Celtic Treasures : How to Create Ancient Art with Substance Designer and Painter

Early Northern European ornament was strongly influenced by the Celts who were a powerful and diverse group stretching from what is now Yugoslavia in the east all the way to Ireland in the west. In their heyday from 750 BC until the Roman conquest they created a bold style using beautiful and striking geometric shapes in sculpture, carving and metalwork. With the Germanic migrations of the early current era, unique new styles arose that blended the Insular Celtic art of the British Isles with Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Norse influences. This class will explore the origins and confluence of these ancient ornamental styles.

In this workshop John Haverkamp will unlock this artwork showing you the pattern language, the historical materials and techniques originally used. Taking advantage of PBR, he’ll use Substance Designer and Substance Painter, explaining the graph view and nodes along the way.

1. Discover the pattern language of early Germanic and Celtic ornaments

2. How did they do that? Uncovering historical materials and techniques!

a. Repousse
b. Engraving
c. Casting
d. Carving
e. Enamelings
f. Inlay
d. Niello

3. Why clay?

4. Polymer clay construction techniques

5. Preparing the clay relief photo in Photoshop

6. Learn Graphs and Nodes in Substance Designer

a. Bitmap2material node
b. Outputs – PBR
c. Transforming shapes, 2d str
d. Masking and when to output to photoshop
e. Blend

7. Exporting maps and publishing to .sbsar format for use in Substance Painter, modeling programs with the substance plugin, and realtime engines.

About John Haverkamp

John Haverkamp was born in Ohio and then moved to the pristine Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia at a young age. There he spent a semi-isolated childhood re-enacting the Lord of the Rings and being corrupted by Dungeons and Dragons. Always with the fondness for the fantastical and medieval, Art school drove him deeper into Luddite territory by granting him the skills of a traditional metal-smith. This meant post-college jobs making copper fountains, welding and steel fabricating, casting and finishing bronze sculptures, and working for an architectural blacksmith throughout his twenties.

Digitally, John got sucked into cyberspace and the arcane mysteries of 3D studio max. The perfect software match for John was Zbrush discovered six years ago. Now he teaches digital arts part time, and constantly endeavours to improve his craft as a digital-sculptor and visualizer through personal work, illustration and indie game projects.