Shop Project Post-Mortem

 At the start of this term, I remember thinking that the dagger exercise (that had a tutorial) was a nightmare.. Who would have thought that I was going to model a building all on my own? 

If I am being honest, this project was not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Having full freedom over the shape of the house felt extremely nice, but I was still struggling to transfer my ideas from a concept drawing to 3dsmax. It took me some time to figure out how I was going to model each part of the house, but once I started to get more comfortable with the program, modelling became way more intuitive and easier. I would even say fun! 

I decide to make the hay roof with alphas, which ended up looking very good in unreal, but it was very difficult working with them in max. The texture kept going crazy, I had to switch to clay mode a lot just to be able to see what was going on.  But it was totally worth it in the end!

If I were to do something different, that would be modelling more props, maybe some pots and even flowers.. It would have made the flower shop even more believable. But I was already struggling to get the form of the house right. If I were to do that right now, I think the project would have felt very overwhelming, since I m still lacking a lot of skills in 3ds max.

Looking back at my work, I can confidently say that I exceeded my expectations. I was not expecting it to look this good. I really love how it came along.

Looking forward, I will definitely have to pay more attention to time management. I for sure have to be organized with my future projects.

Cube world project

 When I first saw what this project is about, I immediately got excited. I have been painting in photoshop for quite some time now, but I have never done anything like that. And also, I take every chance I can get of being creative. 

Before starting to work on anything, I always like to plan everything in advance so when it gets to actually working, I know exactly what I have to do. The first step was picking the theme for my project. I wanted something that would suit the dreamy side of me, and something that would fit perfectly in the context, too. After lots of debates with myself, I ended up choosing a fairytale theme. 

When it got to actually picking the story that I was going to base my project on, I realized that the story of Rapunzel would fit the project the best, since her isolation in the tower is consistent with the isolation of this cube world, in the middle of nowhere.

Then, I had to find some references that were going to help me in the process. This is what I ended up using:

image source

image source

image source

After researching, it was time to actually start working on the project. I started with a sketch, which I ended up using for the entirety of the project. I used the grids provided in the photoshop file to help through it.

When I paint something, I like to work my way from the back to the front, so the next step was painting the background, which I made sure to induce the dreamy effect I was talking about earlier.

After that, it was time to move to the ground. I filled in the sketches with a blank colour, so I would be able to paint the details easily inside of them after I made a selection. This strategy was used for every object in the scene. 

Next step was adding some depth and also some textures to the ground.

After that, I repeated all stages that I went through with the ground with the other objects.

Close to the finalization of the project, I added some more details, added some more shadows, and overall cleaned up the entire piece. 

In the end, I want to say that I am very satisfied with the result, and that I think it embodies perfectly my initial idea. I had so much fun working on this project, and I will definitely try something similar in the future! 

Week 10: Ellipses and Symmetry

 The concept of ellipses and symmetry is not something new to me. I always use them every time I have to draw an object, or a person of course. It gives me a sense of accuracy since I see myself as a perfectionist. That is the main reason why the speed drawing in the week 2 task was something so new to me and so out of my comfort zone. 

I usually plan everything in advance, making sure that everything is perfect. As you can imagine, that is a very time-consuming habit. 

For this task, I had to create a still life using different sized objects using the ellipses and symmetry. Because of that, I tried to find the most round objects I had in my house, that being a vase and a mug.

Every time I draw something, I like to work my way from the back, just like I would be rebuilding reality, especially on landscapes. This was no exception.

I drew the vase first and then moved on to the mug.

After that I added the shading, enhancing the roundness of the objects.

Final Piece

To achieve that I have used an F pencil for the sketch, an HB pencil for the light shadows, a B for the mid-tones and a 2B, 4B and 6B for the dark shadows. 

In the end, I want to say that I am extremely happy with the result and that I think it is an accurate representation of my workflow. 

Week 9: X-Y-Z Section drawing

Funny enough, this task reminded me of the Orthographic View Port in 3Ds Max, mainly because it is basically the same concept, but this time on paper.

I found the actual drawing part of this very difficult. All the axis were overlapping, and it was really hard to distinguish anything inside the grid. 

Happily, I was able to work my way through it, and correct inaccuracies in the process. I chose to draw a DSLR, which is quite a complex shape.

After I got the main shaped figured out, I decided to erase the axis that were not helping, so they would not get in the way, in the process of building the DSLR.

Final piece

I found working on this task a little difficult, mainly because I had to get the axis perfectly parallel, which was not always the case, and that caused problems in the progress.

I have used an HB pencil for the initial axis, a B for the boundaries of the DSLR, and a 2B for the actual shape of the object.