Unforeseen Circumstances

Nuclear Reactor

Well there you are.  
Had a plan.  
Was working through it.  
Knew it would be a tough ask but was giving it a lash and then...  

Yes a once in a 100 year happening happens.  
Now what.  


The virus has ironically not impacted much of how I was living.  I was mostly spend time working or practicing.  I had already cut my expenditure right down - no holidays , nights out  or  fancy anything.  
What it has done has hit the momentum of the work - it dried up completly and has picked up again - but slowly.   It has created a vast unkown  a calculated gamble that has now become it seems,  just become a gamble.  
For now I am in holding mode trying to figure out the next move.  
I am sure a lot of people are.  

So stay safe, stay healthy, hold firm.  This too will pass.

In the meantime the blog has taken quite a hit.  I was really busy trying to get as much work done as possible so not much personal work in the mix.
This gif is mixture of Blender and Photoshop - a combination  I have been playing around  with alot of late.  

Small Town

Small Town 

I started out with a small set of buildings and then added some more.  I finished it out but it would have been better if I planned from the start and ordered the tasks in an efficient way.  I did at one point max out the lights and my pc chugged in the later stages.  I would want to reduce everything to the minimum to render effectively.  It was well worth doing as a learning task.  I did some animations as well.  At ground level its a little rough around the edges.  

Sitka Spruce

Sitka Spruce

Had some time to work on personal projects this past week.  Where I live the agricultural land is marginal to poor.  Forest coverage in Ireland is one of the lowest in Europe.  There are historical reasons for this.  The government has been encouraging more forest to planted initially to redress this and now as a carbon offset mechanisim.  Sitka Spruce - not indigenous - was identified in the 60' and 70's as a fast growing conifer.  It has become the go to species for planting new 'forests'.  So much so that it now dominates the landscape - planted at densities that the land does not support anything else.

Still practicing in Blender 

  

Bouncing

Bouncing

Or you can watch it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Efw70E7eIL0 ..



I am still working my way through Blender features and there were already alot to learn but it seems the devs have been adding alot more of late.  This animation was created using the cloth simulation and its pressure setting in Blender 2.81.  There have been a few tutorials on it.  One of the more comprehensive ones is a series by Chris Prenninger. It is a real timesink creating different effects and I have to budget my time at the moment.  

Happy New Year

Logs - ink

Happy New Year.  

Managed to get a post out before January closed out.  Have been busy working on paid work and a revamping of my portfolio.  I have let this slip alot these last 3 months which is not good as this is mostly a store of study pieces and experiments and this makes it obvious I have let both slip.  Well new year and a recommitment to keep this record updated.  

This is a study from a photograph in ink.  I finally manged to get a cartridge pen.  Up until now it I have used a dip pen.  It was nice to just work without worrying about recharging with ink.  

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