First Rendering of 3D character

After spending the past week solely focused on my 3D character, I was finally able to build the desired shape of my rainbow bird on 3D Max. From using the form which I had already made from our previous time in class, I had to delete a few polygons to extrude from to form the mine bomb wing, the sea urchin spikes, the target monitor eye and hypno-eye and the pirate hat to construct my 3D character. It took a lot of time and patience to try and fill in any gaps, move many vertices to   sculpt each feature and connect any missing polygons for my rainbow bird to come to life. I still haven't decided on the right material for the model itself but I'm still working on a few tweaks on the character itself. Even though I may not be fully finished on my projects design, I am still happy with the outcome of my Rainbow bird design with only working with the one shape. Here is a first render of my character:

Unwrapping Part 2

In todays classes it was our last chance to talk about and develop our characters in our groups. I had a better understanding of what kind of design I wanted for my rainbow bird which was a pirate theme character/ sea creature. I had my sketches already prepared for working on 3D max so I was ready to start constructing further on it. The tutorial class was continuing on unwrapping on the same file but only it was with a car, I already understood most of what we needed to do through this tutorial but there were a few things that I needed a better understanding on how to shape the material around the car itself. Here are my final design drawings of my 3D character:

Unwrapping

In todays classes it was more about reviewing more on our characters and development work through how we have progressed through the number of weeks since we started. In our tutorial class we were working on the process of unwrapping with different textures and setting on a building and trying to get the proportion of the wallpaper set right around it. I found this tutorial a bit challenging because it took a lot of patience managing the settings and pinpointing the coordinates of the wrapping so as it didn't took stretched around the corners. Though I was able to manage it by the time it class finished. Here is a few screenshots of the process:

Constructing our character

In todays class we took a break from working in our groups to discuss the development of our clay models of our characters. We were shown by our tutor his own clay model on his interpretation of 'Butterfly boy'  and the tools he used on how to sculpt the details in the clay. He also showed us the tutorials on his website on using the materials (wire, tinfoil and super sculpty clay) to make a start on making it, techniques of how to apply more clay to make the features in between baking times and how long to bake it.

In our tutorial we are allowed to finally start modelling our 3D character on 3D max. We had to use the same technique as we did on the alien helmet to build our character by strictly using polygons and no outside shapes. I was pleased with the general shape I was able to make using the tube shape and built the body, eyes and beak. Here is an example of me building my character:

Group work: expanding ideas

In todays class, we had to join with our selected groups to discuss on what each of us have done so far to develop our sketches. We all shared our ideas, given ideas to help improve each of our designs and then worked on what myself could do better to make mine unique. Each shared idea from the people in my group helped me a lot to understand what kind of sketches I needed to produce to push me along of the building of my character. Here are a few sketches:

In our tutorial class we just continued on with finishing off our helmet and constructing the back and other side of it. Here is the final render:

Designer Roulette: Building Ideas

In todays class, we all had to come with a quick presentation on what we have developed and built on from our sketches of our chosen character. I was still working on how to make my rainbow bird stand out from the others in my group so I didn't really have many design sketches drawn yet. Though I had worked on a few ideas on photoshop by painting the colours and features of my rainbow bird. I imagined my bird having cool features and moves like it would in the game by having exploding spikes at the side, a crooked mechanical wing, laser and target motion eyes and a rotating rainbow tail that combined with the bird whilst being thrown in the air. Here are the examples:

In our tutorial class we continued on from our alien head by constructing a matching helmet to place over the model. This was all build from polygon modelling by using the one shape and expanding the border lines to form a shape of a helmet. I didn't that that much difficulty with it as a did with the alien head.

Beginning of a New project

For our first class back as second years for 3D design, we were introduced to our new module of character interpretation which constisted of having a choice of picking a children's drawing and redesigning it on 3D max but still keeping the original shape. I decided to go with rainbow bird because it reminded me of the interactive game 'Angry Birds' and I thought it would be a fun project of designing my own form of angry bird from rainbow bird. Here is an example of what is looks like:

In our tutorial class we were asked to build a model of an alien head. I have to admit it was a bit challenging trying to follow the tutorial and getting the proportion right with the eyes and mouth, but I managed to get it to a standard that I was happy with. Here are a few screenshots and final render of my alien head.