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Artwork by John 

Here's a shot of the most-current version of Crichton to replace the outdated version you've got on K-Web.  (bottom of this page)  The model's still a work-in-progress and needs a few shape tweaks, better texturing, and shaders — but it's getting closer!
Luxan Assault Piercer (Work in Progress)
LAP-Trench.jpg (635860 bytes) Closeup of the Luxan Assault Piercer (Work in Progress)
 
Nebular Ignition Nebular Ignition is a collaboration between John and Rhys. 
John_Last Flight.jpg (140274 bytes) The Last Flight of Aeryn's Prowler with model & texture contributions by Solid Servo
A Hero's Death with model  contributions by Rhys Salcombe
Hate to Burst Your Bubble with model & texture contributions by SuperNova
Now Save My World with model & texture contributions by Rhys Salcombe & SuperNova
Little Pod on the Prairie with model & texture contributions by Rhys Salcombe & Johannes Schlors
Recon Patrol with model & texture contributions by SuperNova
Building Your Very Own Shell-Head

All fired up now, and ready to try your hand at CGI?  ;)  Not quite sure where to start or even what the process of creating Computer Generated Imagery is like?  No problem!  I promised I'd keep this short though and not bore anyone to tears, so note that the process I went through while building Pilot's head has been simplified a bit! ;)

A.) At this stage, we're just starting out.  A technique called "Spline modelling" is used to create a series of curves which define rough wire outlines of the face and overhead shell.  This becomes our jumping-off point.

B.) Next, we "patch" the wire outline to make solid surfaces.  Basically, this means that we cover them with sheets of polygons so that they have a surface we can see.

C.) Once we have a surface to work with, we can begin adding details.  The rough surface is toggled into a mode called "SubDivision Surfaces" (which changes all the sharp-edged joins into smooth curves) and we begin shaping. Control points on the model are moved around, and polygons are added and devided to refine its shape.  Also, other parts are added to the model by extending edges, or fusing on separately created segments.  This continues until we have the entire head shape.

D.) Finally, to make the head model look more realistic, it is textured. This means that images are applied to the model's surface to give it properties like colour, shinyness, bumpyness, and reflectivity.  (Compare the surfaced portion around his mouth to his cheeks and the area around his eyes which have no textures yet - you can easily see how much of a difference textures make!)

That's it!  Of course, what's Pilot's head without a body, right?  So we start the whole process over on the next piece of Pilot! ;)

Bitten by the 3D bug?  Want to give it a try and see what it's like, but a little frightened by the price of 3D animation software?  Surf on over to Blender3d.org and a very thorough OpenSource modeller package is waiting as an absolutely free download in Windows, OSX, and Linux flavours.
John_PilotFace_v.8.2.jpg (160407 bytes) Click to see a larger view of Pilot's head
As a glimpse of things to come... there will also be character-based Farscape artwork created in the not-too-distant future.  (I still have tons of work to do to finish these models though, so it might be a while before you see them in a real image...)  Please pardon any oddities in the previews — both are still very much works-in-progress... ;)

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