One of the main points I received from Michaela and week 1 of the careers week was that I should be practicing in as much as possible - and especially now when our lessons are focused more on planning and research, I feel like I have the time to do some practical for myself.
Inspired by KK's amazing work in blender and personal experience seeing artists on Instagram - I knew that Blender was very good for texturing, lighting and composition. This was something Michaela definitely wanted me to translate more in my professional work as well as my personal art, so I thought this would be the best opportunity to learn it.
One of the artists I'm most inspired by on Instagram answered a Q&A and someone else asked a very similar question to me. I checked out this tutorial by blenderguru and it was what I proceeded to follow.
Chapter 1: 10-11/01/20
- Editing mesh shapes
- using sculpt tools
- Use solidify on faces to make them thicker/3D
- subspace modifier adds faces - remember to apply it
- secondary colour option allows the object to absorbs light - use RGB to cater to which one you want more prominently. Donut icing used red mostly.
- Learning about the light and the camera being the symbols pre made on the file and how to use them.
- 0 on number pad is the viewport for camera
- Learning how to denoise a render - go in to the render settings on the right hand side and change the resolution in viewport (and render resolution too if you want)
Chapter 2: 11-12/01/20
- creating sprinkles and using the hair tool to add the sprinkles on icing mesh
- randomise but don't rotate random because some will be stuck up
- png dough texture, remember to save the drawing
- easier to draw on to the model and not the canvas
- shading tab
- Allow nodes
- Add rough texture
Chapter 3: 12-13/01/20
- Importing images - shift A then choose background image or reference image (used ref)
- Using a disk and solidifying it
- N brings up menu - tools - x symmetry
- ctrl R = Loop cut
- ctrl I / shift I similar cut
- shift right click to place secondary cursor, remove a face and select edges, then use the circle tool in toolbar on left hand side to make the handle
- Turn down lighting radius and watts
- glass = no opacity, use roughness to change refraction
- orange tint, select top faces and make them yellow, then completely lower the light absorption so the rest is black
Chapter 4: 14/01/20
Spoon started from a disc and then using a slight circle tool on the bit near the shovel of the spoon and extruding down. Extruding = E
The dough didn't look the right colour so I tried to fix it - realised it still looked super dark and figured maybe altering the lighting or properties will improve the colour instead, so I changed it back
Used lighter/ whiter lighting and the composition came together well, but the dough looked raw
Used the light absorption secondary colour and made the dough way lighter! I still had a little trouble with the colouring but I felt like too orange would clash with the pink and make it look like a bagel
Spoon moved looked better for the composition
WWW:
- Realistic appearance, from comments off of my Instagram post, this seemed realistic to a lot of people, which is definitely what I was aiming for.
- I feel like I learnt all of the basic skills of Blender as well as useful additional features that may be more useful than what I currently know in Maya.
- Following what I had learnt thus far from the careers week, I think I managed to use the algorithm to my favour by making an animation and many screen recordings to make sure people view this longer. This also got a lot of shares and tripled the traction any of my other posts have done on my small uni account; getting more than a large portion of my main art account too.
- I managed to make the white plate and the spoon on my own without help from the tutorial afterwards.
- I gained the knowledge I wanted, texturing and lighting.
EBI:
- My composition needs work because I essentially tried to make mine similar to the tutorial in the end, just with the handle showing and space for the spoon - add more elements, window frame shadow of light on the table? sound
- I screwed up the rendering and it took over 12 hours, I didn't quite understand resolution, now I know I could have made it quite a bit lower with a similar appearance thanks to the denoiser.
- The icing was lighter, I never changed the colour of the icing but i think different lighting colours made it look lighter or fit better thanks to the light absorption i had added on to it.
- Find a good free texture source or make some up - these aren't the ones he used in the tutorial but they were mostly the only free ones I could find on his site in the category I wanted. (But his site had lots of good free rock textures (purple file) and patterns and it was very clear how to make it a texture or a pattern etc and how to import)
Next Step: Learning rigging in blender (and then Maya)
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