Bird Number One Concept Art

Here is the concept art for bird creature #1, provided graciously by Nigel Sussman. Stay tuned as this progresses into out first completed character.

Two Weeks, One Building

Now that is one hell of an achievement!!!

Or something.

It's the same old story, work is kicking my ass. On top of that I picked up a small page-layout gig that's been taking a bite out of what little free-time I've got. Having said all that, here's one little update. This is the end of the modeling for now and it's time for some UV layout and some basic texturing. My UV layout skills are not great so here's a chance for them to get better.

Cheers.

Some messed-up normals in that new building, fixed in the subsequent pics.

Oh, I Know You Love My Little Updates!

This is somewhat close to where the camera ends in the final shot.



This is just another angle, showing the new brackets and maybe some other new stuff. As I model this, I re-look at lots of pieces of geometry and I worry that I'm going to have to remodel tons of this thing when it's time to UV map & texture. I may be wrong. But, let's face it, I am not "Mr. I've Been Poly Modeling For The Last 10 Years." This thing has got to be full of rookie mistakes. I just hope they're not so large as to be deal-breakers on down the line.

One or two more posts and I'm moving on, I think.

Cheers.

Another Lamp Pass

I took the night off of modeling last night, but tonight I decided to take another pass at the lamps and the main wheel. I'm digging the changes, but now I need to go back and redo the smaller wheels. They look kind of like, uh, crap compared to the new wheel.

That's about it...though I did spend some more time with that MEL script. It's pretty boss. If I'm not careful with it though, it leads to some crazy-dense meshes, much denser than necessary for hard-surfaces. But what I'm liking about it, is how you can add edge loops to your low-rez mesh and immediately see the change in your smoothed model. It's helping me understand where to use edge loops to get the shapes I want. Not so much a modeling tool, in this case, but a learning tool.

Learning is good.

Adding A Cattleguard

The cattleguard is the big addition for this post, not a very big addition in general, but it's what's new. It was a tricky thing to build and I'm not sure that I'm going to keep it in its current incarnation. I may rebuild it after looking at some good train reference.

Obviously there's only half a train here, but once I get it in a good place, I'm planning on mirroring the geometry over to the other side.

Okay, more to come.

Train Base Tests

Two build-outs of the train body, still grasping for what it's gonna look like.

I have found some inspiration, however, in the form of The Lore of the Train. I found it at my local used bookstore (The Iliad, one of the top three used bookstores I've haunted) for a measly $10. I wasn't looking for a train book but there it was. Alas, I have no scanner, but trust me, it's filled with brilliant line orthographic line drawings of some really incredible trains. I am using an illustration of The North Star, built in 1837 by Robert Stephenson and Co. as my main reference as I move forward and I think that it's really going to make all the difference.

The model above needs a ton of smoothing and more detailing but I'm really happy with this mini-breakthrough. Next steps include changing the wheels, adding another railing, adding elements to clearly delineate the front from the back and more and more detailing.

Gonna call it a night for now but expect more updates this week.

Another Tiny, Tiny Update

So it's a....steam engine tractor-y-type thingy now!?!

Yeah. So get over it already.

I'm somewhat embarrassed that my updates are so freakin' tiny, like "hey, I spent 15 minutes modeling, check it out!" That's what they feel like and, in many respects that what they are. I've been prohibited by various personal issues (none bad) from working on this much at all lately, hence this cool object - one object in an entire scene of objects - is turning into a Sisyphean hurdle. I should be able to knock this sucker out in a couple days, tops, with room to revisit it later for tweaks.

But this is the pace it's coming along at. I have to just deal with it, model when I get time, try to make more time and stay positive that his project is, indeed moving forward. And I have to keep posting. This blog is a great tool for me to gauge how the work is going and unless I'm using it, ain't nothin' getting gaged.

Oh, and why am I still working on this when in my last post I said I was moving on? Well, me & James, we talked and coming out of it, it seemed best to take this sucker closer to final before moving on. So, in three or four months, I'll have a finished model of the steam engine/clocktower. Hooray three or four months! (That's supposed to be sarcasm. Let's hope that time bears out its un-seriousness.).

Clocktower Screens

I feel like I've been modeling my arse off and that I still have soo, sooooo, soooooo much more to do on this.

I did take the last three days off of modeling. I've been working from home, which is great in a ton of different way, but it makes getting work done after work that much harder. After sitting at my one desk for ten hours, I really don't want to sit here for another four. I love my desk, and my home, but I need a break from it sometimes. What I need is a decent laptop, so that I can leave this room and spend the evening modeling in the living room. I am accepting donations for the laptop fund. It's currently at $0.00.

So, about the screens.

I'd been unhappy with the legs/feet of the clocktower when I first posted shots of it, so I went in a different direction with it. After looking at a lot of steam engine photographs, I thought it'd be interesting to have the base of this thing be an old, rusty train engine. I'm not even 50% done with the modeling of the train chassis but I'm not sure that I love it. It may not be the right solution for this one piece. I'm gonna spend the rest of the night away from it and see what I think of it tomorrow.

What I'm finding is that not having done proper concept art for the 'tower, modeling is going very slowly. Every piece that I'm building I'm figuring out as I go along and I feel like I'm probably not getting the absolute best results I could ask for. If I don't like the train parts when I look at this tomorrow (and after talking about it with James), I may hit the paper for a while.

Cheers.