Merry Christmas 2019

Merry Christmas 2019

Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin   -- There is no fireplace like your own.

(Open fires are for the most part illegal in new housebuilds in Ireland now.)



Winding down for the end  of the year. 

 Looking forward to a break - and time to recharge.  

Wishing you a Merry Christmas. 

Teddy Bears

Teddy

Teddy Bears

Result of a Blender tutorial follow along by CG Cookie.  It was an old tutorial but I just wanted to practice  some simple modelling.  Anyway I stashed the bears at different stages and textured them a few different ways. 

Went a little further and added fur following a tutorial by tutor4u   Football created following a tutorial by Magevo studio.  

Autumn

Autumn

I am so far behind on this blog I missed a whole season.  Have been busy trying to keep up with work I have struggled to do any personal work.  Not a healthy thing for progres I am sure.  It will hopefully be busy until the end of year then I will have a chance to stop and reflect.  

Self portrait Nov 1 2019

Self portrait Nov 1 2019

Managed to squeeze a few hours to do a self prortrait for November 1st.  It was a really big deal on the now defunct conceptart.org.  It keeps going on Facebook but it is not the same.  Anyway it is good to put down a marker - another year.  

Fountains

Fountain 

I have tried to keep posting regularly here since 2011.  I have really struggled the past few weeks.  I have been working on a lot of client work and its all NDA.  My time for personal work has dwindled to almost zero.  I did manage to get through some tutorials on fluids in Blender.  This one by Olav3D was really useful.   This was my attempt. 

 A week or two later I got to play around with it and made a fountain and tried some different lighting. 

Fountain 1

Variety

Bike

Hut

settlement

mock up

Map

Here are a couple of recent images I worked on.  Mostly line work and a simple render.  The advantage is that they can be created in a short amount of time and be revised quickly.  Useful for small commission work. The settlement I used 3d to work out placing and camera.   Also used a  blender file using 3d to create a 2d map.  

Eighties

Another packed week but I have a result of a turorial I followed  video.  This was created by Polygon Runway.  I found their work on Dribble and thought it would be a good challenge to follow along.  From this I did learn  how to use the single vert to make the cables and pipes.  I changed out some of the details as I was around in the 80s. Video is a close up on some details.  

Blender Bedroom

Blender Bedroom

Back to 3D following a tutorial by Jayanam.  on YouTube.   I followed the tutorial then played around with renders a little. I also used the SVG export option to see the effects.  

With bloom

Trying out lights 

SVG export

Animal paintings

Switching back to some traditional watercolour for the most part.  These were done as practice pieces just to get more comfortable with the medium.  Apologies for the late post  but I have been busy with client work - not a bad complaint.  I think I need heavier paper to do a looser style.  

Anvil Modeling

Anvil

I finally managed to finish the epic tutorial series by Blender Guru.  I started it at the start of August - did the basic modeling and then had to drop it to do other work and then got back to it in September.  It was well worth doing as I had not done any UV unwrapping or baking and I feel I got a good grounding in that. So if you are starting out it is a good project to do.   

On a side note I could have easily not returned to this series to complete it.  I know there is a high attrition rate on open source learning I was interested in the fall off in numbers.  Using views you can get a sense of how challenging it is to keep going through these kinds of series.  The final videos had one tenth of the views of those at the start.   

Where are we ?

Galway hand painted map

I have been working in Blender doing the tutorials but also looking at using the import and export features for shortening processes.  Using  OSM  I used mapping data as the structure the hand painted map.  OSM was free but now you have to pay for the addon.  The other function I used was a free addon Freestyle SVG export.  Using this it was possible to take a model and use the function to create vector linework from it.  Using the linework an illustration could be made without sweating the perspective and being able to inspect the model to find a good angle to capture.  

Blender development model 1

Blender development model 1b

 

Blender development model 1c

Blender development model Freestyle SVG export

Blender development model Freestyle SVG painted

Shiny Bowl and beads

Blender cloth and particle

Back to some Blender learning.  I followed a few tutorials one on cloth  by Olav3D Tutorials on YouTube. 

This was the result.  

I also worked along with this one on a particle simulation also by Olav3D Tutorials.   The random colour came from here by Dorian Zgraggen.  

Then combined the two.  I didnt manage to crack how to have the cloth interact with beads on the reverse side  so they pass through.  I will keep an eye out for a solution for that.  
. 

Castle and forest

Castle observatory

Autumn Forest 

I think these are the last batch of environments I did for my portfolio.  I stuck once again with the same process.  What I would like to do next is put more texture in and with that local colour variation.  

Castle observatory process

Autumn Forest process

Bus Tour

Bus Tour 

 Another buffing of the portfolio offerings.  This one was playing with a different palette keeping with the same process.  

Bus tour gif 

Fry

Fry

 Playing around with some simpler rendering.  Following a line and flat colour process. 

Fry - process

Quayside

Quayside

Some more portfolio material.  

Following the same process. 

Just wanted to do a more complicated scene. 

Quayside Process

Kitchen in sunshine

Kitchen in  sunshine 

Went into serious portfolio overhall mode and decided to concentrate on environments.  This was an interior that was using a process I have used a lot so it allowed me to concentrate a bit more on the details.  I worked from line to flats to lighting and had some fun finishing it.  

Kitchen sunshine - Flats 

Kitchen sunshine - Lines

Savannah

Savannah 

Rocketoon

On another exploration trip.  This one with a purpose to refine my process and play around with palets.  There are a few more of these to work through. 

House -Watercolour render in Photoshop

 House Render 

 Back to 2D and Photoshop.  I wanted to try and get as close as I could to watercolour render.  This was based off a google maps roadside capture.  I layed in the structure as I usually would.  I modified a brush to give a pressure sensitive line and with a dual brush setting added some randomness to the line.  For the watercolour pen I played around mostly with scattering and added wet edges and build up.  With these tow tools I rendered out.  I kept the palette light to mimic the watercolour feel.

Structure

LIne work with modified brush

Brushes