This post is about the top 3 mistakes made and lessons learned in making my recent Starship image in Blender. Hence it is probably not the most exciting of posts. This said, I always feel the need to share such things with others in case anyone cares to learn from my mistakes. So here goes. Failing to plan is planning to fail An oldy but a goody. As anyone who
My goal was to emulate the old-school spaceship art of the 1970s. Hopefully, I succeeded. This post will be a bit of a technical run-down in how I did it. Not too much detail, otherwise it will be super-dull. So you remember where I was at with my last post: I asked for feedback and got some great stuff. I experimented with the suggestions to see whether I liked them
Hi folks, Just a quicky because I have to get myself and the family ready and run out soon. It’s been a busy past few weeks (new job, end-of-year obligations, family etc) and I”ve hardly managed to make it to the PC. Yesterday I did and so decided to use some of the new things I’ve learned in Blender this year to have another attempt at a space scene. The
Hi folks, I was unable to do much door work this week until today. Mostly I worked on the door itself. This meant painting the actual door texture based loosely on the reference picture. So here is the reference picture: And here is the texture I painted in Photoshop: I tried to make it look “used” and also admit to tracing a little bit :) I then turned it into a
David Lee Summers, whom I have mentioned before as a visitor to my humble blog, has just released this awesome book trailer. I just had to share. If you are into writing and science fiction/fantasy and aren’t following him already, then go and check him out. Greg https://youtube.com/watch?v=jIcXPxmnVmQ%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26fs%3D1%26autohide%3D2%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26wmode%3Dtransparent I’m proud to announce the release of the book trailer for my novel The Astronomer’s Crypt. As you’ll see, we took a
NOTE: a bit of a technical one today. So now I had a proof of concept design and had commenced a bit of trial work on it. Thing is, I always believe in self-critique. I sat down and looked at what I had done so far and whether it was correct. I noticed a few things, listed in the diagram below: I also decided that I wanted the bottom of
Hi all, Despite being tired, I came home and used Photoshop to make a normal map of the brick wall. This is just a filter in Photoshop that I applied to the skin I created earlier. Here is the normal map image: For those of you new to 3D modeling, this will give me some depth in my final image. I had intended to create a displacement map, but I need to
In my previous post in this series, I had unwrapped each of my objects, ready to texture them. Then I had an epiphany: if procedural textures exist, then does a brick one exist? OK – I’ll put that into plain English for the non-modelers or new modelers braving this post. A procedural texture is basically an image that has been created by writing a computer program instead of drawing it
Hi all, Just letting you all know that my short horror story “Eighteen Steps” is now published in Thief, a micro-publication by Tribe Media. An online version can be found at http://tribemedia.org/eighteen-steps/ Please be warned that it contains some vulgarity. At the time I wrote it I was watching a bit of the Sopranos and I imagined my protagonist as that sort of tough guy with that kind of language. I myself
Due to illness, I have not achieved as much as I had hoped. Also note, this post talks a bit about technical 3D modeling issues, but I have tried to make it accessible to my non-technical readers who may be interested in starting to model. The first thing that I have done is set the pivot point on each object within my model. This is not something that I have done
Hi all, just a brief update on the doorway. I have now successfully rigged my door to open in the doorway. So another task complete. I found the following video very easy to understand in rigging my door: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2mIOFDgdME&t=70s So another of this week’s tasks is now achieved. :) Greg
On Monday I listed my writing goals as: finish reviewing and editing my short story “Restored” Identify possible buyers for my short story Identify next most viable short story idea I have now finished reviewing “Restored”. My wife, upon reading it, felt that I needed to give some clear indications of what transpired in the story. This is because my chief character changes bodies three times within the story without
Here are my creative goals for this week: rig my art-nouveau door (i.e. make it so that it can open and shut) start the texture process on the doorway finish reviewing and editing my short story “Restored” Identify possible buyers for my short story Identify next most viable short story idea It’s not actually going to be my busiest week on creative tasks. I start work next Monday and want
Hi all, this was my wife’s birthday weekend, so I only got about an hour to play in Blender. Just thought that I would show you the progress. So the basic objects are all there. Now to start making it look real. As an aside, I made my first ever Panna cotta today as a treat for Nicole and it was yummy. :) However, I experienced failure with the accompanying toffee
Hi folks, I am delighted to say that I am ahead of this week’s plan as posted on Monday. The final thing I ticked off today was my goal of singing practice. I spent an hour this morning with my mate Jon practicing Dean Martin’s “Sway”, Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” and Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. This left me the afternoon to work on some of
You may recall my post about baking Nutella Muffins and overcoming mental blocks. You may also recall that I gave myself the creative task earlier this week of trying to learn a new muffin recipe. Well, I did… kind of. You see, I have a lot of apples. We tend to buy big bags of them because they are cheap and tasty. Nicole and I also like porridge. So the
One of the tasks that I set myself for this week was finishing the first draft of my short story called “Night Terrors”. The good news is that I succeeded, but not as I quite expected. Okay, let me explain, and note that there will be spoilers should you ever choose to read this tale. My initial notion for this tale was a horror story where a woman wakes during
Hi all, as per my weekly plan, here is a rough 2D design of the 3D art nouveau door that I intend to create in Blender. As per normal, my rough design has been completed in PowerPoint. The inspiration was taken from the following door (By Jopparn (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons): My vision is to create 4 elements in Blender: a wall with an appropriately
Hi all, Just a brief update: the short horror story that I submitted to Thief has been accepted by the editorial committee. Yippee! Apparently, it is now being sent with the other accepted works to an illustrator, a process that takes about a month. I’ll let you all know details when it is published. All I will share with you now is the title: Eighteen Steps. It’s funny. I’ve had published
Here are my creative goals for this week: Put in place a design document for an art-nouveau doorway model. Finish the first draft of Night Terrors, my latest short story. Singing practice with my mate Jon (Thursday) Try one new muffin recipe (I’m thinking apple and oatmeal) In respect of the singing practice, I’m really trying to think of where I want to go with that. Back in 1988, I
