Off for the summer, part 1: Character Design

Hey everyone! Been a couple weeks since I've posted, but I've been pretty busy since then. Luckily, though, I have another artwork to show you! This drawing was created after I introduced a friend to a graphic novel series known as Dreamkeepers. After she finished reading it, we began talking about what we thought our dreamkeepers would be like, so we decided to draw them. Now, as you probably know from my character animation and life drawing classes, I don't have much experience with drawing characters. Luckily, my friend was able to help me out (a lot) with the process, so the final result was one I could be really proud of. It's not completely finished yet, and there are still things I want to fix, but here's how it looks at the moment.

Not bad for a relative beginner. :-) The pants didn't come out quite right, and I'm thinking about scrapping the hair on his head for a more "wolfish" 'do, but overall I'm really excited about the drawing. It's giving me a bit more confidence in my ability to draw the humanoid figure. I'll probably post more as I continue to refine the drawing, so stay tuned!

Until next time.

Computer 3D Modelling and Animation I: Textures, Lighting, Cameras, and Final Project

Hey all! Sorry for the radio silence. Had some unexpected things come up in my personal life that took up most of my free time, so haven't been able to take the time to update as normal. Now that it's settled down, it's time to unveil more of the work I did in my 3D Modelling class, including working with textures, lights, cameras, and my work on the final project. Hope you're ready! Off we go.


The first thing we played with was texturing. Up until this point, the only thing the class knew was how to change the base color of the object they were working with. The next step was to create more complex materials and textures to put on an object.

Door- Pretty straightforward. Modelling a door and using the Extrude features to create the moldings in the door.

Door with texture - Adding texture to the door. As you can tell, it's not the best, but the point of the assignment was to get a basic understanding for how texture mapping worked.

Building model - Creating the basic shape of a building and learning to use the Create tool to make steps.

Building with textures - Applying textures to the walls, floors and ceilings.

Complex shape with textures - Creating a complex shape from scratch and adding textures to the final product. I wasn't really using a reference for this, but it came out pretty well regardless.

After playing with textures and shape building, it was time to start experimenting with lights and camera movements. This project makes use of the four items from the first week, and includes a light and shadows.

After I submitted this assignment, I decided to play around with the settings and see if I could create a more dreary look. Here's what I came up with:

Next on our list was to change the lighting to evoke a different mood, as well as changing the camera movement.

It was about this point that we began working on our final projects. I had wanted to model the dining area of a restaurant that my family frequently visits, so it was quite enjoyable. The following sequence of pictures documents the steps from initial creation to near completion.

Basic layout - Creating the tables, chairs, and booths

Adding on - Textured the objects, added walls, and tweaked the shapes

And more - Created a ceiling, added lamps hanging from said ceiling

Almost done - Adding textures to the lamps and creating glowing light bulbs for a well-lit space

The following five pictures are various views from the finished scene.

While I'm pleased with how the final scene turned out, there is a lot more that still needs to be done. I plan on continuing to work on it over the summer to see how close to the real thing I can come! Hope you enjoyed the work I've done!

Until next time.