CDDA - Prop thumbnails

Today I started further development on my prop. Out of my three previous hammer picks the one I preferred the most was the war hammer design yet I wanted to change it slightly as it was a quite boring design. I took the design and made some thumbnail sketches messing with different shapes and sizes whilst keeping the idea reasonably similar and two handed. Out of the designs I like the top left thumbnail and the 3rd from the the left on the top row most. I think I will mix my initial design with these two thumbnails to make a hammer pick out of these.  

CDDA - Life Drawing - Pastels

 This week in life drawing I used pastels. Having little to no experience with the medium, the exercises proved difficult but more rewarding than using my normal choice of pencil. We started off with 4 different 10 minute poses centered around a magic ball of sorts. As you can see with my top piece of art I struggled initially to get the lines I wanted but as you go down the page I become more comfortable with the pastels eventually ending with a picture with a range of shading which I was very happy with.

We repeated the task after this but with only 5 minutes per picture and we were told to try and use 2 different colours for light and dark. The action set was based around 2 small swords. The first image I did not have time to add any red but after this I managed to do the task and learnt a few things. First of all was to pick 2 colours which go together better than green and red which does not give a good image effect. As for the horse head, it was Halloween and our model wanted to get into the spirit of things.  

We ended with a 30 minute pose. I did this larger than most of my art on A3 paper. Again we were told to put a lot of emphasis on light and dark by using 2 different colours. I chose a dark blue for the shadow and a light yellow for highlights and feel that these go together a LOT better than green and red. The exercise was very interesting and I like the end result I had. I did the line work very quickly so I could get a good amount of time on the colours and this shows a little but it is worth it for the effect of the colours. I really like how all this came out in the end.

Intro to 3D - Model updates

Today I have made a few changes to my vending machine, hopefully the last model changes. I removed all the bolts and gaps in and on the vents as these can just be textured on and are not worth wasting polygons on. Secondly, I changed how the bottles are dispensed (again!). They now come out of a machine at the bottom and then land on a ramp which safely deposits at the end for the patron to take. The third change was that I optimized my model, getting rid of about 500 vertices. Lastly I made the gaps on the top and side of my machine wider to emphasize them.

Intro to 3D - Render update

 Today I found a way to solve a problem I was having with my vending machine model, the shadowed edges. I tried several times to edit the edge positions with no luck and even tried remodeling the whole body of the machine but the method used too many polygons. I found a way of editing the normal's of the object (something I previously didn't understand correctly) and softened the edges all the way round the shape. The first screenshot is before the change whilst the second is after the change. This makes me feel much happier about my model.

CDDA - Prop - The Hammerpick V3

This is my third prop design, this time in the form of a two handed warhammer. I like the shape of this design and the head has a nice shape too yet I'm not sure I'm fond of the handle decorations. Overall, this is my favourite design of the three I've created and the one I would like to develop. I think that the next step forward with this design will be to redesign the handle similarly to the second designs handle. Following that I will move on to detailing colours and engravings on the hammers head. 

CDDA - Prop - The Hammerpick V2

After researching areas of my previous weapon today I was ready to make a new design that featured the same key idea of a hammer and a pickaxe. I want to try and get a variety of shapes for the weapon on my initial designs before I choose a shape to define in more detail. My previous weapon was shaped very much like a pickaxe apart from the head of the weapon. This is much more like a 2 handed warhammer in looks. I like how the head of the weapon came out, more so than my first weapon, yet I am not sure about the handle. If I choose to further this design I will most likely change the handle and add more decoration to the center of the weapon's head. 

CDDA - Prop reference images

Having come up with an idea for my prop design yesterday, I decided to research the prop by collecting images today. I looked up different kinds of weapon grips, the sizes of hammers and their shapes, pickaxes and what people believe Dwarf writing to look like.