Monster V2 (24/1/2013)

On an additional day in college, I set myself the task of finishing my monster design on ZBrush. I was able to do some more modeling but was unable to do the painting as it wouldn't let me paint the eyeball for some reason. I even tried replacing the sphere but that didn't seem to work. Luckily my lecturer arrived in time and therefore explained what I was doing wrong as I had forgotten to do the very first step.
I also tried to model a hat for him my monster, however, due to still trying to get used to the program I was unable to. Hopefully this will be something I can add on a later date.
You can see my rather silly looking monster below:

I also attempted to continue designing my grenade, but was sadly unable to as the cutting tool that I needed to use decided not to work on the cube that needed to be sliced to continue. Add the fact that the video tutorial is rather fast paced and does a different method to my lecturer, its hard to tell what the issue was and therefore will need to ask advice in the future. 

Creating a Grenade using ZBrush 1 (23/1/2013)

Following his printed guide and watching both his screen and the online tutorial I did my best to create a grenade on ZBrush. 

You can see screenshots of my process below:

It was a challenge to keep up at times, but overall I am glad that I kept at it. After all, burying my head in the sand wasn’t going to help, and whereas I struggled and needed help often I feel slightly more confident with the program as I am slowly getting to grips with it. This is probably to do with the fact that I prefer visual/taking part learning as opposed to long lists of text without images for guides. I recognise it will take quite a few sessions for me to completely break out of my comfort zone and feel confident with this program as I am with 3dsMax, but once again I feel that it will be worth it when I do (hopefully sooner than later).   

I also took the following notes:

• Only save under ‘Tools’ and not ‘File’ as saving in File squashes your 3D model into a 2D flat image, thus losing all your hard work.

• Save regularly as the program has been known to crash without warning. This happened to me and therefore I ended up saving after every process just to be sure.

• As I struggled with rotating last week here’s some mental notes for myself:

o   Hold down Left click in order to spin all around the object.

o   Hold Shift while doing the above to make the object stand straight, not slanted or turn it by 90 degree angles.

o   Hold Alt before Left click to simply move the object around the scene.

o   Now for the complicated one: Hold down Alt, Left click the screen and then let go of Alt in order to zoom in and out of the screen by dragging the mouse forward and back.

First try at ZBrush (16/1/2013)

I was looking forward to trying ZBrush for the first time during this session as my art lecturer had explained to me all the creative opportunities ZBrush was providing to comic creators and other such mediums. However, I knew I should have realised that using a program for the first time was going to be difficult and therefore underestimated how much trouble it would be.

The program is like molding a virtual version of clay. You spread the shapes out as if you are pulling, pushing and rolling them. You can also put imprints on them to give them texture. The program is meant to be perfect for designing characters as it allows the user to create convincing character models and clothe them in different materials.

Therefore using a program that worked like clay was difficult as not only have I not used clay in years, but I am so used to 3dsMax's interface and its hot keys that trying to rotate and zoom in and out with the camera was a challenge on its own.

Luckily I was able to produce some resemblance to the monster that our lecturer wanted us to create using a Graphics Tablet that felt natural for the program. I feel that given the time and patience to play with the program and read over the hot key list that I will eventually become confident in the program as I did with 3dsMax many years ago.

You can see my first attempts at ZBrush below:

 

 

 

 

Presenting my 3D model (9/1/2013)

As we were given additional time to work on our 3d models so that we might present them to the group, I decided to try and complete my last years targets.

Therefore I completed the following:

• Managed to add the transparent window textures to the portholes. I also rotated the portholes and even repositioned some as I discovered the majority of them were out of proportion and therefore didn't connect to the ship correctly.
• Changed the texturing on the deck of the ship and therefore made it appear a lot more realistic as the planks of wood no longer look blurred and instead now look correctly layered. I also decided to do this to the inside of the walls on the deck, only the texture was rotated.
• Thanks to the lecturer's help I was able to add a 'Gizmo' to the furnace type thing on the sterncastle which allowed my to add a 'Fog' affect to my scene, thus making it look as if steam is protruding out of it and therefore adding to the intended Steampunk style.

 However, I was unable to do the following which I would tackle given more time:

• I tried to add a shark face texture to the front of the blimp, but was unsuccessful due to being unable to find a decent image without text covering it. Plus the textures themselves decided not to work and therefore wouldn't go on the blimp correctly. Therefore realising that I had other areas that I needed to work on I left this intended aspect for another time. 
• I would also love to go back and re-texture all the timber on the ship as I feel I did a really good job with the deck and now want the rest of it to look as good.   
• The door and the chest on the ship's deck could do with some more detail so as to confirm to those looking at the model that they are what I intended them to be. 
• I would like to say that I would try and remodel the figure head as well so as to make it look less blocky. However, once again I must remind myself that modeling humanoids is a very difficult task and therefore should be pleased that at least people can tell that it is what it is meant to be. 

 Feedback from my peers: 

• Many of my fellow peers loved how much detail I had put in and overall liked the outcome of my work. Quite rightly though some pointed out that the blimp looked a bit odd and could perhaps of done with both a better model and a texture that makes the material for the blimp stand out more. This I agree with, however, I feel that the other idea of adding ropes around the blimp whilst adding to an otherwise bland model doesn't match my intended vision for the final piece.   

You can see the updated airship below: