Now, Looking back, I may have aimed a little high on everything I wanted to learn of the last couple of weeks,
First week went really well.  I now feel I can jump into 3DS Max and model stuff, should I need to.  I have also managed to get to grips with Zbrush again.  And played around with Red shift. all be it, at a very basic level.  I wont be getting any Oscars for my work with lets put it that way.
I did get familiar with Marvellous designer. God that program is fantastic.  Got some environments I plan on making which will make good use of some MD stuff.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to to do any anatomy sculpts, which was a low priority for sure, as I do want to primarily focus on environment art, but I do have some character ideas in my head I would like to create at some point.
And I never even managed to get into Substance designer, which would have been a good one to dive into.


But at the end of the day, I did come out of this 2 week period with some new skills, which is always a win for sure.  And at the same time, it has been the first proper 2 weeks holiday/vacation time I have had since Christmas 2016, so I did end up taking some time for myself.  Wouldn't want to burn out now, would we?



A few screen grabs of some of the stuff I worked on while learning new things:

The Quick Start guides to MAx from Digital Tutors / Pluralsight are pretty solid to work though.  


Then with Zbrush

Made a boot that was mean to be the start of a character,
actually a remade of a character I created as my 3rd year project at Uni a few years ago.
but as it stand right now. gonna keep it on hold, and make some kick ass environments  

Now, I know this is not particularity mind blowing, but I have finally got round to learning some new things.  I have got my first proper holiday from work in like a year where it is just 2 weeks of free time, so sounds like the perfect time to learn.
I have set myself a goal of getting at least a working knowledge of various software packages, including:
3D Studio Max
Marvellous Designer
Substance Designer
Redshift 3D
As well as get familiarising myself with anatomy sculpting.


As it stands right now, I feel that my resume has been lacking in some areas as it has a very narrow focus, Maya modelling, substance painter and Unreal.  It really does not give off the impression that I am adaptable now does it.  
I have been meaning to learn MAX for a while now, and honestly, I kind of regret leaving it until now.  I have been working through some quick start tutorials and I have had a blast modelling in it.  I actually feel it is a lot easier and enjoyable modelling in MAX than it is in Maya.  I am really digging the use of modifiers, so much less destructive.
Marvellous designer is something I have looked into in the past, but could never get my heard around the pattern concept for what ever reason, I was always trying to jump straight in and create complex garments, like combats trousers and Layered robes, which just always left me frustrated. So it is time to take things one step at a time.   Going to work through a tutorial series I get from CubeBrush on Marvellous for environment artist, hopefully I should get to grips with it.
Substance designer looks to be one of the main bits of kit I am lacking in.  Art station is full of people making custom substance files, and it really adds to the scenes that they create.  Everything I have made so far using default presets that can be found in Painter or Quixel, which makes everything look very samey.  So substance designer is defiantly a priority.
The final thing I am looking to get into is redshift, or any Offline Renderer for that matter.  My focus at the moment has been real time, so I have been exclusively working within Unreal 4.  But I do want to learn Redshift, to gain some experience in VFX Rendering.

I plan on consolidating everything I pick up in the coming weeks, to make a character, with a diorama base, to show off all the new skills I have gained.

For those of you interested, what this place.

It has been a long time coming, but I have finally started expanding my online presence beyond ArtStation and my Facebook page.

I have recently got back into Twitter, and have created an art based Instagram account.
This should hopefully allow me to post more Work in progress images, to get feedback while working on projects.  Much easier to alter things when you're still working on something... Nothing worse than being told that your bevels are not prominent enough on all your meshes after you have deleted the history, UV Mapped, Textured and stuck in Unreal.  Lesson Learned I suppose.

I am also working on creating a standardised thumbnail for all my projects, just to make sure everything has a consistent look.
I don't know if you can tell, but also starting a blog on here as well.  I know, crazy right,  which I will also use for some WIP stuff, with the added advantage of adding Marmoset Viewer and SketchFab, should the needs arise.


Anyway thanks for reading guys, and If you want to follow me on all the socials here they are

Instagram - stuartspeirs3d
Twitter - @3dSpeirs
Facebook - @StuartSpeirs3D