Choosing New Projects — August 23, 2016

Posted on August 23, 2016 by SusanG

I am finally on vacation from the day job. And true to my usual pattern I am still plugging along getting stuff done, just at a slightly less frantic pace and with a little more goofing off20160821_111851_c_sm_wm thrown in the mix. I’m not very good at the sit on the porch or the couch and veg out type of vacation. I prefer to have something to do, that I want to get done. Which is a good thing for you because it means I will still have something to write about.

 

So far, in the few days that I have been on vacation, I have managed to finish painting the walls of my music room. Or at least I have deemed them to be finished. I’m pretty sure the tan color is bleeding through still even after two coats. But I’m tired of painting walls for now and having my home all a disaster so they are done. And I have started putting guitars back in there. I think they look much happier with the blues than they did with the tans.

 

I have also managed to finish the Gibson guitar head stock painting. I know you probably thought it was done the last time you saw a picture of it. It was close. I did go back and do one final layer of really tiny black. It evened it out and filled everything in nicer. I brightened and tightened up the lettering. That made a huge difference. When I started on it, I was just going to see if I could get the lettering color mixed up. I didn’t expect to have time to actually do the work. I did though and was still able to get to my class on time. So here we are now. It’s basically complete, it lacks only a third and final coat of varnish before calling it totally done with nothing else to do to it.

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With the Gibson painting complete it’s time to decide what to paint next. I’ve chosen two. And I have even prepared their canvas boards. Here’s a view of the boards and a peak at what I’m planning to put on them.

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So I’ve also got computer art that needs to be worked on and I’ve made progress there. I finally decided on an idea for the Holiday card for this year. I know, I was planning on Halloween this year and I’ve totally skipped over it. I may yet get it done, just maybe not as early as I had hoped. Anyway, back to the Holiday card. I’ve decided to use one of the ornaments, the glass ball type that you put on the tree, and show a reflection of the Snowman in it. At least that’s what I think I want to do if I can make it work. So I loaded an ornament into a new 3DS Max scene and then created a cylinder and gave it a material so I could see how well it would reflect and so I could tell if the lights and the camera were at the right angles. That was a real challenge. Trying to get the light just right so that the specular highlight didn’t wash out the reflection of the object, and also so that the color of
the ball still showed. Here are a couple of picture of the testing process. I made a tweak to the material for the glass ball on the second one and it made the reflection a little more clear so that’s the one I think I’ll use.

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Now that I know roughly how to make the scene work it’s time to actually put it all together. I know I want the Snowman in the reflection, I’m not sure yet if I will have him holding the ball or not. I probably should because otherwise it is sort of creepy and disembodied type of thing and that’s not really what I’m going for. I guess I’ll figure it out once I start putting all the bits and pieces together. That should be fun.

As you can see, so far the vacation thing has been pretty productive. I have few more things I want to work on in addition to finishing up the Holiday card. I do have an idea for a Halloween card that I would like to get worked on and maybe even completed. And there are two new guitar paintings to start. And of course there is the Worm Guy and a squirrel and a squid. I should be able to stay out of trouble for the next few days while enjoying the opportunity to ignore my alarm clock. Yes, I did leave my alarm set just so I could have the satisfaction of rolling over and turning it off and going back to sleep. I think I’ll go do some of that goofing off for a while before getting elbows deep in the next adventure.

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Still Trying — August 16, 2016

Posted on August 16, 2016 by SusanG

I’m still trying to get lots of stuff done. Some days are better than others and some days, everything you’ve been trying to do catches up with you and hits you like a sledgehammer and you just have to take a little break.

That break day was Saturday for me. On Friday, I managed, with some help from my parents, to get the entry way in my home painted. Two coats. And then we went to the movies. Saturday morning I took the tape off and went to Taekwondo class. After that was when the sledgehammer hit me. So the rest of the day was an easy one. Some play time and then I worked on the painting.

Yep, the Gibson head stock painting. That’s coming right along. Remember I noted that I was going to need another layer of the black. I worked on it fairly consistently this week and finally have that layer completed. I want to work on the lettering more. The color isn’t quite right, I hope to get closer. And It just needs another layer to crisp it up. So here it is so far. Nearly done.20160815_164936_c_sm_wm

 

After I played with the Fibermesh in ZBrush I got to wondering and thinking, that it might be worth it to try to make the worm in ZBrush, for fun and to work on my ZBrush skills. So I got started. I used a fairly low poly dynamesh sphere to start. I’m trying really hard to keep the poly count low for as long as I can. I did use dynamesh but made sure to set the target polygons to a lower number than just the standard. And mostly, I created it by inserting more spheres. The good thing is that I am getting a little more comfortable with the Transform tools (move, scale, rotate).

So inserted sphere, dynameshed, inserted sphere. That’s the big part of building up the form. Once I had what I wanted then I started with more shaping. With the lower poly count and dynamesh combo, I lost some of the distinction between the spheres for the WormGuy_0816_08072016a_sm_wmbody so I used some inflate brush to help bring that back. And some move brush to make the nose. For the eyes I masked them out and inverted the mask and then used the move tool to create the cavities where the eyeballs will go. I’ve got the thing a little off center in the scene so the symmetry isn’t working very well. I think he’s coming along nicely. I look forward to getting back to him. There are a few things that I haven’t really done before that I think I’m going to need to do with him, like set up poly groups and figuring out how to get proper UV’s of him. For now here’s a look in rough form.

I’ll be on vacation from the day job starting next week. I’ll have 2 weeks off. I’m excited about that. As you probably guessed, I have projects around my home to work on. I’m also looking forward to working on more art stuff. I’ve got some things in mind that should be fun. And I might even be mentally ready to tackle some of the animation stuff. I may take a day trip to go see some sights. I haven’t really done that in a while. And I hope to finish the Gibson painting and start the next one. I’ve a good idea of what I want to start next.

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That’s a Few Things Done – August 9, 2016

Posted on August 9, 2016 by SusanG

There has been a lot happen around my place this week. Stuff in the studio and stuff in other places as well. Some of the projects are getting worked on and some of the art is getting worked on and I have pictures of both for you.

So. Projects. Quick update on the bathroom shower. I have decided to re-do the grout. I did a little test this week and found it to be in need of work. So that will be getting done though I did not start on it this week. Guess what did get started this week.

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Yep. I got started on the painting. I started with the window wall in the music room since it’s small. As is pretty normal, I think it took longer to tape it off than it did to paint. You can see what a big difference the blue makes when you look at these two pictures. The tan just didn’t have enough life and now even the amp looks ready to go.

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Of course, it looked so good that I had to paint the other end of the room as well. It’s a bit lighter but boy those guitars look a lot prettier against the blue than the tan. And there is an interesting effect of that lighter blue. It sort of glows when the light hits it right. It’s nice to have that sort of light bounce.

Yes the side walls will get paint. Sometime in the next couple of weeks. I will be painting the entry way first. My parents were awesome and came over to help. They taped off the trim and everything in the entry way so that it is basically ready to paint. I’m going to paint it the same color as the window wall in the music room.

As if painting walls wasn’t enough. And because after two days of that I was sore and needed some sit time. I did some art.

I’ve had ZBrush for like 4 years now and one of the things that attracted me to it was the FiberMesh tool and the grooming tools. All designed to make adding hair and fur easier ZBrushFiberMeshPlay_08042016_sm_wmand to make getting it to look right easy. In all this time, I have never once actually tried it. So in thinking about the little hairs I want on the Worm Guy, I decided I needed to try out FiberMesh. I put out a sphere, and masked it off and then added the FiberMesh and chose a color and fiddled with some settings and played with a grooming brush and cool.

After that I had to try out the Hair and Fur modifier in 3DS Max as a comparison. I wanted to know if one is going to be better to use than then other. So I put out a box and looked for the modifier. That was a little odd for me. It wasn’t where I expected it. But I found it and started fiddling with some settings and then added some color to the hairs, which didn’t quite work as I’d hoped. And then a3dsMaxHairAndFurPlay_08052016_c_sm_wm render. Not too bad. The interface for the settings isn’t nearly as intuitive and it takes work to get the hairs to have color. As far as how it looks it’s good. As far as the grooming, not as fun.

As I was thinking about this FiberMesh and Hair and Fur thing I started wondering if I could FiberMesh in Zbrush and then send it to 3DS Max. Logically it should work. It must work. I think I’ve seen some images that were done that way. So I tried it. Here is a sphere with FiberMesh that I sent from ZBrush to 3DS Max. It didn’t send any of the color over. I think because I didn’t save out any UV’s. I might want to figure that out. But I was able to get the model with the fibers transferred. So in 3DS Max I tried adding a material to the fibers and it worked. Again, not quite as I wanted. But it gets the job done for testing purposes.

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And finally, I got to work on that Gibson Guitar Head Stock painting. I mentioned that I felt I was to the point I needed to do the background so I could tell how much more I needed to work on it. So I painted in the background and just as I suspected, the black is not near dense enough.
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So I started working on making the black more dense. It’s really going to help.
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This Gibson painting is the first of a few more that I intend to do and while I have a couple of guitars I can use for reference, it would be nice to have a few that might be more interesting. I have a colleague at my day job that was a touring musician for a while and he was very kind to allow me to visit his home and take pictures of some of his instruments. I’m excited to get to work on some of the pieces that are likely to come from that photo shoot. As with the Gibson I’ll be posting pictures as I go when I get them started. I want to finish this one first.

And I should have another surprise, maybe two next week. I’ve got some stuff in mind to start and some stuff in mind to maybe try over. And more painting. Stay tuned.

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One Thing Leads to Another– August 2, 2016

Posted on August 2, 2016 by SusanG

No, this is not about the ’80s song by the Fixx. Though I like the song. This is about how a seemingly small project grows.

Last week I felt like I got tackled or at least swarmed by a pack of squirrels. I’m not sure this week was much better. In doing chores I found an issue with the sealant in my shower. It was coming off. I have these awful sliding shower doors and the sealant at the bottom of the track was failing. So I decided I needed to reseal that area and the rest of the bottom area of the shower where the tile meets the pan. This lead me to thinking how much I dislike the shower doors and that I should just take them out. And now I’m thinking, since I did take the doors out, that with everything all torn up and a few more things to do before I can use the shower again anyway, maybe I should refresh the grout. You know, scrape the old stuff out and put new in. One thing leads to another and now another.

That wasn’t the only case of that sort of thing happening. I’m preparing to paint my music room a new color, or colors as is now the case. That idea started as what color and what about doing different colors on two of the walls. It has now progressed to also painting the entry way and possibly the living room, or at least one wall in the living room. I think I want the squirrels back.

Speaking of squirrels. I found a great picture of a squirrel looking like he was about to tackle something. So I had to sketch it. Now I’m thinking of making it in 3D on the computer. I don’t know if I will t-pose it so I can rig it, or just model it in the one pose. But I think it would be fun to have, and use. Here’s the sketch.

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I’ve finally decided what I want to do about the background for the Gibson head stock painting. Or I think I have. I haven’t gottenIMG_20160730_111827_sm_wm to that part started yet. However, I did get some work done on the tuning keys so that they look better. There are a few other things to work on but I may go ahead and fill in the background. It can help to identify what needs an extra layer or additional attention to make it pop. This is how it’s looking now.

I had a conversation with someone this past weekend that helped to give me a little more perspective on things and that has me excited to be working on 3D projects again. Not that I’ve managed to get past the projects and squirrels enough to do it yet. But having some renewed excitement is helpful even if progress ends up being a little slow for a while. I do have to put my shower back together and there is the painting project. Still, I think I’m ready to start wedging some 3D work back in between other things. Check back to see how well I’m doing on that.

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Squirrel Chasing Again — July 26, 2016

Posted on July 26, 2016 by SusanG

Well sort of. Only part of the week was taken up with squirrel chasing. The rest of it was sucked up by extended work hours at the day job.

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I did find a way to get to work on some of the cool stuff before things got too crazy. I got a fair bit of the chrome worked up on the head stock painting. I’m still working on what to do about the background and I haven’t gotten to all those thing I mentioned last week. It’s coming along nicely though.

 

 

 

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I even got started on rigging the Worm Guy. I’ve got the body bones, a head bone, and bones for one of the antenna. I think, I was planning on doing some of the work first and then copying things over but now that I think about that, I’m not sure that it’s going to work. Looks like it’s time to pull out the tutorial.

I had thought, even with the messed up week, that I would pull out the tutorial over the weekend and start with the connecting and parameters and helpers and all that. That didn’t happen. That didn’t happen because the weekend was when all the squirrels decided to come visit.

 

 

One of the distractions was a shopping trip to pick up some things for my home including some frames. One of the frames was for the Studio Sign I’ve been working on. I decided it was finished and was ready to be framed. I thought about trying to find a frame and matte that would only show the picture. Then I thought it would be more interesting to show the markings and guides I used. So that’s how I framed it.

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I might have mentioned that I’d had an idea for something I wanted to create with Lego bricks but that I was going to have to order the specific bricks. The bricks came over the weekend. I happened to be on my way to the book store and then to see the new Star Trek 20160725_173258_c_sm_wmmovie so I didn’t get to play with them right away. When I finally got to play with the Lego bricks I made a Lego version of a Computer Bug.

Now that I know exactly which pieces I need, I ordered a few extra for this one, I’m going to order the pieces again and make a second one.

There were a few other adventures over the weekend, hanging pictures, moving furniture, prepping the shower stall to be re-caulked. Lots of fun stuff to get in the way of the cool stuff. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes. I’m going to try to squish a bit more cool stuff into this week. Check back to find out how successful that turns out to be.

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