Final Projects!

My semester is over and I'm just beginning to catch my breath. Sorry for the light posting lately, but I have lots to share with you at long last.

We were tasked with creating a human hand for the last project of the semester. And here it is...






Thursday night, we had our final exam. I snapped a jpg of my project before turning it in. Here is my broccoli: artisticly odd:

The only bummer with this little guy is that I was supposed to add a bump map, so that you could see all the little florets. I added it and no matter how much I tweaked and pulled out my hair, the bump map never showed up. So, it will have to go down in posterity as my artistic broccoli.

Snowspeeder!

My newest assignment is the Star Wars snowspeeder. In case you don't remember what that looks like, here's the reference I've been working off of:

And here's my work so far:

So many more details to add, so little time!

Liz Lemon is my Everywoman!

For my most recent illustration assignment, I had to draw a portrait of a famous icon. I'm not sure that Tina Fey has risen to the status of icon, but she is so endearingly awkward, I just want to give her a hug.

Here's the picture I worked off of:

And here is my final drawing:

It looks like a person, right?!? Ok, so maybe it doesn't actually look like Tina Fey, but considering I've never drawn a portrait before, I'm pretty pumped up that it's passable as a real person! Seeing it side-by-side with the original picture definitely makes me want to change a few things before class tonight...

The Hotel Room!

Last week, I turned in my hotel room project to my professor. If only I'd had another 3 months to work on this scene!

I'll try not to geek-out on you too much, but this was crazy-fun to make! This first corner shot gives you a general idea of the room's layout.

The basic idea here is that first, you create each of the objects. Then you add a texture map to each of the objects (like adding the oriental rug to what would have otherwise been a rectangular plane or adding red velvet to the curtains).

And here's an overhead view which features both the combination of textures (which make me really happy) and my lack of lighting skills (but hey, I'll get there soon enough).

This next one might be confusing. "What are those shiny, transparent objects on top of the dressor?" you ask. Well, they're supposed to be a wine bottle and wine glass. Unfortunately, they only look realistic from certain angles, and this isn't one.

Check out that crown molding!

And that concludes the Hotel Room tour! Wish me luck on my next endeavor of creating a Star Wars snowspeeder!

She Can Draw! ... Sort of.

I haven't shown any of my work from my illustration class yet and who am I to keep you waiting? These are very beginner-level works, but I'm still pretty proud of them.

Below is a still-life assignment from about three weeks ago:

I have been really impressed with the caliber of the other students' work - they definitely encourage me to step-it-up!

Hotel Room

Perfect! A homework assignment that combines my love of 3d with my love of decorating! Now, if only I had about six months or so to complete it!

The current task is to build a hotel bedroom. The only items that have to be in the room are:

a wine bottle

a wine glass

a chest of drawers

a bed

a chair

Aside from those criteria, we were told to create a room for someone who is down on his luck. My mind kept going to the orphanage mistress from Annie, so I found some (really low res) images for inspiration:

And here is the most recent version of my chest of drawers:

This looks eerily similar to a dresser I bought on Craigslist a few years ago.

And here is my chair:

The chair didn't turn out quite so realistic-looking. Of course, we're learning all sorts of new techniques along the way, but I won't nerd-out about that yet.

And lastly, here's the layout of the room:

The image is just to block-out the spacing of the room. The boxes and cylinders probably aren't very exciting to look at, but hopefully they give you an idea of what's to come.

Also, I'm working on building a toilet, which is way harder than it sounds.

Emulating Glass

Behold! My newest project, the wine glass:

This was one of those projects that involved lots of tweaking. Lots of adjusting lighting, glossiness, specularity, etc. The image you see here is much blurrier than I'd like it to be. This is a common problem that I need to work out.

I'd also love to figure out how to put some fingerprints on the glass, and maybe a small drop of red wine in the bottom...