in Zbrush, and lit and rendered in Arnold. All of the above were done by me.

[vnielsart]

I modeled and textured this recently. It was a lot of fun! It was probably also my quickest project since the beginning of school at only 10 hours (probably close to half of that was UVing, texturing, lighting, and rendering). Pretty pleased with the result!

Based on a concept by Angelina Malceva

[vnielsart]

I finished my last assignment for this intro to modeling course today. They wanted to teach us some of the basics of organic modeling, so it's still fairly simple, but I'm pretty pleased with how it came out!

[vnielsart]

My second modeling assignment for this class was to model a vehicle from a design. I selected a design for a submarine.

Here are a few of the small details:

The lid with its hinge on the top

The ladder inside the compartment

And the control panel inside the compartment

[vnielsart]

I recently finished my first big 3D modeling project for class, and I'm really pleased with it. I got my grade yesterday and I got a 98%! Below is a picture of the whole thing followed by closeups of the details.

A view from the side to show the slight bowing of the wood

A look at the scroll that definitely took some puzzling to work out. I am especially proud of this part, both of the original geometry for it and of the support edges I added later. All quads, no triangles or n-gons.

The tuning pegs and the tops of the strings

The bridge

The f-holes (yeah there's <i>lots</i> of inuendo in string orchestra in middle school and high school, let me tell you)

A nice crisp corner

The fine tuners and the mechanisms behind them

The chin rest

Will reblog with the last couple pictures

[vnielsart]

The metallic mechanisms connecting the chin rest and the fine tuners

The handle of the bow

And the curved top of the bow

[vnielsart]

I recently finished my first big 3D modeling project for class, and I'm really pleased with it. I got my grade yesterday and I got a 98%! Below is a picture of the whole thing followed by closeups of the details.

A view from the side to show the slight bowing of the wood

A look at the scroll that definitely took some puzzling to work out. I am especially proud of this part, both of the original geometry for it and of the support edges I added later. All quads, no triangles or n-gons.

The tuning pegs and the tops of the strings

The bridge

The f-holes (yeah there's <i>lots</i> of inuendo in string orchestra in middle school and high school, let me tell you)

A nice crisp corner

The fine tuners and the mechanisms behind them

The chin rest

Will reblog with the last couple pictures

[vnielsart]

More digital oil painting

[vnielsart]

My first experiment with digital oil painting

Master Study based on a portrait by Gely Korzhev

[vnielsart]

Another Flour Sack animation!

[vnielsart]

More experimenting with styles. Thanks to a friend, I happened upon the youtube channel Let’s Make Art, which goes over lots of watercolor projects. I believe it’s mostly meant for people actually painting on paper, but I am trying to apply what they do to my photoshop art. Also I have basically zero experience physically painting aside from a mural I did in my room when I was a teenager, so seeing the process here is pretty useful. Video for this particular project here.

[vnielsart]

I’m spending the day experimenting with different effects in Photoshop. First up: clouds, made with a custom brush I made today.

[vnielsart]

Decided to go with the first faces I drew. I think this turned out pretty great!

Next is going to be getting this printed nicely for his gift. And maybe get a frame for it?

[vnielsart]

Okay, I decided to add some shading. Should hopefully be good to go now.

[vnielsart]

Decided to go with the first faces I drew. I think this turned out pretty great!

Next is going to be getting this printed nicely for his gift. And maybe get a frame for it?

[the-golden-ghost]

19th Century Literary Pirates: A Venn Diagram

(also yes I know Peter Pan was technically (barely) 20th century and Ahab wasn’t a pirate but shhh)

[vnielsart]

my brain is stuck on Black Sails Long John Silver, so I genuinely had to stop and think what “battling small children” could possibly mean like did I miss a Revenge of the Sith type scene in there and then I remembered that the character does in fact originate in a children’s tale

[vnielsart]

So Husband is anxious about finances (even though we’re doing fine; he’s just always anxious) and has asked that I not get him a Christmas present this year. In talking with my mom about it, she suggested maybe I should make something. I wasn’t sure, since he usually sees most of my art, so I didn’t think I could surprise him with anything. Then I remembered I had started on a drawing of one of our wedding pictures a while back, so thought maybe that would be a good option. Well, my old attempt was no good in a number of ways, so I started fresh. That one didn’t seem to be turning out either. Boo. Then I realized that maybe my problem was lying in the uncanny valley - I was trying to make it too realistic and so it was looking distinctly off.

So ultimately I’ve landed on a more stylistic approach. I usually show him my WIPs, but obviously that won’t be the case here. (Also tbf, he usually has less advice and more “oh that looks great, babe!”) I’ve got the sketch up and figured I would share here.