April News - the Battle of Marathon is Coming to Life!

Hello there dear followers of the Heroes of Bronze project. Another month of quarantine flew by so fast I haven’t even realized it was May already! Good thing is, I managed to do A LOT of stuff for Heroes, mostly focused around the most important part of the short film - the Battle of Marathon.

If you've been following my Twitter or Instagram, you probably already know about this scene I’ve recently published. It’s in the thick of the fight, directly in the center of the line, where the battle was the most difficult for the Greek army. This is also where Nikephoros and his group are stationed to fight…

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You can see Aegeus on the far left, using his spear with the overhand grip, striking over his shield. To the right is Hermogenes, his spear probably broken already, so he is wielding his short xiphos sword. Then there's Nikephoros, holding the onslaught of several Persian soldiers, holding the spear with the more common underhand grip. Most of the enemy infantry is Sparabara, lightly armed infantry, but the one who managed to hack through the shield wall is actually a Persian Immortal. Below him, overwhelmed, is Boter, trying to get back to his feet, while Chalcon on the right is calling to the rest of the line to form up.

It was so much fun to work on this scene, I just love putting together these battle scenes, depicting my favorite moments of Greek history!

In connection with this artwork, I also published a collection of some of the Persian models I used. You can see an Anatolian rider, heavy Persian Immortal and Sparbara infantry with huge wicker shield, and then some lightly armed Saka warriors. The last one is an Egyptian marine archer.

I also worked on other Marathon related environments and scenes, though I don’t want to reveal too much, so just thumbnails now :-)

It’s all coming together! Still a long way to go, but I’m getting there, one step at a time!

Oh, and also, to reward my dear Patrons over at Patreon, I decided to make the livestreams I make (which have become somewhat regular now) available in recorded form only to them (Hypaspist and Hoplite tier). However, you can still watch my livestreams live, next one is for example coming on Monday the 4th of May at 8 PM CET :-) Set a reminder here.

Chairé!

Martin

March News - Environments, props, characters... and Corona

Phew, what a crazy time we live in, right? Paradoxically, the spread of the Corona virus that isolated most of us in voluntary self-isolation,  also  increased creativity in most of us, 3D artists… right?  I mean, what else is there to do that’s better than your personal projects? Apart from tutorials, movies, TV series, games, books, board games, long telephone calls with parents, long philosophical conversations with your close ones, counting toilet paper rolls… OK, apart from THAT, I think we can all agree, that working on your personal projects is the best thing you can use this quarantine for.

So… I am. I finally jumped into finishing many of the most important environments - like the city of ancient Athens, right around 490 BC. This is not the city you know from all the paintings, books and from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. This is Athens before the great temples and statue of Athena were built, before the city was burnt by Xerxes. You can have a look at its visualization here, on the Ancient Athens 3D project website.

Anyway, I was finally able to finish the gates of Athens, through which the city’s army marched out, towards Marathon.

While we’re at it, you can have a look here, at the Eevee preview of the scene.

I am also working on one of the more difficult scene for the film, which is not yet finished, but I will post an ambient occlusion pass here anyway. Lots of new assets in this one, especially the horses, the chariot, crowds, houses, oh… and the archaic Acropolis of course. Still quite a lot of work ahead, but getting there.

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Here, you can see just one of the assets for this scene, a stall. It is barely visible, in the background - but it’s there! :-)

Oh, and the shields. Let’s not forget the shields. I always knew that I simply do not have enough aspis decorations for my short film - after all, there was A LOT of hoplites at Marathon and most of them liked to adorn their aspidae with unique emblem. Luckily, I found a magnificent package of these on CGTrader, so I immediately bought them and simply love them. These will get along marvelously with my own shield assets.

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And, of course, in between the environments and assets, I am still improving the characters for the film. Apart from some generic crowd characters, I also worked some more on Nikephoros. I made him a brand new 3D eyebrow. Thanks to it, he looks perpetually “not impressed”. One thing I also learned - Corinthian helmets at the time did not have large ear holes. Soo, it seems I will have to redo my helmet models. Oh, well….

And finally, a new model I am working on right now is this Persian noble. While it is true that most of the famous Persian cavalry regiments were not present on the Marathon battlefield, at least some riders appeared and made the hoplites’ lives difficult. So, I obviously need to have them there too. Work in progress of course.

And with that, let me wish you good health and lots of creative spirit. Let’s hope this quarantine will lift off soon :-)

Chairé!

Martin

February News - new experiments, building scenes, finishing courses...

Hello everybody,

Good news! After I’ve finished two of my courses lately I’ve been working on these past few months, I am speeding up the production of my project. First of these courses is of course the Substance Painter Launch Pad for CGBoost.com, which is now complete, and a perfect start for your Substance journey. You can read the reviews, if you’re interested :-)

The other course is free and it’s this one. Go ahead, try it:

Other than that, I have of course been working on new models and scenes! A lot of experimentation is going on, lately, for example, I tried again the awesome Waterial shader in combination with the Ocean modifier in Blender, to create some stormy seas in this artwork. Now all I need is to figure out the splashes, because now they’re done in postproduction, and also the rain. Soo… that’s next :-)

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I have also been quite busy finishing the main characters. After Penelope, I worked a lot on NIkephoros as well as Alkaios, trying to push the look of their faces as much as possible. For that, I used this Realistic eye pack by Jim Morren and Eyebrow pack by Nazar Noschenko. These really helped me improve the models! These are still work in progress, but what do you think? Leave a comment below :-)

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Chairé!

Martin

November News! New assets, new tutorial and more...

The time flies! Another month is gone and a lot of work has been done on the Heroes of Bronze project. Mainly, I was able to finish the Greek armor and clothing assets for the warriors. The most important parts and armor types are done, from which I can now quickly create variations, to fill my scenes with loads of different looking hoplites!

You can see a preview of the warriors here:

I was also able to do finish the model of the main heroine Penelope, the narrator of the story. I think she improved quite substantially from the previous version, what do you think?

Finally, I have also started a new tutorial series, detailing how I made one of my helmet assets, the Chalcidian type with an archaic crest. In it, you will learn how I modeled and UVed the mesh, how I textured everything in Substance and made the crest in Blender.

I’ve done a lot more work and loads more incoming, so watch out! For example, each free evening, I am now working on this Ionic temple, one of the last building assets I need to finish before I start putting together the final shots.

Thanks to your kind Patreon donations, I am now able to work on the project much more and make better job at it, so I can’t thank enough to all my Patrons! Shoutout especially to Jason Poulin, the highest Tier patron, who allowed me to cross the $100 mark.

Also, one last thing - I was able to finally put together a special page for my '‘Before the Storm’ Teaser Breakdown Course with some neat testimonials, so check it out, if you will :-)

Chairé!

Martin

Achieved Goals, New Livestream and 7000 Subscribers!

Great new everyone! Over at Patreon, thanks to a bunch of awesome people who decided to support the project financially, we have now crossed the $100 mark which means… regular once-a-month (and maybe more than that) livestreams! The latest livestream, where I celebrate this fact, happened last week and here’s a first part of its recording (second part coming soon):

Also, over at my Youtube channel, there is now more than 7000 subscribers! So awesome, I want to thank everybody for watching and being interested in the tutorials and the project itself. I am really happy that the project has grown like this in a span of a single year.

More stuff coming soon, so stay tuned!

Chairé!

Martin

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September News!

Hey guys, even though I haven’t posted too many updates lately, I have been hard at work making new models for the short film. Some of the stuff you could already see at my Twitter and Instagram pages @mklekner so if you’re not already following, consider subscribing there for a lot of behind the scenes stuff :-)

There were some new posts on my Patreon page as well, namely, the cuirass mesh and Gorgon alpha from the timelapse video below and also, these magnificent crest particle presets for Blender!

Also, I posted a new timelapse of my work, this time showing how I created a new variation of one of the Linothorax models. You can watch it here:

 Enjoy and as always, if you want to support the project, just head over to my Patreon page, I’ll be forever grateful :-) https://patreon.com/MartinKlekner

Chairé!

Martin

Heroes of Bronze Teaser hitting soon!

This will be a quick one, I just wanted to let you know that something very special is coming… a first short teaser for Heroes of Bronze! Rendered completely in real-time Blender renderer Eevee, which allowed me to create it in less than a week time. Its speed and power is truly a revolution, one that gives me hope I can make all that I have planned for Heroes of Bronze a reality!

The teaser will hit in a matter of days and a lot of Behind the Scenes content will follow, so if you don’t want to miss it, consider subscribing to my Youtube channel or even support on Patreon, where by the way you can vote in a free poll to influence what my next tutorial will be :-)

Chaíre! Martin

New Models Finished!

Hey everybody, I have finally been able to finish some essential models for the Heroes of Bronze short film!

First off, it’s the trireme, a magnificent type of ship the Ancient Greek used as highly-advanced weapon in maritime combat. It’s got three rows of oars, two sails and a huge bronze ram in the front of the ship, used to destroy enemy vessels.

Originally I wanted to outsource or buy this model. Then I thought, Heck, it’s my project, I might as well do it myself! Now I’m so glad I did, because it’s been a great fun and an awesome learning opportunity.

This is one of the several designs I plan to create for the project. Most important thing, however, is, that the base model is now ready and all the various designs will now be just about varying colors and little details.

Also, I was able to finish this bronze statue of a hero, featured in several shots of my short film. And there, in the background, is a Greek temple, which is not really completely finished yet, but it soon will be.

Hope you like the progress so far and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask here in the comments section…

One more thing, you can now buy some of the models right here, thus supporting the project! Which would be a tremendous help for me. The more support I can get, the less freelance gigs I need to do and the more I can focus on Heroes of Bronze and new tutorials…

Oh and did I mention that I’m finally finishing the Spartan Texturing course, a part 2 of this course series? Stay tuned, it’s coming next month ;-)

Cheers, Martin