feature: south african digital artist travis davids wows with hyper-realistic sci-fi models

Travis Davids is a digital artist from South Africa who makes sci-fi models. His projects are a unique outlet for him to combine fantasifull imagination and engineering where he can create incredibly realistic digital renderings of 3D portraits, weapons, machines, etc. Davids uses programs like CAD, Photoshop, 3D Max, and Keyshot to design and render. Check some of his creations out down below and see his portfolio for more.

Al Ta-urak
Meet Al Ta’urak, a solider of the Yemni tribe. A civilization forged by darkness. The Yemni go through vigorous and extensive training regimes to ensure unmatched strength and endurance on the battlefield. They are known for killing their enemies and drinking the blood from their hearts. Final render required 19 different render passes to get the final result.

The Skop – Patrol Mech
Well, i tried but i did have a blast on this one. First time modeling a complete mech. Took me about 4 days in total to complete everything. From the black and white silhouette concepting, modeling and finally adding the finishing touches in photoshop. Meet “The Skop”, a mech built primarily for agility and speed. It can track potential threats from a distance and then…BAM, you get a swift kick from the EMP KICKERS that immobilize potential threats making this mech a serious threat in close combat. I was watching Justin Goby Fields mech tutorial while i was designing this and learned some cool stuff from him as well. I def want to do more hard surface stuff, its really fun. The entire design is probably not 100% practical but i just tried t design something i thought looked appealing. Its got a very worn down feel to it.

Guilt Trip – Exotic Submachine Gun
Here is my second attempt at modeling a weapon. Meet “The Guilt Trip”. An exotic submachine gun with enough pew pew to take out a small army. Its the king of hip-fire accuracy. Edon Gurazlu and Justin Goby Fields inspire me a great deal when it comes to weapon design. I also took my time to understand Edons workflow in Maya and then used similar techniques in 3Ds Max with edge loops, chamfer, extruding and inset. I then completed the final piece in zbrush and rendered it in Luxion KeyShot. I also gave the weapon some tribal camo as added personality. Feel free to let me know what you think. As i’m not a gun expert there is probably parts of this design that don’t make any sense.

Female Portrait
So here is the final render and sculpt for my female portrait. This entire portrait is still not finished, i just wanted to get the initial portrait to a finished level but i still plan on doing a lot more to her with accessories (hairstyles) and i will probably paint the entire sculpt as well. I used 12 render passes to achieve the final render. I’ll appreciate any constructive feedback. I had fun working on this portrait, it presented quite a lot of challenging things that i had to do in order to achieve this final result.

The Last Of Us Flamethrower (Tutorial)
I wanted to give myself a challenge to create this entire flamethrower in Autodesk Fusion 360. I also textured this entire object with Photoshop and Keyshot so i didn’t have to do any retopology or uv layouts. I cover this entire process from start to finish in real time with voice narration. I have this course available on my gumroad as 3 separate packages. Feel free to visit this link if you’re interested > www.gumroad.com/mrdavids1
All credit to Nick Gindraux for the concept art.

Nyoni Ndlovu – Duel Wielding Shotgun Assassin
A character i created called Nyoni Ndlovu from Bloemfontein, South Africa. She’s fluent in Afrikaans and has one hell of a foul mouth. This dual wielding shotgun assassin is somebody you probably don’t want to mess with.
I created this image while taking Maciej’s course at Learn Squared and got my ass kicked multiple times, every day. It was brutal and i’m still not sure how i feel about this final image but at least i can take away a lot of knowledge from the course and apply it again when i try something new. A combination of workflows from multiple programs. I used Fusion 360 for the helmet and shotgun. Some marvelous Designer and Zbrush as well. Not as kickass as the other students work but i tried and i’m focusing on trying to get better.

Anyway, on to the next one.

www.artstation.com/artist/mrdavids

*Erin White is an Atlanta-based writer and AFROPUNK’s editorial and social media assistant. You can follow her on Tumblr or friend her on Facebook. Have a pitch or an inquiry? Shoot her an email at erin@afropunk.com.