Curtains

Another cool technique I learned when working with Cinema 4-D is a way to kind of cut corners and have materials appear as if they were 3-D.

A good example is when I showed Todd my Comedy Club technique he at first thought I made the curtain as a 3-D object. Actually , it was just a material I made out of a texture I found on google images.

These kind of "cheats" can streamline the process making something look 3-D when in reality it isnt.

Antz

When I was growing up the film Antz was one of my favorite films. Now that I have played around with 3-D modeling I found a new found respect for how much work has to be done to create CGI films.

Generating hundreds of ants doing seperate motions is incredible when you realize how much work could go into just mere seconds of actual video.

It seems like they used a lot of instances and duplicates to show the large amount of Antz. I have a new found insight into the making of these type of films and I found it extremely interesting.

Spotlight

A cool technique I learned was to create actual light sources and have them project light. On my comedy club piece I made a spot light by having a box with a spherical boole in it. From there I shown a visible light on the stage. I like how it turned out.
It was difficult at first to get it to constrast well. When I dimmed the lights in the main area of the club it started to look quite realistic.

Comedy Club

For the 6th project, interior of a room, I choose to do a comedy club. It consists of several tables and chairs placed around the room, a bar, exit doorways, and a stage with a curtain. I used dim lights in the main area of the club and strategically placed a visible spotlight on the stage where a comedian would be performing. This contrasts well with the dim light in the club. The backstage consists of a table, brighter lighting, and another exit. I also placed a few funny pictures on the walls.

Tippmann paintball gun ads

For project 4 and 5 I created two half page ads for Tippmann paintball guns. The first I used primitives to set up some components of a paint ball course and created a wooden paint splattered material. In photoshop I added the company name and crosshairs. The second ad I modeled a Tippmann 98 Custom. In photoshop I added the text.

Organic Object

For project #3 I created a broken egg. I made the two parts of the shell with a boole and then made it have a cracked appearance with selecting and deleting certain parts of the edge. The yolk was made with primitives and transparent materials.

Nuclear Medicine poster

I chose to do Nuclear Medicine for the poster project. It was challenging to come up with an interesting idea for the images. Rather than having many random images like I had originally planned I chose to simplify it by placing a brain scan and some radioactive isotopes. I chose colors that would stand out and make the piece look interesting.

retouched photoad

This is the advertisement using a retouched family photograph. This is my grandmother when she was fifteen years old. The photo was taken in the 1940's. It was challenging to see and retouch all of the fine details, but I like how it turned out. I decided to make the ad for a photo restoration company and incorporated the picture by showing a before and after restoration of the image.

South America

This is my project recreating the Africa tutorial using a different continent than Africa. I choose South America. I basically followed the steps for Africa except gearing it towards South America. The greatest challenge was to get the animals to line up well within the map.

Finished product packaging

I have finished my packaging for a 6 pack of beer. Recreating the panels to fit on a 6 pack box was challenging, but I do like how it turned out. I will be presenting this project today.

beer 6 pack

I have scanned and printed my 6 pack pattern. Yet, I am having a great deal of difficulty finding how to fold it correctly. I am thinking of getting an actual 6 pack so I can better see how it is constructed.

brainstorming food packaging project

Today I am deciding what packaging I would like to create. One idea I have is a 6 pack of beer in bottles. I have found a few patterns for this, but they do look complicated and challenging. I may decide to do something more simple, but I think I will be able to recreate the pattern.

Trees

I'm now satisfied with how my sports advertisement turned out so I have shifted my attention back to my 2 page spread. I want to work on making realistic trees. I will likely go back and add more fine detail.

bowling finished

I have finished the sports advertisement today. I found the shadows to be challenging to create but I like how they turned out. I may go into more detail by perhaps dates and contact information for the event I am advertising.

bowling

For the advertisement for a sport I ended up with bowling. I was able to easily find a bowling ball and pins to trace. I think they look fairly well with the gradient mesh so far. I will work on adding more detail today.

2 page spread started

I have decided to use the idea from my previous post for my 2 page spread project. It needs improvement perhaps with more detailed bushes and leaves, but this is the general idea. I am also working on how I can give a brief synopsis of the game the project is based on.

2 page spread ideas

I am currently brainstorming ideas for my next project. It is a two page spread with 3/4 of it illustration and the rest text. Back in summer 2007 I created an amateur role playing game using the program Rpg Maker 2000. Therefore, I'm considering creating what a magazine advertisement would look like for the game. My idea is to illustrate all the characters in a battle stance with perhaps a forest background. The text will be a brief synopsis of the plot of the game. I am having a bit of trouble locating the characters I used on the internet to trace, so I am considering other options as well.

Marsupials etc.

I have finished my projects up to this point so I have been practicing my drawing skills. I decided to draw Marsupials and other bizarre creatures. So far I have drawn a bandicoot, wombat, zumbat, rat, mudskipper, pine marten, sugar glider, flying squirrel, and a hedgehog.

finished gradient mesh self portriat

I have finished my self portrait using gradient mesh. The gradient mesh tool was challenging at first but I quickly got a bit more proficient with it. The shadows under the eyes were difficult but I like how they turned out. I also like the appearance of the fading shadows in the actual eyes their self.

My new font

I was able to create my own font characters mostly using the pen tool. Since I was drawing them by hand with the pen tool I decided to go for an almost hand written look. I made many of the straight lines slightly curved to make it look more authentic.

Gradient Mesh

Today I'm working on a self portrait focusing on using the gradient mesh tool. So far it is challenging and tedious to make features the way I want them too look, but I'm improving as I am working with it. The largest challenge so far I think is creating realistic hair. So far the project doesn't look very realistic so it might take a lot more tweaking.

Fonts

The second week of 2-D illustration includes creating a unique font to upload and use. I have made a font a few months ago but it wasn't uploading to actually be used. Lately I have been paying attention to fonts and their differences. Hopefully I can improve upon what I had previously done. It will also be interesting to see the font in actual use instead of just laid out in alphabetical order.

Complete Porous Walker

Today I finished my recreation of a Porous Walker illustration. It was a fairly simple design so I did it using the pen tool almost entirely and did it by eye rather than trace. The largest challenge was matching the colors as well as the red and tan bead-like hair and beard. The anchor coming out of the mouth was also somewhat challenging but I recreating it as accurately as I could and I think it came out well.

Aliens

Lately I have been inspired by the design of aliens arriving to Earth, often depicted with interesting shadows. This works well for the cover of music albums or video games with alien themes. The angles that cast shadows from different directions is a very interesting effect. I would like to create my own version of these designs. Hopefully I can include these sort of effects in a future project.

Porous Walker

After viewing a lot of Jimmy Dimarcellis', who uses the pen name Porous Walker, art work I decided to use him for my project to recreate a current desinger's image. His art work seems to generally consist of cartoon looking characters often portraying a humerous message. A large majority of these are vulgar and sexual humour. I'm inspired by how he represents unproportional cartoon characters instead of realistic ones. An image that caught my eye was a profile view of a man with an anchor coming out of his mouth. It is an interesting picture and I'm recreating using the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. It provides a lot of practice with this tool.

Sinful Creatures

For my first project on illustrating three of the seven deadly sins I chose wrath, lust, and gluttony. Instead of illustrating humans doing these acts I decided to create my own demonic creatures to commit the sins. They are worm like creatures. I draw inspiration from old horror and alien flicks such as Tremors. I thought that vile and evil looking creatures would be a good way to portray the seven deadly sins. I have illustrated the three images, but I will likely go back and add a lot more detail.

Taco's and Truck Flips

I was able to witness something I have never seen before last Friday during spring break. I was returning home from a concert with my friend Scott. It was quite late, almost 1 am. One of the only fast food restaurants that was open was the Taco Bell on the intersection of highway 17 and Cypress Gardens blvd. in Winter Haven. The drive thru line was quite long. After spending a few minutes waiting in the drive thru we suddenly heard the distinct sound of screeching tires. We looked up to see a large 4 seat pick up truck sharply turning right onto Cypress Gardens blvd from 17. It appeared as though the driver was likely intoxicated and racing someone. The truck screeched and appeared to have lost control. It swerved erratically left and right a few times before heading quickly left over the median. To our surprise suddenly the truck began to flip. As it flipped completely upside down it was temporarily suspended in the air. As it landed sparks flew, but luckily for the driver it didn't appear that the cab of the truck was crushed at all. The moment was almost surreal and we both exclaimed, "holy shit!" Though it was far away, it appeared that the driver likely was bruised and banged up pretty bad. Hopefully he was not too seriously injured. While we were still in the slow moving drive thru we saw several police cars and an ambulance rush to the scene.