Author: Kyle France

Combined my robot with the project since he’s a poseable model, and it would provide a little backstory… A crazy alchemist who’s performed the forbidden practice of human transmutation before! The detective teams up with his now robot-bonded partner to investigate the home of their suspect.

I would have liked to use the Arnold renderer but the lights gave me too much trouble. I also had some problems with even the Maya software, so the sunset lighting isn’t quite what I had imagined, but I think I got close.

 

 

UV maps are wondrous and painful things… Spent quite a lot of time figuring out what shapes correspond to what parts of the character, but I’m mostly happy with the result. I tried to think about the bear texture as being a man-made marionette, so I applied a cloth texture to be somewhere between a doll and a fuzzy teddy bear. I tried to make some hair by using the grid bump mapping, and played around with surface shininess on the buttons using the Anisotropic materials. I will probably revisit some more of the scenery, to add wallpaper or maybe some wooden floorboards.

I hadn’t planned a character for the scene, so I’ve created a specialist investigator looking into a case involving an animated marionette escapee. I had planned to smooth out some things like the arms in Zbrush, but it didn’t treat my combined polygons as one object. I hope to revisit these details, such as hair/smoothing etc. The face and additional clothing detail will be textured. I learned a lot using the x-ray shading while making the coat. The last image is a screen capture to negate lighting effects obscuring contouring detail.

My scene wasn’t originally planned for a human character, so I decided to modify it to show the actual depiction of the detective coming to the scene as a representative of the Bureau of Paranormal Investigations. The sketch only has the front view so far, but it is close to what I am imagining.

The organic shapes of the dolls were new for me, but I’m happy with how the models turned out. The posing was a little difficult. I haven’t used NURBS before, so I tried experimenting with those on the curtains, the pot, and the spools of thread. Lighting and render settings continue to confound me. The book text is a little small, but they read: Stitching, Soul Binding, and Human Transmutation. Enjoy

The narrow scene is of a wall in a workshop. Lighting is bright and natural, but side-on and casting shadows, presumably from a window off screen. The edge of a curtain sways gently in and out of frame. There is a workbench littered with tools and materials, fabrics, sewing equipment, scissors, and the like. Above hang two marionettes, one in the likeness of a soft teddy bear, the other a doll of a young girl. To the right is another hanging space, but no puppet. The strings trail off hallway down, not clean cut but frayed. The wooden paneling behind is slightly worn but otherwise clean. Further up, several books and a small fragrant plant occupy a neat shelf. A closer look at titles reveal the books to be mainly craft guides, with a few notable exceptions.

R.O.B. as he appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl

I don’t personally have a huge affinity for photos of myself or for collages, so my concept was relatively straightforward: find things I like, and see how well I could piece them all together. Represented are World of Tanks, Mobile Suit Gundam, music, Solidworks, and the Razer brand.  I’ve blurred and desaturated the background for a depth of focus effect and to de-emphasize its importance. Many of my passions seem to be contained in another world apart from reality, be it digital or fantasy altogether.  I wanted to show that by comparison it can be easy to find the real world somewhat lacking in vibrance and imagination.

Material credits:

https://worldoftanks.com/en/media/8/july-2013-desktop-wallpaper-clear/

https://www.hawkridgesys.com/sites/default/files/promotions/solidworks-logo-large.png

https://pixabay.com/p-2820989/?no_redirect

http://elementalcheese.blogspot.com/2016/08/gunpla-review-rg-1144-gundam-00-qan-t.html

https://img.talkandroid.com/uploads/2016/05/razer-logo.jpg

Each has a bit of a subtle thematic element, and a more obvious component.

An SD Unicorn Knight Gundam I painted (in a sort of semi-destroy mode if anyone cares).

Went a little overboard, ended up with about 600 shapes. Fun project.