Update: the results are in: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=208&t=675762
Congrats to everybody who managed to finish their works and thanks again for stopping by my thread and for your votes. I see you next time!

****************************************************************************
Today I finished my entry for the recent hardcore modeling challenge at CGSociety. It was fun to create a bunch of models as a homage to Stan, who greatly inspired me to be a SFX/VFX artist back in the day (I made to VFX but never got to be a makeup artist though). T2 and Jurassic Park are probably the specific reasons. Stan Winston and ILM were just a killler combo. In about a month and a half, I created four models from the scratch but could not finish one of them for lack of more free time (Predator). You can check the whole process and see way more pictures by visiting: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=208&t=663654

Some samples:

Stan caricature, based on the amazing Sebastian Krüeger's painting:




T-Rex:




Pumpkinhead:




-Kris

New work. Completed for the Gnomon Workshop Live I'll be presenting on December the 2nd.
Other 4 models are in progress and will be used to show my workflow and techniques about character digital sculpting.

-Kris

I started this 3D portrait of Dali last weekend. I'm still working on the likeness and textures/shaders. I'm going for a surreal composition around him. A monumental bust, recreating a little of his style on the elements around. A surreal portrait, that is.

More to come.

-Kris

Here's one of my latest works:







Skin textures hand painted using polypaint in Zbrush 3.1 then transfered to a color map. Base mesh in Maya. Sculpt in ZBrush. Normal maps used at render time, to recover the fine details on the mesh. Rendered with Mental Ray and Final Gather in Maya. Fast Skin Shader used for skin and eyeballs. Final model with all accessories has about 21 million Polygons in ZBrush.
This work is not based on any specific photograph. It was a collection of pictures found on internet that I collected in order to create this lady that does not exist in real life.

-Kris

I'm doing some more render tests with Marty model. Adding some more action to the shot. I'll go back to the textures soon... I guess.

Check it out some of my latest works done with Zbrush 3 and the amazing artwork produced by all the other artists. Congrats everybody!







Link:
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=43569&page=1

-Kris

These are some models I've been working on my spare time lately (mostly during the weekends). They are all personal works. The guy is Rick Baker, a great source of inspiration for me since ever. I'm creating a 3D portrait of him as a little homage to the master. The girl is "Sophia", a female model in progress designed for facial rigging and animation.

I hope you enjoy.

-Kris

Another night of insomnia and some more work in the same model.
I added some skin details but I still have work to do. Only his face was detailed till now. I still have the rest of the head and neck to work on.







Only shader, no render (maybe you will notice more details this way):

Cheers,
-Kris

Days ago I posted a generic model I'm working on. So, during the entire last night, in company of a headache and insomnia (no beers in my fridge!), I decided to have some fun with ZBrush, using my generic model head as base for this guy. I had no time to add details, textures, alphas and stuff. The model is an idealization, since I used some multiple references but I'm not following any specific one.

Base model in Maya, all the additional modeling and rendering in ZBrush, comp in Photoshop:









Now I'll try have some rest... if not, maybe I can work in another model

-Kris

As promised:

Yeah, preparing myself for the presentation.


Glen Southern during his presentation


Will McCullough from Highend3D speaking about the new Zbrush forum and download areas in his website. Visit Highend3D


Hmmmm... during my presentation, I guess

Taron showing his new "toys"


The auditorium was full of professionals from the game and movie industries, some personalities, students and just curious

Here's Rick "monstermaker" Baker talking to Glen Southern.

Glen Southern, me, Jaime Labelle and Ryan Kingslien preaparing the stuff.

A special thanks to Cris Palomino for the pictures

Yeah, the meeting yesterday was AWESOME! Can't believe the amount of people there. Great to meet some of my friends. Also great to finally meet Glen Southern, talented and super nice guy, Scott Spencer, always a great presence in the ZBrush community and to see the always funny Taron showing his new "toy": his new After Effects plugin that takes a simple alpha from ZBrush to render a full "3D" scene, with everything you can imagine: GI light, specular, reflections, transparency, refraction and even caustics! Really impressive and superfast. The guy is an ET

A huge thanks to Jaime Labelle, Ryan Kingslien, Alex Alvarez, Meats Meier and the whole crew at Pixologic and Gnomon for the warm reception and the invitation. I really enjoyed my time there. I wish I could have at least another half hour to show some more stuff I had planned but overall the time was enough to show some tips and tricks.

My biggest surprise was to see Rick "monstermaker" Baker there . Even bigger was my surprise seeing that this legend watched the entire thing and came to ask some information about my facial rig after the presentation! Mr. Baker, if you ever have a chance to read this, I'm a HUGE fan of your work since always (call me fanboy! ). That was a super honor to get your compliments and your simple presence there was already reason for keep me inspired for the next decade

Photos and videos are coming soon at Pixologic.com. As soon as I get some, I'll post it here.

Thanks to all of you that made it! I love you all

-Kris

@Gnomon School of Visual Effects



Kris Costa will demonstrate his workflow for texturing and detail modeling in ZBrush.

Glen Southern will demonstrate a complete ZBrush workflow, taking a model from concept stages through to final texturing and rendering in ZBrush.

Taron will demonstrate his first Taronite plug-in. EZB-toy establishes a new depth to compositing by connecting ZBrush to After Effects.


Thursday, January 26th, 2006 - 7PM
Gnomon School of Visual Effects
1015 N. Cahuenga
Hollywood, CA
323-466-6663
MEET & GREET:
6:00-7:00PM
PRESENTATIONS:
7:00PM
RSVP'S REQUIRED!!!
For more information click here

I see you there,
-Kris