DMUGA Week 19 - Modelling Vehicles

Okay, so this week we returned to the normal routine, but the vehicle project from visual design last week has a part 2! As mentioned, the previous 2 weeks were a real help for me as a whole and I think I have improved massively. The digital painting that we had to do has sparked something in me and I am now really excited about digital paints. I have purchased a Wacom Bamboo tablet to further my experience with one and hopefully improve in my own time as well.

Monday - Visual Design

We began this week reflecting on what we have done during the visual design week, picking out bits that we've learnt, what could have been better etc. Our tutors also picked out the work they liked the most and gave a brief explanation as to why a particular concept or project worked well. Discussing what could have been better helped since a lot of people felt like they were in the same boat with not really knowing exactly how to spend their time. Whereas now speaking retrospectively, I know that the time I spent thinking about what on earth to do, I should have just been doing the work and making sure that it is the right amount in order to fill the brief successfully. Of course if we get the chance to re-do it, I will hopefully do it a lot better. It just means that I can now work from my mistake and make sure not to do it again.

Down to the actual work, this week's task is to model the vehicles we designed. Here's a few pictures of mine so far:

Made the wireframe from modelling wire & masking tape

Covered it in newspaper & PVA Glue

Put an undercoat of white (of which I ran out), and covered it with blue acrylic paint

I haven't actually got much paint so I have to use it very sparingly, but I think it will turn out alright.

Tuesday - Game production

Not much happened this day, although, Steve pointed out a few errors in my van; nothing major. At this stage, I was unwrapping the interior and I had already done the exterior/lights. Throughout the week however, I have been adding to it and texturing parts, so this is what it currently looks like:

Exterior - Diffuse only

Interior - Diffuse only

I am happy with what it looks like, a few issues here and there, but right now I need to focus on finishing the interior, and adding spec/height maps to it all.

Wednesday - Critical Studies

Our lecture this week consisted of (his name escapes me) a tutor's background in industry and how he has gotten to where he is today. He went through and talked about his 2D work e.g. life drawings, studies etc, and a little bit about his 3D work. The thing that I think most people remember from this however is his work on a 'demon hand'. I personally found it very interesting, and the sound design that went along with the animation was very eerie and it added to the effectiveness of the whole thing. He talked about being able to work in a team and how we didn't seem to fit together very well, although, I disagree strongly and think that he hasn't seen us together in the right environment. I can't wait to do a group project, everyone is very friendly and think there are some who I would work very well with. The sculptures of heads he displayed were outstanding, and the life drawings were also very good, and one of the points made was that you have to make many mistakes before you get it right. This is true and am coming to realise this, but this reinforced the point further.

The seminar was a follow up on the block characters we made previously. As a bit of fun, our task for this day was to make any character you wanted to from the cubeecraft template. I chose to do 'Cosmo' from the tv show "Fairly Odd Parents", and it turned out rather well:

Cosmo - Front

Cosmo - Back

We showed the fruits of our labour and finished the session off with a 'scrum' whereby everyone stated their current situation in terms of uni work and any personal work they've been doing. This was rather a good idea since I have had no clue as to what stages other people were at for everything and it helped put into perspective how far along I was with the workload.

The rest of the week up until this point, I have been working on the van, modelling my vehicle, and practicing digital painting for many hours on end. I hope that in the future, I will have some quality digital paints to post. I am looking forward so much to next week's project for 3D - The gladiator project!