Finished up the Gonodolier today!
Heres a few views from ZBrush:

And here he is brought back into MAX for future rendering:

It’s been a huge learning experience thus far – this was my first character since learning ZBrush.  I’m fairly happy with how he’s turned out, still a few areas here and there that bother me, but it’ll have to do for now… on to bigger and better things.

He’s not going to be textured or properly lit just yet – I’m gonna try to stay in a modeling mindset and create a few more characters before going back and polishing them off as final portfolio pieces.

Had some nasty issues with the new TransposeMaster plugin for ZBrush these past few days, but finally ironed out the bugs yesterday and got to posing the gondolier today.  Hands aren’t fully posed yet - but you can kinda see how he’ll be grabbing the oar of the gondola.  This is probably be the last update till the model is finished!

Finished up the gondolier’s shirt today.  It’s my first time really dealing with cloth and I’m finding it pretty challenging to say the least - though pretty happy with the result thus far.  Tried to go for a thin and breathable look, like silk.

This project is entering the home stretch now - I’m going to make one final pass over the whole model to clean up and unify anything I’ve missed, then put him in the final pose with the transpose tools, and he’s done!

Been busy finishing up some freelance work, so I haven’t gotten to spend too much time on the gondolier the past week, but I managed to finish off the pants today.  I’m waiting till he’s in the final pose to define the flow of the folds any further.  I think its alright for now.

Worked a bit on the hat and belt in my free time.  Just have the pants and shirt left to do… then he’ll almost be finished!

Here are the nearly finished shoes – Nothing too fancy.  I think I’ll give it one more quick pass to emphasize the seams a bit more.

Spent some time refining the arms and defining some of the sylized musculature to go along with the face.  There’s still a few things I’ve got to fix here and there, but I think it’s almost there.  Note: The fingers are currently in a ‘half-pose’ to be ready for gripping the oar of the gondola.

Happy New Year!  Hope your 2007 was as good as mine, and heres to a great 2008!
Pretty much all done with the Gondolier’s high res face… moving on to sculpt the rest of the body.

Getting back to work now that the christmas frenzy is over…  I’ve decided to have the gondolier in a singing pose to give him an extra bit of character, and went ahead and posed his face before the geometry gets too complex.

Managed to finished up the base mesh for the entire character.  Next, it’s finally time to start subdividing and bring out the secondary forms and tertiary details.  The project is progressing a bit slower than I’d like due to the holidays fast approaching, but I’ll try to keep the updates regular.

After getting a little more reference and making a few more sketches of what I wanted the gondolier’s face to look like – I finally reached a basemesh I’m fairly happy with.  Looks a little more Italian, looks a little more stylized, and looks more interesting.  I’m now batting around the idea of having him in a singing pose for the final image… so we’ll see how that goes. 
(Lesson learned:  Don’t model without some sort of concept sketch or reference to help get the idea out of your head first.)

I’m gonna be taking a few days off to go for a snowboarding trip, so no updates for the next couple of days.

Spent some time today refining the topology and overall structure of the Gondoliers face.  I’m still not 100% happy with the look I’m getting… cant quite put my finger on whats bothering me – might have to go back to the drawing board on this one.

Worked out the general proportions and edge flow of the Gondolier’s face today.  Still a bit more work to be done on the eyes and neck before it’s ready to serve as the base mesh and be sculpted into a high-res sculpt with ZBrush.

Blocked in the general proportions of the Gondolier today.  I cant express how much having ANY type of a sketch to use as a guide helps speed up the entire modeling process.  Doesn’t matter how crappy the sketch is – just having the general concept down on paper has really helped.

Here’s a quick character concept sketch I drew to help clarify my vision of the character.
Just from looking at the sketch, you’ll quickly realize why I’m not looking to work as a concept artist…