Filler Post

I should have something more exciting before the end of the week (last week, right? got to do better than this!), but I'm going absolutely INSANE modeling a T-34/85 tank at the moment (I expect to easily hit 1 megapoly before applying turbosmooth). As a consequence, this week's proper post will be delayed to midweek.

In the interim, a followup on the dead-dinosaur query from last week:



Professor E. Walker solved my concern about decomposing meat being too gross by suggesting I just use a nice solid pink layer and possibly some highlights around the rim. Nice, simple, easy to replicate.



It actually took some doing to suppress my instincts and NOT concept this anatomically. I could have done it more accurately, more believably-- but that wasn't the point. I needed to elide details and treat bones as big white clumps, and muscles as an undifferentiated pink mass because actual rotting carcass is not upbeat, energetic fun. These pictures had to be.



Per Chris Wood, I tried modeling out some of these beforehand and then concepting backwards ("it's what the real concept artists sometimes do," he said, referencing some images Professor Jagers had shown us using that technique). It.... did not work well. While the resultant multiple-viewed images were, in theory more consistent, the model itself was terrible because I was essentially trying to create it whole-cloth without a reference. As a result, the render was muddled. Look under the trunk-- in the front shots, there's a mouth there, like it ought to be, but in these side views, what oughtto be the mouth becomes the base of the right tusk, instead. Horrible mess.
I might try this method again, but only when I absolutely 100% need a series of an object from multiple views that have be very tight and consistent. Model sheets, for example.
Also, I'd want to have more time-- but when is that not true?


You might notice that the linework on this one is a bit shakier. I tried following Best Practices and creating a structural, geometric drawing first-- but if you use this as a technique when working in Photoshop, it is absolutely imperative to do the final linework on another layer. I spent more time cleaning up tiny little clumps of pixels than anything else, because I treated the line layer the same way I would an ordinary sheet of paper (light guidelines, structural shapes, then final lines), and the result is poorer for it.


Till later this week,

-ALD