Billy the Three-armed Squid

3dmodelling character squid substance

Here's a 3D model from a project I've been working on. It has lots of weird stuff in it and hopefully will have more to share soon! This is Billy the Squid:

He basically sits around defrosting, thinking fondly of his adventuring days.

Here are some beauty shots and images of him in various states of de-thaw...:

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I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. He weighs in at about 3500 polys, with a 1024x1024 texture (but I didn't optimised him at all). In-engine there are LODs and such to keep it lean. It was modelled in 3D Studio Max, UV mapped in a new app I found called RizomUV (first time UVing hasn't sucked) and textures in Substance Painter with a mix of presets and custom made things.

Here's the doodle from my book of crazy that he was based on:

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Slightly different in appearance, but feels like it nailed what I had i my head at the time of the terrible doodling. 

Hopefully more to share soon!

Who I am

I'm Blake and I like to tinker with things and make stuff. When I'm not programming or developing random systems, I'm playing with electronics, doodling bits of art, 3D modelling or sculpting and painting things or nerding out watching sci-fi or horror TV.

From 2001 I worked in the games industry, eventually specialising in tools to aid in the development of video games and their engines. In 2011 I left the industry and teamed up with a few other talented composers to utilise my knowledge to help build the company 'Spitfire Audio'.

I also periodically compose soundtracks for video-games and have worked on titles such as The Stanley Parable and Portal Knights. You've probably also heard my music in random TV commercials at some point.

What I'm using to make games

Nowadays I tend to utilise Unreal Engine 5. I use a mixture of (mostly) C++ (Visual Studio 2019, Rider) and Blueprints.

I work with Autodesk's 3D Studio Max to generate the art required, and Adobe Photoshop or Paintshop Pro 6 for texturing. I also dabble with Allegorithmic's Substance Designer/Painter for more realistic texturing work.

I tend to generate tools in Python, C++ or NodeJS depending on what's needed.

Audio-wise, I still use Cool Edit Pro and FL Studio to generate sounds and music respectively.