Particles

For this project, I created a cool abstract particle system with the help of a couple YouTube tutorials, particularly one from Blender Made Easy.

I began by creating a couple icosphere’s, one for the emission and one for the object to create the particles. I added the particle system and began playing with the physics, changing the size and gravity of the particles. I added a force field to contain the particles as well.

I then started adding materials following some tips from the video using the shader editor and adding nodes to create a gradient color that would change at the particles’ individual lifecycle

When I was in a good spot, I started finding a good camera angle to render out the animation. I removed lighting and made the environment black since the particles had an emission node added to them.

Lastly, I rendered out a still image with all of my settings applied, and then the rendered video. This is the final result.

3D Emote

For this project, we learned about walk cycles using armatures and posing within Blender. We were then to use this knowledge to create a low poly model doing a short animation similar to that of a game emote.

I decided to ask for a reference video from my friend so that I could better follow along with how her joints moved. She sent me an adorable video of her posing, which I screen-grabbed a part of.

This made it incredibly easier, so I used this to follow along every few frames with the positioning of each “bone” on my 3D model.

I made sure to pay close attention to detail and keyframe each of the bones that would change. This was a tedious process, but the effort was worth the end result.

Lastly came adding a few fun colors to the background to make it more interesting, with my signature pink and blue lighting. I then rendered it to an animation, and the final product can be viewed below. Isn’t she cute?

Hairy Owl

This project is all about particles and particle editing in blender. We began first with hair, changing how the hair looks and feels, editing what parts of a model we add hair to. It’s a pretty fun part of Blender!

I decided to add hair to my owl for this project. It was relatively easy to add the vertex group for the part of the owl I wanted to add hair to. I then started playing with the texture of hair and combing/cutting it in the particle editor.

After I had my hair where I wanted it, I decided to add color. Purple seemed to be a nice touch to the owl’s surroundings.

Lastly, it was time to render. The parts of the hair took incredibly long to render out, which is to be expected. Overall, I’m happy with the turnout. The curls came through much nicer in the render than in viewport shading like you see above. My little owl is rocking that purple hair!

Jiji Sculpt

This project was made to even better develop our skills of sculpting within Blender. For this project, we would sculpt, from scratch, a character of some sort of our choosing. My clear choice was the character Jiji, from Kiki’s Delivery Service. He is one of my favorites from all of the Studio Ghibli movies, and is simple enough to keep practicing my sculpting skills.

I did find this harder, of course, then following along with an example. I had to think through how I would model each part of him. I decided to begin with his body, then head and front paws. I made them each a separate shape to keep things organized.

I then worked on his ears, face, and tail. This was relatively difficult, especially considering his face, which is seen in 2D, now had to be 3D somehow.

After getting everything the way I like it, it was time to add materials and a scene. The materials were fun, until I got to the face. I used the lasso select in edit mode to select the parts of his face I would assign a different material. This leg to jagged edges, since the vertices were pretty spaced apart. I don’t love the result of this, so I will have to learn a better method some other time.

I then added the background sky, which seemed appropriate if you’ve seen the movie. I added lights and rendered it all out. Here is the final result.

Although the face isn’t exactly what I wanted, as I mentioned above, due to the material application, I think he still looks adorable.

Owl Sculpt

For this mini project, I followed along with a tutorial on YouTube from Grant Abbitt on sculpting a little clay-esque owl. This was incredibly fun, and although I have only dipped my toes in the Blender sculpting waters, I feel excited about sculpting forms after this. It truly feels like painting, and for that reason I love it.

The first steps were to get the general form sculpted out. I got a much better grasp on each of the brushes during this part, discovering what would be helpful to me.

Next were the feet. This was kind of fun, and gave me experience in adding shapes into existing sculpting sessions as well as a use for the mirror modifier that I had actually never used before, in this case for use of mirroring the feet around the body to center them.

Last was the fun part, and almost always my favorite part, no matter what I’m doing in Blender. I decided to pivot from what Grant was showing at this point when it came to the owls materials and background. I liked the idea of a clay or ceramic figure, but made mine a like pink-orange, almost what terracotta looks like before firing. I then added a cool metallic gradient to the floor, and some fun contrasting lights in front and behind the owl.

I love the final result! Although the concept wasn’t my own, it is fun to follow along and add my own spin on things. I think my little owl is adorable!

To be honest, however, the colors came out a bit more dull in the render than I was expecting, but overall, I am proud of my owl.

Journeyscape

“Journeyscape” is the title of our very first big project. This project entails a lot of the work we have been doing leading up to this point. We will be tasked with 3D modeling several different 3D scenes pertaining to a fictional film, television show, video game, book, etc. This will mean 3 different 3D scenes, from beginning, middle, and end.

To begin, I started brainstorming my favorite movies and books. They pretty much instantly came to me. The first being Moonrise Kingdom, a film by Wes Anderson. I drafted up my ideas and placed them onto a page.

My next thought was Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I had a lot of ideas from this one, especially considering I’ve watched it so many times. The hardest part was deciding what scenes could be considered “beginning, middle, and end” considering the movie is so long.

After sketching this out, I was pretty much sold on the concept. I wanted to create the iconic scene where Heloise stands at the fire and her dress catches on fire as she looks at Marianne. To me, this scene symbolizes the moment in which she fell in love with Marianne, and it very symbolically sets her life on fire.

There is a lot that can be done with this, and I think creating this in a low poly 3D environment will create a very intriguing project.

I started with one of my favorite scenes, and the true inspiration for this project. The first thing I began to tackle was setting up the background scene. In the movie, Heloise is standing in the dark, with only the fire to illuminate her from across the way. I did add a dull moonlight to better cast colors. I began morphing the shapes into odd geometric trees and bushes.

I saved Heloise for last, and knew I would be able to reuse her form for my other scenes, as she is an integral part of the scenes themselves. I did not add much detail at this point, and began going in with different materials and adjusting the lighting for the fire to get them to a point that I liked them.

I then moved on to the other two scenes, one in which Heloise is posed for her painting, looking at herself from the neck down in the mirror. I used her same form with some adjustments to the dress.

I then added in a frame and the curtains framing the scene, and then was able to adjust materials and lighting.

I then moved on to my last scene, one of the end movie scenes where a painting of Heloise pays homage to Marianne by having the painter keep a tab open to get book, page 28, when they had shared an intimate moment earlier on in their lives as well as the story,

I added several frames, and I actually liked the simplicity of leaving the frames blank, so I let Heloise in her new marriage attire be the focal point. The final rendered images of each scene can be seen in order below.

Abstract Geometrics

The purpose of this project was to create an abstract geometric shape with the use of modifiers in Blender.

I decided to create an interesting spiral shape that all began with a simple cube. I utilized the screw, array, and solidify modifiers, as well as colorful materials and interesting lighting angles. You can see the final product below.

I created a couple different angles and lighting adjustments and found that the one below was my favorite.

Retro Trapper Keeper

This project is one that I was looking forward to. We were tasked with designing a retro 3D-inspired folder, or trapper keeper. To get a better picture of this, some examples are below.

To begin, I started creating shapes and grids in Blender. I liked the cube, but chose to make a grid of spheres. I began adding them here and there until I liked how they looked together from different angles. I then started adding colors and textures. I like the bright cyan and magentas, so I used a lot of that.

Lastly, my favorite part, was adding lighting. Lighting composition is one of my favorite things to do in Blender, so I had fun with this one. I added one bright light from above that would cast a cool cyan glow, and then from the front and back at different angles, I added warmer orange lights. I loved the effect this had, especially on the more reflective sphere.

Once I felt comfortable with my composition and lighting, I began to render out an image to bring over to my iPad.

To add the finishing touches, I decided to use Procreate. I love the effortless brush strokes I can get with my Apple Pencil, and it felt fitting to use here.

After some adjusting and trying out different brush types and textures, I am happy with my final result. I think I would love a folder with this design on it, personally.

Medieval Home

Our very first assignment for this course was to recreate a medieval home or structure of some sort. I tried to go for a very simple home to start, and focused my time on trying to figure out materials. I have realized after my work that I spend too much time on it and never quite got it down, hence a very simplistic home.

Below are photos of my inspiration for this home.

Below is my final screenshot (not rendered) of my medieval home. The texture on the roof turned out not-so-great due to my inability to figure out why and my struggle with using such an odd shape.

I still have a lot of progress to make, but I am better familiarizing myself with blender and am happy about that.