I have been practicing my 3d modelling over the past year and i have realized that with each model i make i can see improvements on the last one. This has encouraged me to keep modelling and get as much practice as i can.
What i love about 3d modelling is that it is like traditional sculpting but with the added complexity of topology, now this might sound like a limiting factor but i argue that it expands the art form of sculpture to a new level where deformation of the sculpture is the main goal. This gives the sculpture a greater and more sought for purpose.
This post is to show the development of my 3d modelling skills throughout the past year.
I'll start with the end of last year, i created a 3d model for the e4 ident brief and created a pretty poor model to rig and animate. The model was mainly poor due to its topology. The polygon density was all over the place, causing creases in unwanted areas and just being quite messy. Despite the crude model i learnt a lot because i devoted a lot of my time to studying maya.
My next models were for the first major project in second year, character and narrative, I modeled a shaman and a girl. The improvement from first year was drastic. I took on board a healthy workflow of researching (tutorials and articles) and practice. This helped me to rapidly build up my knowledge of 3d modelling. I also learnt more about topology, i realized it was very important and i payed it a lot more attention. Notice my model's structure now accurately depicts the structure of the human body, especially the face.
It was extremely exciting modelling Brenda's character, the girl, as her character was very stylized. I loved the challenge of converting something very stylized into 3d as I'm sure there are a million ways of doing it. I also impressed myself, because modelling the coat was a challenge with topology as a constraint but i managed to solve all the problems i was faced with and was left with a mesh that deformed fairly well.
As well as the characters i also modeled the props for our short animation, i found this as an exercise for really hammering in the fundamentals of 3d modelling.
This is a model from a character i quickly designed abit after character and narrative, relating to a story idea i jotted down. I wanted to try a more stylized character and here i got more experimental with my use of topology, trying different ways of wrapping the edge flow around the model and finding out new better ways of deforming areas. For example in this model i have quite noticeably exaggerated the topology around the eyes to form an expansive 'super-hero mask' around the eye area.
I started this next model some time after the previous one, just as a side project. This mesh is alot more organic than my other models. The polygon density is more relevant, there are a high amount of polygons in the areas of the face and hands. This is because these areas will be deforming the most and will be subject to more acute deformations, therefore an increased polygon density is required.
An area i spent along time on was the shoulders, i worked out how the shoulders move and studied more about the anatomy of the deltoids and surrounding muscles.
This next model was for my COP practical. I felt the topology was clean and deformed well but maybe the polygon density could have been more relevant. I also should have experimented with different ways of modelling the hair because although this way worked fairly well it's not the most reliable or believable way.
My love for 3d modelling has developed over the course of the past year and i believe it will continue, as will my knowledge for this area.
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