I started out the week with the best of intentions and even motivation. The ZBrush Summit was a great event. I had found a bit of motivation to get back to some modeling and I was really ready to tackle something, anything. Then, as the week went on and Hurricane Matthew started to become an issue, that kind of fizzled.
I would think of something to start and then find that I just didn’t have the mental energy to pursue it at that moment. This happened a couple of times. One evening I was thinking I wanted to work on something on the computer and yet I didn’t feel like starting something new, I totally forgot about the Halloween Card until after I worked on the Ovation painting and I was headed to bed.
I’ve been having a small challenge with the Ovation painting. You might notice an
inconsistency in the coverage of the dots. The nib I was using quit on me. I’m guessing it’s because of metal fatigue. I don’t know. The result was that I couldn’t get the ink to
flow using that nib. So I had to find another one that would work. I tried several and thought I had one that was working but it was giving me really blobby dots and I didn’t like the look. I found another one that would give me more regular dots but they were really tiny and so didn’t cover near as well. I finally found one that behaves the way I want. It took a some time to get comfortable with it. I was still able to make progress but you can see the unevenness in the picture. The good news is, that it won’t even be noticeable when I’m done.
And since I finally remembered that I had the Halloween Card to work on. I got back to that this week. I finished up the candy piece that I had been working on. I needed to twist the other side and make it look like a wrapper. I also needed to deform it like happens when the paper gets twirled. Then I crumpled one side a little because of it being on the ground. I made copies but I made them instances. Which, I thought would be easiest since I’d done that with the Christmas balls for the Holiday card. But I forgot that I’d made 3 copies and then made instances off of those so I could have them different colors. Because of this, I may end up with all my candy of the same type. We’ll see. I did put them all in the cauldron, ready for Trick or Treaters. One of the things I did as part of modeling the candy was to use the turbosmooth. I hadn’t made much use of it so far on this project since most of what I’ve created hasn’t really needed it. But once I got the crinkles and such in the candy wrapper, I tried it and decided that it really finished it off. So turbosmooth. Then I was looking at the cauldron and realized that it could use a little turbosmooth too. Here are a few pictures from this week.
I think I might have found a little more momentum for finishing the Halloween card. I think. At least with getting the candy done and placed in the cauldron I’m getting more excited about it again so that’s good. I’m hoping that means I’ll remember to work on
it more this week so I can finish it. I’ve got a stool to model and then I will figure out how to import my jack’o lantern into the scene and get it placed. After that it will need, materials, lights, and a camera. I keep thinking I’m so close but really, I’m only close to having the modeling done not the whole thing.
It will be interesting to see what I get done this next week. In addition to the card, and the paintings, I’m still working on the grout in my shower. And now that the work on my part of our building is done, I’m getting a little antsy to re-arrange and reorganize my studio. And maybe paint it. I’m starting to think maybe the squirrels and the projects have joined forces.