Week 29 Phase 2 of the Zombie Toyota Pickup

The Easter holidays were over and it was time to get back to work for the last two weeks. This time I started the second phase of the Zombie Toyota Pickup, by creating ideas and concepts of the zombie killing machine version.
I have started with photobashing a couple of ideas together to have an idea of what a potential zombie truck would look like. I was interested in making less of a zombie killing truck, more like a safety escape truck that would protect anyone inside it and possibly help survivors.

Later on I took the quick bashed ideas and started developing the ones I thought looked interesting or somehow unique. In the image on the right you can see that I chose to develop 3 different ideas by adding or taking away parts. I chose car number 3 at first and then took away the parts I didn't like and added smaller bits from other zombified versions.

Having the idea sorted I moved onto bashing on
some more details to have an understanding of 
what the truck will look like from the back, front,
side and what will be going on in the tailgate.
In a way this was my reference image ready to 
start modelling on the simple Toyota Pickup.
I chose this idea as my final because it seemed most appealing to me. I also thought that the
car fit the brief because the front metal part serves as a weapon in a way, also it appealed to me because it had a lot of armour on it and looked a bit like anyone with the right tools could attach those parts to their truck at home.

I continued with searching for colour variations for the truck. There weren't many variations I could generate as the car had a lot of heavy metal on it. I tried to stick with realistic colours metal could have. I wasn't very satisfied with the variations as most of them didn't look very usable so I decided to test colours as I go onto modelling and see how the colours and values really look like rendering images in 3DS Max.
I did try to improve on my concepts by making them cleaner and more pleasing to the eye. I do think that the first bashes I have made look more improved, but the final idea sheet looks quite childish and lacking in detail. Also the colour iterations aren't very nice to look at as well. In the future I should put more effort and time into generating final concepts. The next steps to take will be to start modelling onto the Toyota.

Week 25 Conclusion of Phase 1 of the Toyota project

This was the last week to finish the Toyota Pickup model and also it meant concluding Phase 1 of the project. The week was special because it also meant once I'll hand in my car on Friday I will be free to enjoy the Easter holidays.
Continuing on with the last part of the car model, it was time to start texturing. I've applied an Ambient Occlusion onto the car model, meaning the 3D modelling software baked in lighting onto my car. The Occlusion effect gave my model a more realistic look. Because I was using it for the first time, texturing in Photoshop required using a few more effects and tools to make the lighting work with images.
I used two copies of the built in lighting render of my models texture sheet, and places them one on top of another. The first one was used for reference where the car parts were places and the second sheet of the render had a multiply effect applied on it so I would be able to use the lighting effects. The rest of the processes were simple: cutting images, adjusting levels and values, applying effects and filters to match the car and give it a realistic look. My goal was to make the Toyota look like it's been driving through muddy roads and had been quite old with the paint peeling off.
I am quite happy with the final outcome and colours I chose for the model. I think the red body and white bonnet work really well together.

If I were to redo this part of the project again I would try and add in more details to the texture and also the car. I would also try and fix the windows to make them, look more reflective because I've tried to do tinted windows with some dirt on it. Also if I unwrapped the front and back windows as one object instead of half I would have been able to add some writing on the dirty glass or imitate the front windscreen was wiped with a hand.  I would also try and use up the remaining tris to add in more detail to the car.

Week 24 Unwrapping the Toyota

Ambient Occlusion applied to the unwrap.

The project continued and I've concluded the modelling process of the truck. I've lost some valuable time last week so I had to make up for it by working extra hours.
The modelling process took a little longer than expected, as I found it a little difficult to model the back of the truck and cover the bottom. Although the model was finished, I did not apply the symmetry modifier yet, because I needed to unwrap the objects first.

The unwrapping process wasn't too difficult, because I followed the example Toyota texture sheet provided by the tutors. The reason I chose to follow the texture sheet  was because it allowed me to learn how to pack the UVW's tightly on the texture sheet.

The project allows us to use two texture sheets - one for the body, windows and the second for the interior, chassis and wheels.
The interior was a stretch goal so I chose to use tinted windows, because I think the modified version of the car will have window protection and the interior won't be visible. That's why after consulting with one of the tutors I've decided to use a smaller second texture sheet for the chassis and wheels.
Now all I have left is to texture the model using photographs next week.

Longer head and face drawings.

In life drawing it was finally time to focus on drawing the head. We started with 10 one minute sketches of different sides of the head. We only had to focus on the shape of the head drawing the quit sketches. When we moved onto longer drawings, I had the time to focus on the facial features. I chose to draw light planes on the face and also covered the shaded areas in planes to make the face look more sculpted. The faces were quite difficult to draw, and I do have to improve on making them look more like the person I am drawing.

Critical studies introduced the requirements for a larger piece of writing that will be needed to be done before the end of the term. The essay will be about the first year on this course and an action plan on how I will move forward.
The tutors were kind enough to give us a very good plan for essay writing, which I am planning to follow.

Week 23 The Toyota Pickup

Toyota Pickup before texturing.

One project ended, another started. This week we started the zombie Toyota Pickup truck brief. The project will be made up of two phases - the simple Toyota model (3 weeks) and then we will need to zombify the car to turn it into a zombie killing vehicle (2weeks).
In this post and the following two weeks I will talk about the process of phase 1 of the project.
After having the brief introduced and a reminder of photobashing basics, we were given supporting reference and images set up in 3DS Max to immediately start the car model. I have made the decision to do the car model first and generate ideas of a zombified version after.
Starting the car model I had to follow a tutorial to create a Toyota that looked as close to the real life car as possible. I used strip modelling and started with the chassis part of the vehicle. Switching between the side, top and front views helped me hasten my work progress.
As the reference images didn't line up perfectly I had to keep checking the perspective views and keep fixing edges. I have modelled the wheels, chassis and the body as separate objects. One of the best things in this project is that only half of the body needs to be modelled, as the car is a symmetrical object. The only thing I will need to do at the end, will be to apply the symmetry modifier and it will save me a lot of valuable time next week.

Warm up one minute drawings.

Longer drawings, focused on more detail.

In life drawing we focused on hands and feet as a lot of students had trouble with the proportions and sizes of them in the previous character project. The aim was to try and draw either two hands or two feet in a short period of time. I found it quite hard to draw foreshortening on the toes as the model kept changing the positions. I also picked a spot in which the feet were in the same position most of the time. It was really fun to draw hands and feet, so I did not find it that hard to sketch and I am quite pleased with the end result.
Post mortems:
The busy week ended with critical studies explaining how to write project post mortems. The lecture was given at a quite good time, because we had just finished the character self assessments. I used to keep my assessments very short, but the lecture gave a plan which it be best follow writing about what happened in the project and how to improve the analytical part of the assessment.

Week 22 The end of the Character Project

The week was focused on feedback and I had to act on it after receiving mine. I do have to say 3D modelling is not my strong area, which was why I had quite a few errors on my characters anatomy and clothing. I can draw a woman, but I can't model a well proportioned female body. During the feedback I've been also told that the character looked quite flat in a lot of areas. To add my concepting and idea generation sheets did not look esthetically good.
At the end of the conversation I was given a task to blog on my feedback and make a plan on how I will improve on my work.

I have finished the texturing part on the character and I admit that it was the easiest part in my opinion. I think that the colours on the texture worked quite well as they are quite calm and harmonious. Following the feedback I also had to fix anatomical errors on the characters model. I had fixed the neck, waist, chest, skirt and sleeves as one of the tutors warned me that such round objects wouldn't deform properly when applying a rig. I did not have enough time at the end to apply a rig or skeleton on my character, which means that I will need to learn rigging on my own soon.
Action plan:
Another action plan for the year of 2015, this time it will be focusing on character modelling and concepts.
To improve my character modelling I will:
1. Start concepting and modelling more characters in my own time to improve my skills in 3DS Max.
2. Also I will try modelling different body types to learn more about anatomy.
3. I will model separate parts of the body to improve topology on fingers, feet and limbs.
4. Practising will help me improve on creating creases and folds in clothing.
5. Modelling characters will help with learning to apply a rig on the characters.
The second part of the my plan will be based on making my work clean and tidy. I will also practise digital painting and cleaning up my photobashes. Also doing colour studies will broaden my knowledge of what colours work well.
The last week of the character project was quite intense and it also opened my eyes that there is always so much to improve on, not only in creativity but also in managing and organising work.

Week 21 Unwrapping and texturing

Time was already running short, as only two weeks were left for me to conclude the project. I started unwrapping the milkmaid model, it took a long while to finish it. I do have to say that so far unwrapping a character has been the most time consuming phase of the work process. I found that the first difficult part was the face. I attempted to only unwrap one side of the face to have time when texturing


, but as I was unable to do so I just unwrapped the whole full face. It was important to allow the face to take up at least 25% of the texture map, to achieve a detailed face at the end.

My troubles didn't end there, after fiddling with the other parts of the character the unwrap was done. Of course it wasn't as easy as that, as I started texturing the model some of the more detailed bits of the clothing was too low in quality when applied to the model.
So after spending more time on trying to fix things, I have decided to create a bucked and then take the risk and use part of the unique object texture map to achieve higher quality. And I think the textures did start to look a lot better.

Life drawing once again continued the practise of foreshortening. This time it wasn't with the usual models, but with classmates. We started with warm ups, then moved onto drawing longer poses of ten to twenty minutes. I did find that it was much easier to draw with the practise of last two weeks.
My ongoing challenge is to keep more tonal values in my drawings, so that in these sketches this was my biggest challenge.

The critical studies also continued with last weeks theme. But it was different because we discussed what is to receive feedback. It was informative and I did learn a lot and things I did not consider before relating to feedback.
Feedback is many things that ranges from receiving constructive criticism, learning on how to improve my work, things that work and things that don't, receiving a grade and so many other things related to the word.

Week 20 Modelling

As I concluded the research and decision making on which milkmaid design I would choose to model, the working process continued with setting up reference planes. It was important to keep everything to scale so the body mannequin would line up chin to Chin, waist to waist and etc... This was important to do at the start of the modelling process, to avoid messing up proportions and later having to do major time consuming fixes. 
Creating the body I used strip modelling technique. I found that it was easier for me than box modelling. I also think making the body was the easy part, because when I moved onto extruding the clothes and accessory bits I've

encountered some difficulty with areas like popping out parts of the shirt, or the bottom of the skirt. At the end I've modelled the hands with all the fingers stuck together, except for the thumb, because my milkmaid will hold two buckets in her hands.

The week also had a critical studies session on feedback. I had to mark the work of my classmates, while one of them marked mine. The work was from the character project and of course it was very important to use the feedback to improve my work. I applied most of the feedback onto my character. The feedback wasn't only on the characters, but also on how to improve my blogs. I have not described challenges and difficulties in my recent posts. For this reason I am trying to make an effort to improve on my descriptive and analytical writing.

 

Visual studies continued the practise of foreshortening. This time I had a more difficult angle. I chose to  fit all three poses on one sheet to it would be easier to compare. I do still find it hard to draw a person while sitting at an odd angle, the legs always seem a little out of place. Aside that, I do think I have improved slightly with the help of a morning lecture on drawing limbs using loops on them. It allowed me to visualise where hidden parts might be positioned.