Work-in-Progress: Swamp Monster (Part II)

Not much done this week.  I am almost done with retopolizing the feet, as seen left.  I am not completely happy with the volume, but I will fix that with one of the later sculpting passes.  Hopefully this retopologizing and adding detail picks up this week since work is changing shifts and I should be able to allot a little more time during the week.  With any luck I will finish the legs and move on to other sections, hopefully adding a little more detail, making it easier to connect the dots instead of just remaking the base mesh with a much higher polygon count.  Until next time,
~gunnah

Oops, missed a little while; Work-in-Progress: Swamp Monster (Part I)

I guess I should start off with I am not dead, just got a little busy over the last few weekends.  I accomplished only a few things on existing projects, so I am not going to mention them.  However, I have been keeping up with tutorials and posts about my particular modeling software and I have a few new outlooks.  The first is that I want to try a sculpting project.  While sculpting has very little benefit for my game itself, outside any statue models perhaps; I am hoping learning sculpting produces an interesting organic model for my portfolio.  Despite the interest in trying sculpting, my impulse alone would not have driven me to start yet another project.  But a few choice words in a modeling article would, and that is exactly what I found.  The modeling software I use is free and attracts many people trying to learn 3D modeling.  Since people with a formal education in a related field usually have access to expensive software, not mentioning companies who hire those artists, very few tend to migrate to the free program.  This has resulted in a general gap between the general body of work made in the expensive programs and those made in the free programs.  With the build-up out of the way, I can get to the pearl of wisdom: Separate from the crowd.  Sounds simple enough, but quite a few people look only to other users of their software, ignoring the more general and higher quality 3D scene at large.  This is what drove me to starting this new project.  Plus the fact there is a contest for it.  (I know I have a poor track record with contests, but with the length of this one, I am hoping for a little better showing.)

The contest is to make a swamp creature that would scare you to death.  The contest is very open, it just has to be a creature that looks like it would hunt in a swamp and be able to hunt human hunters.  I bean by thinking of ideas for what kinds of creatures live in a swamp and outside the crocodile could not come up with any very large creatures - most others were just vicious little ones.  Then came the tough question, how to improve on a beast that pre-dates the dinosaurs?  My answer: give it wings and longer legs.  The legs are a by-product of needing something to manipulate a catch.  Left is the very early base mesh I am using to block in my ideas.  My key aspects are a crocodile-like head, bat-like wings and raptor-like claws (raptor referring to the group of birds not the dinosaur) .

With the silhouette to my liking and all the main aspects in, I decided to retopologize the mesh adding in what I am calling the mid-level details.  Left is how far I have come, obviously needing quite a bit of work still with this step.  My goal is to add all the teeth, spines, eyes, ears and bony bumps into the mesh before starting the sculpting process.  Mostly because I think these aspects need a little more precision and would look a little odd if left to a novice sculptor.  Note that I started retopologizing the arms because I felt the muscles needed were inadequately represented in he base mesh.  The arms are by no means close to finished, but give a much better image of how I want the final image to look.

Left is the two above images overlaid to give a better idea of what I am trying to make.  Again, living in a swamp, I am trying to make it look semi-aquatic.  The only main detail missing is webbing in the talons.  Once I have finished the retopologizing which may take some time while /I figure out details I want to add, I will move on to the sculpting portion.  My first pass will be muscle tone in the jaw, wings and legs.  My second pass will be small details like scales.  Finally I am going to make an asymmetric sculpt pass to add scaring, damage to the wings, breaks in spikes or teeth.  While I am not sure I will be able to get ll I want to finished by the deadline, I hope to get most of it and use the finished image as a starting point for a portfolio.

Playing Around

I have not really done much over the last two weeks, at least as far as this project or 3D modeling is concerned.  I have tossed about several ideas for new scenes - unfortunately they just seem to keep coming to me - though I managed to limit myself to only one new one.  I have not finished the blocking out yet, otherwise I would have probably shown it.  That is not to say I have not been giving time into the other projects, just not enough to make anything worth showing.

Do not get me wrong, blaming life and work could just as easily been my response today and been completely true, but I decided to focus on the positive.  So, until next time,
~gunnah

Work in Progress: Crooked House (Part I)

I have been fooling around with a few projects to get back into the flow of things after my little break.  As shown last week I was playing with an organic model, though I did not make too much progress.  Actually, it was quite a bit of progress but it just does not look like much because of how small the detail in the face is.  The other projects are a hard surface, a scene and an architectural model.  As I made the most progress with the architectural model, that is what I will be showing off today.  Hopefully as I work through these projects, I can show each of them off, and hopefully finishing them and getting back to game models.

I have always like the Tudor style houses with their exposed beams.  It may just be that there are not that many around me, or that they are only used on larger houses.  But that is what this model is going to become, a four-story Tudor house with several leaning elements to create an interesting look.  I started out by blocking the first two stories of the house out.  I then started adding in the beams.  Most of the first three stories have been constructed.  The first floor is stone, which is why some of the block out still remains there.  The part of the third floor that has not been finished is a rear window and the base on which the fourth floor sits.  The coloring was only added to hopefully make it easier to make out what shapes there are.  I felt the grey blended into itself much too easily.

Until next time,
~gunnah

Work in Progress: Little Aviator Exercise (Part I)

Last week was really hectic, though work should be calming down now.  I know I keep saying that, but this time I think it will be true.  Being busy I did not work on anything for the game, which I find a little disappointing, but I do have a little something to show for the week.

This is my little aviator   One of the sites I frequent for tutorials gave a turn around set as a modeling exercise and I decided to run with it.  I have everything below the belt pretty much finished while most of his upper body is only blocked out.  I do plan on adding some extra details, time permitting, like stitching to the pockets and patches in the jeans.  I know this is far from done, but I think in recent months I have been a little paranoid of showing off works which are not 100% finished when showing them would show how my abilities on a 3D model have improved.

Hopefully I can finish this model before the deadline but there was only two weeks given between the release of the modeling sheet and when the tutorial is going to come out.  Who knows what the next post may bring?  Until then,
~gunnah

Unplanned Break

Okay, so I must apologize for missing the past few posts.  However, all you missed in those would have been excuses.  Things along the line of work is hectic, need to study, need to read would have filed those posts.  Similar to what Life is doing to this post.  However, I do have a bit to show, so with further ado, what I have been toying around with.

I know this is nowhere near done.  In fact, it is nowhere near where I would even want to present it.  However, it has been quite a bit of time since I posted any modeling images, and so I wanted to show a bit of work.  Granted it is completely unrelated to the project at hand, but I thought it was cool looking.  Besides its interesting look, there are several aspects which make this piece interesting to me.  First is the mixture of organic and hard surface modeling, a blend I would like to incorporate into my game models.  The main body is organic in nature while other aspects like the pulley and arm are closer to hard surface modeling.  Also, since the body has several cut-outs inside the shape, I felt those would make an interesting look while providing a decent deal of complexity.  Obviously this model is nowhere near complete, missing many of the attachments in addition to the lower arm.

I am not even going to guess what the next week will bring, so until next time,
~gunnah

Oops

I accidentally missed a couple of posts there.  Not that I had anything to really share, but I do try not to miss them now that I am only doing one a week.  I have hit a bit of a road block with my contest entry, so bad I do not know if it is going to be a salvageable project with what I have coming up.  Outside of the little 3D modeling work I have been doing, life has been very hectic of late.  Between work going nuts, a visit from a relative who has been on another continent most of the last 18 months, and my exam coming up, I have made almost no progress in anything.  The good news is most of that should be wrapping up in the next week, not that I want to see my relative go back but the other two points.  So what does this mean for the immediate future: not much will get done this week.  Hopefully work will be sorted out Monday or Tuesday. My relative departs Thursday morning.  My test is Saturday morning.  With overtime likely this weekend and almost guaranteed the following, April is pretty much a wash for anything productive.  I hope I am wrong, at least enough to get a few work-in-progress images to show, even if they are unrelated to the game.  Well, I think that is enough talk of nothing, until next post,

~gunnah