The vacation from the day job is over and it’s time to get back to a regular routine. There’s good and bad with that. It helps to have a routine or structure of some type because it is easier to stay on track with things that need doing. Sometimes though, the schedule for that routine isn’t really optimal for other things you want to do. For example, I found that I seem to be able to settle in and get a lot of stuff done when I start working on them at about 7 or 8 in the evening and work until 11 or 12 or even 1. This doesn’t work so well with the day job routine because for that I have to start work at 7 in the morning. Which means I get up a bit before 5. Getting to bed that late and then getting up that early, not a great mix. Aside from that I’d say this break from the day job was reasonably successful. I loved getting to work to my own schedule and having all kinds of time to work on projects. I didn’t spend near as much time working on them as I had intended. Then again. I did have lots of mental space available to think on them. So maybe I did work on them more than it looks like.
One of the best things to come out of this vacation is that I have had a chance to regain some enthusiasm for my art projects, both computer and non-computer. That for me is a big thing. I don’t know about you but when I start struggling with finding the desire to work on things like that, that I really enjoy, it starts to wear on my confidence and self esteem. I see now that what it really means is that I’m needing a break, some down time, maybe a few hours or a couple of days with my head buried in the sand. Good to know.
This week I made some progress on the Halloween House. I tackled the door, the windows, the steps and porch deck and even a roof. I’ve got a bit more work to do on the porch in general. I want a porch light and I want a bit more structure under the roof. It
probably won’t show in the final render for the card, but I want it there because I think it will make a difference in how the lights behave when I light the scene. I would like to be able to use a night sky type of picture for the background but that could get tricky.
When I was preparing the pictures for this post I noticed that I didn’t have the panel for the door quite right. There is this white area just below the middle brace and before the bottom panel. I thought maybe it was to do with a shadow rendering wrong but found it again in another render. I opened up the project in 3DS Max and had a closer look. It turned out that I didn’t have the panel in the right place. I had to open up the door group to adjust the location of the bottom panel. While I was doing that I checked the top one and it was off a little too so I fixed it. The first two pictures are progress renders before I fixed the panel and the last one is after I fixed the panel.
In addition to working on the Halloween House I also made progress on the Gretsch Guitar painting. I got the base layer of black completed. I even got some of the details, that are in black, roughed in. Now I’ve started on the second layer of black. For that, I pretty much started back where I originally started, in the stamp of the Gretsch logo. Instead of starting the second layer of black I thought about starting on an area that is a different color but decided not to, yet. I will need to mix most of the rest of the colors. That means that for some sections and details, I’m going to want to do either the whole thing, or at least the whole layer in one or two sittings so I don’t have to try to match my colors part way through. It’s easier to do a second layer in a slightly different color if the first layer isn’t dense enough. It adds depth. But to have to match the color part way through a
layer, that’s just a pain. So for now, I’m working on a second layer of black.
As much as I would have liked this last week of vacation to be as productive as the first week I’m still happy with the progress I have made. I got some relaxing in along with working on projects and that’s a good thing. The only slight disappointment is that I didn’t manage to make it to Myrtle Beach. The hurricane/tropical storm that decided to make a run up the coast did it about the time I was planning on being on the coast. And, since changing Mother Nature’s plans isn’t very easy, I decided to change mine and not go. I’ll have to plan that for another time. For now I’m back to the day job and working on projects in the evening. I’ve got more work to do on the porch of the Halloween House before I bring in the jack’o lantern, add the materials and textures, and then add the lighting. I’ve also got the Gretsch and Ovation Guitar paintings to work on. It might be enough to keep me out of trouble for a while. Maybe.