3D modelling: of Cosmos and robots

Woo hoo! The 3D modelling stuff just keeps getting more enjoyable - because this time I'm creating one of my own characters! In 1999, I started a little comic strip called 'Cosmos', which I have done many splendoured things with; and continues to this day. Should I start chronicling it on this blog? Yes, I think I shall! Anyhoo, one of the mediums I hadn't yet breached with Cosmos was that of 3D - I had one of my characters rendered as a 3D printed model a couple of years ago when I won a character design contest, but I wanted to actually create a model myself. And now that we're mastering Maya in design school, this was the perfect opportunity: the assignment proper is due on Sunday, but the models I've painstakingly assembled - a fellow called Tony Corvell, owner of 'Tony's Comic Utopia', and his Japanese toy robot pal - are all but done. So I'm gonna share them with you, right here and now!

(All artwork and character designs are, of course, (c) 2014 Jon Kay; as if I need to tell you nice people that.... We're all friends here, right?)

Our first task was to create a set of model sheets showing our characters from all the relevant angles - front, back and side; that could be imported into Maya and scribbled all over (so to speak)....

I started with Tony - firstly, I constructed an arm and a leg; and then built up his body from a 2D ring drawn around his side view sillhouette....

And once that was done, connected part A to parts B, C and D; mirror-image copied everything to form a complete figure; and then gave the poor fella some clothes!

Next up, a UV map was made from the clothing components, so I could put colours, logos and other fabric details on Tony's stylin' threads....

Then finally, based on a fully official colour guide, I created and applied the proper visuals to Tony 3D's clothes (and everything else) and rolled out the rendered turnaround! I might shift the X-badge a bit more to the left, and possibly shrink the TCU logo slightly, but otherwise it looks good to me!

Part two, and on to the robot! Despite the apparent complexity of the design, Mr. Robot was actually a pretty quick build; being composed primarily of basic shapes with a few faces extruded out / scaled / reshaped to add detail and extra parts....

Which in turn resulted in this handsome creature here!

Most of the body was able to be coloured with basic textures, so I only had to do UV's for the decals that every Japanese tin robot worth his or her salt displays proudly on there chest plates! A bit of Illustrator, Photoshop and Maya work later...

And Mr. Roboto was ready for friction powered, spark-shooting action!

I love Transformers: Age of Extinction movie display

Adore Michael Bay's explosion-tastic Transformers saga or hate it (and believe you me, there are plenty of people in the latter category!), you will surely be aware that the fourth installment, Age of Extinction, has just head-butted the public's consciousness with its gala debut! And as with most movies these days, there has been a hype-worthy slot-together display standee erected in movie theatres across the cinema-verse.....

Oh. My. Bob.

This thing is, without doubt, an absolute work of art! A humongous model of Optimus Prime riding on the back of the mighty Grimlock (leader of the Dinobots) built out of 700 gazillion pieces of die-cut card forming the myriad armour plates and mechanical doodads making up the two Cybertronian titans. So many parts.... Such a detailed model....  It's the new holy grail of  Transformers collectibles..... It must be....

Right, that's it, I'm sneaking in there tonight and stealing the freakin' thing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jon's sketchbook, part one

If there's one thing I love doing, it's doodling. Stick a piece of paper in front of my nose when I'm holding a pencil, and before you know it it'll be covered in artwork! Thankfully, to stop me from enthusiastically scrawling all over, say, a mint-condition copy of Fantastic Four #1, the powers-that-be ensure I always carry a sketchbook and a fully-loaded pencil case with me at all times (because they are rightly concerned about the public's safety). As such, I now have a collection of those beasts lurking on my bookshelf - many chained down to stop them from escaping - packed cover to cover with characters, logos and typography, environments, props and weapons, clothing.....

....

....

Whoa! Sorry, drifted off into a drawing fugue there. Ooh, and look at this - I seem to have sketched up a whole bunch of character / design material, apparently for some kind of alien shaman-type-thing who freaks out settlers on his planet with all sorts of freaky spirit-summoning rituals. I was thinking about centipedes and pangolins while I was in there, for some reason.... Let's have a look, shall we?

Maya, part two

Okay, my little temple-ka-jigg looked nice before - but now it's got shadows and lighting! How's that for an exponential improvement?

Do you do 3D? I do 3D!

For those of you who don't know (which would be, ohhh, most of you at this point), I am currently working my way through various diplomas at Yoobee School of Design in Auckland - Graphic Design in 2012, Digital Media Advanced in 2013; and now, in 2014, Digital Animation and Video. Part of this has involved getting to know a little program called Maya: at the moment, it's a bit of a love-hate realtionship - it's a nifty program, no bout adoubt it, and the prospect of rendering some of my characters in 3D is almost overwhelming (next week, Jon, next week); but at times, we've all had to fight an uphill battle against maneuvering the camera properly..... and the 'extrude' function.... and lining things up properly.... and making sure the freakin' thing doesn't crash on us.....

Nevertheless, we have got as far as attaching funky patterns onto our models (a basic temple-type-thing with columns and steps and so forth) via the venerable - and also frustrating at times - UV map system. Provided you do it properly, the results are truly fantastic.... and quite satisfying, if you've just spent nearly an entire day figuring out what part of the intricate process you may have missed out (or Maya has secretly forgotten to tell you about).

But five minutes or so ago.... Success! I now have a nifty mini-temple with appropriate rock-textures sourced from cgtextures.com, all ready to wave in people's faces and go "Aren't I clever?" It may not look like much to a more experienced Maya-phile, but as far as I'm concerned, the program is well and truly owned....

 

There goes the neighbourhood....

Uh oh - it's finally happened. I've discovered the wonderful world of blogging, and everything that goes with it.... Brace yourselves, ladies and gents,  for an All-Jon extravaganza of science, pop-culture-saturated diatribes and, most importantly, cartoons, sketches and other miscellaneous artistic nonsense.....

You have my sympathies. You really do.