That's Not an Unimaginative Popular Culture Reference! That's an Unimaginative Popular Culture Reference!!!

The title makes it quite self-evident that this post is going to be about a knife. Doesn't it? Last week our homework given to us by Phil out Maya tutor-technician (tutnician or technitor, if you will) was to finish modeling the combat knife we started in class, at least to a certain point.

The base image (duh).

We were given a base image to place onto a plane with which to use as reference. With the image in place we began by using the quad draw tool to create planes which were to become the handle.

The plane was then extruded to create half the handle (the knife will be mirrored and stitched together later) and the knife's button was added.

Knife handle with button visable.

Afterwards more edgeloops were added so that the screws could be added into the handle.

The inner faces of the handle were also extruded and beveled to add more depth and detail to the grip.

The screws (highlighted for your convenience).

Next was the knife blade. It was much the same as the handle in regards to all the quad drawing but made slightly more complicated but the blade's serration.

Knife blade with more edgeloops than sense.

With that done all that was in order was adding a cylinder for the round thing that can be seen in the upper right hand of the above picture. Also added was some detail on the blade near the handle which was extruded and beveled.

Next was to mirror the handle and buttons.

Moving on from there I had to mirror the knife's blade.

The Tassle That Never Was and extras

When I first began my project I came up with ideas for Tassle that were a little different than what I finally chose to do.

I did quite like number 6's armour-dress-thing but it probably wouldn't have worked for the main character of a game.

These were the first set of thumbnails I did for Tassle. I combined aspects of the second and third sketches to create a more finalised concept. 

This was the result, note the silvery and strongly geometric designs.

There were two reasons why, already into the project, I chose to redesign my character. 

The first reason is that I though that the complicated geometric armour would be too difficult to model. Of course you could just call it "challenging" but I had no interest riving myself insane with difficult and demanding geometry.

The second is that I just go a bit bored of it. I don't know why I did but now even looking back at it I recall thinking that I could just do something different, something that wasn't along the lines of the first thing that popped into my head.

Now some extras.

This is a screen shot of one of my models of Tassle. I had to abandon it and start again because of geometry problems way above my pay grade, which was a shame because it didn't turn out too badly.

Gold and shiny! This design was done with a gold foil texture to make you think wealth.
which the Edwards certainly have

This one was toned down a bit more.

These are the designs I drew up as the symbol/logo for the Edwards Corporation who de jure own Tassle. It's just a circle with some liney nonsense and a barcode design beneath it and it can be seen as the background for the synopses write ups.

Summer Project

I can't remember the last time I posted something on here but I'm quite sure it was close a thousand years ago. Over the course of our summer holiday we were given the task to design, model and render a character for a (nonexistent) sci-fi game. The character had to be a cyborg and have at least two arms and legs. Simple enough. I thought.

 I looked at different designs for different types of cyborgy and mechanical things by many different artists. I had it already in my head that I wanted to do a human cyborg but one that was not a built-like-a-tank killing machine or a multi-appendaged mechanical spider queen. What I wanted to go for was something with less glamour like a servant type or ship pilot or someone part of a ship's bridge crew. I eventually went with the latter.

For our project we had to do a little bit of world building to set the scene for our characters. We had to devise a synopsis of the narrative as well as develop the appearance and traits of our character.

 

With the stage set set it was time to thumbnail Tassle, the name of all names I chose for my character. Personally I think it's a sweet, simple and endearing name and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I chose the name whilst looking around my room trying to conjure up something suitable and spying the tassels on my bedroom blinds. Nothing whatsoever.

Taking inspiration from my first and fourth thumbnails I set about to paint my character.

Now that I have my nice painty-uppy picture of Tassle I had to get to work on the back and side view to use as reference when modeling him.

These are said designs. I took the best side of my front painting and mirrored it for use to model the front view. Trying to get things to line up on the side view is not worth the time it takes and can break even the strongest willed individual. 

Next, of course, was the modeling done in Maya 2015.

Some perhaps not so hi-rez pictures of the low-poly model. 3D modeling is not my strong point point so it took me a good few tries to get the armour on right and I made a few alterations on the fly to the look of it keeping in mind the some of the detail was to be added on later with Mudbox, such as the eyes.

Maya Spring Assignment

With the deadline looming I am happy to say that I have finished this assignment on time, which is great for me so no dashing around in a hazy panic. I will admit that I found this assignment to be quite difficult, when it comes to Maya I am certainly not a natural but at least it can all be seen as a learning experience.

The model prior to being unwrapped. Not particularly exiting.

The unwrapped UVs of Finn. Not the cleanest unwrapping I know there are some artifacts of unknown origin. The garbled mess you see in the middle is actually one of his legs. Again, I have no idea how that happened but thankfully it had no effect on painting the textures.

Stages of Finn in the texturing process. Starting to look more like his concept counterpart.

The painted textures. Not the neatest but it did the job somewhat.

Lord. Those bloody shoes...

A front, back and side view of the finished model.

Now, as you ca see it is not perfect, far from it. I have made mistakes with UV unwrapping which came back to bite me in the arse. 

His shoes for start. Because of the way I had unwrapped the shoes it made it nearly impossible for me to steal a texture for the laces off of one of the concept sheets or even paint them on by hand without them becoming a horrible distorted mess, ergo I left them off which I know looks a tad jarring.

Poor UV planning on my part also made painting around the collar of the t-shirt and incredibly difficult task. The textured result is questionable at best. The t-shirt, thankfully, was very forgiving just being black with a logo and adding the face was a breeze, having added eye holey-bits on my model it was easy for me to size up and place the cut out face onto the texture map. 

Here's hoping I get better with time. Made with Maya and Photoshop as you know. About six/seven hours work.

More Life Drawing

Title is self explanatory. This is work from my last two life drawing lessons and by last I mean last, at least as far as course scheduled life drawing is concerned.

3 minute poses in charcoal.

1 minute poses in charcoal

Perspective practice in charcoal. It's not too bad I don't think. 

15 minute pose in coloured pencil.

15 minute pose in black pigment liner.

More 3 minute poses in charcoal.

1 minute poses in charcoal.

Practicing faces. Both at least look vaguely human, just not much like the model.

15 minute pose in Copic marker.

15 minute pose in pencil with Copic marker. Still hopeless with hands...

And that's that it seems for now. I like to think I've gotten better at life drawing over the last two terms, or at least I hope I have.

Frog Shaman

This is the final design I came up with for my anthropomorphic frog-creature-thing, a task given a couple of weeks ago as you know.  As you know with everything and anything like this; moodboard:

It's not particularly difficult to tell what direction I chose to go with my design is it?

The finished piece. An Aztec inspired frog shaman guy with feathery headdress and all that nonsense.

About two hours in Photoshop (I think). Overall I'm pretty happy with him but perhaps he's just a little flat colour wise. All well.

Personal Work: Fenrir

In anticipation for tomorrow's partial solar eclipse I have drawn Fenrir, the fen-dweller. In Norse mythology it is recounted that Fernrir would eat the sun heralding in Ragnarok, the Norse end of times. So whenever a solar eclipse came about the vikings would be convinced that Ragnarok had begun only to be left startled and bemused when nothing actually happened.

Bumbling and incompetent, this sun-sized Fenrir drifts through space attempting to eat stars completely oblivious to the fact that his mouth is too small. 

Inspired by the Norse legend as well as the actuality of the solar eclipse I drew a very spherical Fenrir. Look upon his splendor and weep.

How on Earth the Norse peoples of old could mistake what was clearly a very round object blocking the sun for a large wolf-god is beyond me but it inspired this picture of the Fen-Dweller.