SciFiShip - 1st Week

 

On this I had many ideas in my mind, from past ideas and seeing things in the lecture, as well as looking around at the shapes of different objects around my house. I decided to start simple by sketching out some different ideas very roughly, capturing the basic shape, I would then choose my favourite shape/concept and take it forward.

After I made the initial sketches I sat down and did some research, looking at different ships and thinking of fundamental points in the concept and design of the ship, as well as the world it fits in. I made a list of questions to help me think the concept through.

I took my favourite design and did some blueprint drawings of it from the top, side and front. I also pencilled in some of the ship's layout and worked out the scale of each section compared to the average person. The ship I designed is a 4 or 5 person shuttle.

I then decided to do some sketches from a mock-up 3D model I built in order to add some smaller details, such as adding parts to the outside of the ship, for example guns or shield generators. I also did a base colour drawing in order to start working out colour relationships.

I finally did some lighting test using the metal ray renderer and sky-dome lighting.

 

 

 

 

Minotaur Box Modelling

For this project I used Maya to follow a Silo modelling tutorial of a Minotaur, modelling out from a box, and building things up a full model from that.

On the first part we made a simple shape for the body, arms, legs and head.

 

 

On the second part we started bringing out more of the shapes, putting in the hands and hoof shapes. This helped me understand how to model in general and how to clean up the geometry from triangles and 4+ sided faces.

 

 

On the third part we refined a lot more of the shapes, such as muscles, the belly, the hoofs, bottom of the legs and more. Here we learned how to use the Average Vertices tool.

 

 

I had other geometry problems as I worked through which I learned how to fix, so that will help in future modelling.

Here is a final render of what I ended up with. I did not get as far as I hoped as I found it difficult following the tutorial step by step at a fast rate.

I also put together a turnaround of the model

http://youtu.be/tZRWD6PvkX4

Underwater Creature

For my underwater creature, I decided to make something based on a Manta Ray, how include an axe and hammer shape, inspired by sword fish and saw fish.

I looked up reference images and made sketches from them (to be uploaded, have sketches with me), to get an idea and feel for the shape Manta Rays have.

 

 

I the sketched out my design and shape, the head I changed to something that fitted. I wanted a shape that looked steam-lined.

I then moved on to 3D and created the creature in Maya.

I started off creating the creature flat to the same shape as the concept.

I then started adding some form and volume, but being careful not to add too much because of the type of creature it is.

I then added detail to the fins, as well as some gills on the bottoms, as well as antennas on top and eyes at the front.

I curved the fins up to give it some motion and a bit more form.

I finally added some quite simple textures, just black and white.

I then tried to do a few variation in rendering, using Mental Ray and a sky dome after feedback, however I did not get very far.

For the final painting I curved the fins as though it is swimming and added black and white textures, similar to a Manta Ray.



Final Painting

 I realise now that I could have used the subdivide tool in order to get a smoother mash before the paint over, and I also could have used a shader that looks less artificial. The final design I like, it's an interesting design, almost like a Pokemon.

I think I should have also added a blue overlay, so that the creature appears to be deeper, which would suit the background.



Week 18 Sketches

For my observational this week I drew a toy of Yoshi I have from Mario Kart, I did this one pretty fast and feel it went well, the perspective is readable and you can tell how the shape of the toy works, some parts are a little off, but nothing that ruins it.

My creative I drew in the park, I decided to do a Pepsi max bottle as an astronaut  the design is simple and the perspective of the writing is off, but I enjoyed the idea and sketching it out.

Week 17 Sketches

My creative and observational drawing this week were on the same piece of paper. For my creative I did a quick mock of the Skeletal structure of the Pokemon "Muk", this went alright, it was something interesting to think about, however I think it bares more thought than a quick sketch, the structure I drew also wasn't overall practical, as it wasn't my design it was also more of a guessing game.

My observational is of some objects on a desk, to practive simple perspective and lighting again, increasing my understanding of how basic object work in perspective. However I don't think the perspective on the phone is quite right here.

Life Drawing Term 2

These are samples of what i've done, the rest of the collection is on disc.

I had a lot of fun in life drawing this term and learnt a lot of new techniques for drawing and trained my eye to see in more way, focusing on light, darks, negative space, the more obvious shapes, drawing solely in tone, weight balance, perspective and looking at the shape to figure out how best to represent it in different mediums such as pen, charcoal and ink. However the most interesting part I feel was when we drew with our off hands.

In our first lesson, we drew our hands following a pattern which represent movement or motion as you follow the images along.

 The drawing on left here was early life drawing for the second term, and was drawn from life. The drawing on the right was a self portrait, we all took pictures of ourselves to use as reference. I feel this went well, although unfinished it as all quite accurate and the shading was done well. The most interesting part for me is how my glasses distort my eyes, also the distortion of the camera.

 

This was a longer, pure tonal drawing. I feel the perspective and tone on this went well, it was very interesting looking at the tone and using that to find reference points, rather than lines. I think adding in some of the background scenery could have helped define the character.

 These were both different from what i've done before. The one on the left was with the charcoal on it's side, quickly putting in the overall shape and tone, and then using sharper lines afterwards to define it. On the right I covered the page in charcoal and used a rubber and sharper charcoal line to put in the shape. I like these styles and it would be interesting to see how they work in concept art. 

 

 This was a longer drawing, I did this with the paper on the floor and used ink to capture the main line and tone, I liked the style of this one, how the drops spread out into the page was interesting. It was good practice drawing on the floor for once as well.

 The drawing on the left is an ink drawing in which I used my left (off) hand for the character and my right hand for the scenery, I really liked the result of this one, I felt it was quite accurate and the squiggly left-handed lines gave it some life. The drawing on the right at the top of the picture were 10 minutes each with the left hand, the two at the bottom were quicker, I really like how the two at the top turned out, again the left-handed lines gave it a bit of life.

 

These are 2 of the favourite things I've done in life drawing, especially the pelvis on the right. Instead of using tones I used lines and changed their direction to capture the shape of the bone, it was part towards understanding how the shape of the pelvis worked, it ended up looking really nice and became a good reference for the pelvis shape. I did the ribs in a similar style, however I did draw them wrong, they are slightly to high or low on the left, though the process of doing the drawing did help train my eye, and teach me what can go wrong when drawing if you're not careful.

 These were all two minute drawings, all all did poses for each other. Some went better than others, the drawing on the left I drew with my left (off) hand, and the drawings on the right I drew with my right hand. I really enjoyed doing these, we were constantly making quick drawing judgements as we went though these, so we stayed focused and it was a great final thing to do to really train our eyes.