Texture Test

Here I've had a couple of attempts at getting the hang of the Materials Editor and UVW mapping in 3DS Max. I decided that because one of my words was "fungus" I'd try and add a texture of some moss or a mushroom, when I came across a picture of some funky mushrooms that grow in outback Australia:

I loved the way these mushrooms just look so... enticing! If I had stumbled across these I would be so tempted to eat them, though they look so dangerous and probably poisonous, they look psychedelic quite like my precedent image. And who knows, they could be really tasty! Purple also happens to be my favourite colour, so I had a go at trying to use these as a texture.

Hasn't really gone well just yet, I'll have a little play around with the UVW mapping and see what I can do.....

104 Development

Another screenshot of development on my models. I have discovered that the twist tool actually is my friend, after many failed attempts at trying to use it :)

104 Development

Here I have chosen a bunch of my favourite iterations from what I have so far, about 60 or so, and done a few basic sketches of the models themselves. I think I just wanted a bit of practice sketching and in the hopes that maybe I could draw my way out of a writers (or designers) block. After so long it feels like you may have reached a dead end with your models and you don't know where to go anymore... But then you seem to just have a sterling idea and it all starts to flow again. Hopefully that'll happen here :)

But for now I seem to be returning to the original Solidworks model and starting again, creating different families of models. I think it may be because I quite like the original, and I'm sure I'd quite like to see it still prevalent in whatever image I end up with, but it a way that utilises the words I've chosen

104 Progress

 Here's a screenshot of some more of the 81, I think this is around 35. I'm trying to keep the models as clean as possible, as the Solidworks model that I imported has plenty of detail and many spikes. If I push the models too far they seem to just end up in a goopy mess, and I do want to retain some kind of form in there somewhere.

And I certainly learned the importance of backing up your work! When Sunny said you needed at least 2 backups I kinda scoffed and laughed and thought "Yeah, right. What for?" - oh how I blushed when I loaded up a dead file.....  Lesson learned :)

Starting to make some iterations....

 3DS Max is a tricky program to get the hang of, I think at first I was just confused by the crazy amount of buttons you're presented with to begin with. Though I think I've found the parts I need, and realised that most of those buttons I really don't need to worry about. Here are a few of the iterations I started off with, just having a play around so I can try to see the direction I want to point these models in

I have found that because my model has lots of parts spiralling around the inside that it is very hard to select certain areas to modify. Soft selection seems to be helping, but I can't seem to only select adjacent polygons - edge distance doesn't seem to like me... But I'm getting there! Plenty of playing to be done yet!

Solidworks Model

Here I've selected and traced the eye out of one of the "godheads" in Alex Gray's "Net of Being". It was hard to get the hang of Solidworks to begin with, sketching seemed to be tempermental until I realised making many arcs and lines and joining them was far easier than trying to form one continuous line.

After this was done, it was a simple task of extruding into a 3-dimensional form. Well, it should have been simple, but sometimes there's just a teeeeny tiiiiiny gap somewhere in the sketch, and you can spend hours looking for why your lines aren't "fully defined". But I got there in the end:

Now just to get it into 3DS Max!

104 Pro 1 Precedents and Words

The Precedents

I have decided upon using one of my favourite paintings from my favourite artist, Alex Gray as my precedent

Retrieved from: http://www.alexgrey.com/net.html

This image is called "Net of Being", and is from Alex Gray's series "Sacred Mirrors", and is a 7.5 x 15 foot oil painting. I love this painting for the many layers that distort your perception of depth, and have spiritual and psychedelic connotations. It still amazes me how he managed to get such technical accuracy with freehand oil painting, and works really well with stereoscopic imaging which the band Tool used in their 10,000 days album cover. If you get the chance, definately look into it

Retrieved from: http://www.grenomj.com/

For my second precedent I chose a painting by a young South Korean artist, Min Jae Lee. I really admire the vibrance and colour used in this painting while still managing to capture the emotion of the woman perfectly. I like the way the artist fragmented the whole painting like a shattered window, and managed to piece together so many textures into an amazing composition.


The words

I decided upon my three words quite sporadically, and at the time they all made sense to me in terms of explaining my precedents and forming a composition. It would take a very long time to describe just the thought process that got me here, but here are the words:

Incendiary (adj): Causing or capable of causing fire

Fungus (n): An organism of the kingdom Fungi lacking chlorophyll and feeding on organic matter

Entice (v): Provoke someone to do something through (often false or exaggerated) promises or persuasion

I can't wait to start shaping these images into something visually tangible :)