mother of all updates

me: "ah man...thank god that dissertation formative is allllll handed in *pheeeeeww*"

alec: "sarah *sniff*.....update your blog"

me: stoney face of pain...

reminds me of..........

SOOOOO not because alec told me, i was planning a massive update anyway but here it is...now whats been going on?

well....mainly the last week or so i've been trying to press on with dissertation which is painful to say the least but hey ho...we move on.

well thanks to the help of Tom i've been awakened to the bevel tool and although wanted to keep a graphically sharp look to the models, i have to admit the bevel tool just adds more depth to the designs when in 3d.

So its decided...what needs to be beveled will be and what wont....wont. Not everything will, but it does add a nice edge to the wheelbarrow handles, pots etc as you can see from the comparison shots below:

Left model: initial model. Right: after bevel....answer....we're using the dam bevel tool!

Stumped? so the stump had a "patchwork quilt" effect look going on, myself and matt set about experimenting with removing the horizontal geometry in order to see if it would free up the model....answer below....

the bark and right root has had its horizontal edges removed which gives us this hard vertical edging which matt likes but I'm not completely sold on at the moment. OPINIONS?!??! At any rate...it looks a dam sight better than before so it can only get better right?

Nice hair piece...so heres the levels of working on Lady Gnomes hair. Far left is the original model made from extruding a cube....next left is the geometry duplicated over and a lattice was added and rotated, twisted into its new position which gave it more dimensions. The next is the geometry copied over and - scaled for the opposite side, i've then altered it to make it longer and look different so there's not perfect symmetry. Right is the finished hair piece and flower all smoothed:
Closer inspection: occlusion render from the side shows you the nice curves added to the model via the lattice, nice face framing shape now determined.
and from the front to show the difference in sides...

experimenting with the foot...this is why (to a certain extent) FLAT DOENST CUT IT!

During a midnight break from dissertation I decided modeling isn't as painful compared to the written document of doom. BREAK THROUGH! so strange...i've been having issues with modeling for a few weeks now (ultimate brain block) but suddenly it clicked what to do.

the old face...completely flat and unreadable! showed this to JB and Edgely and they suggested removing some of the edges to free up the space for more successful blend-shapes...her face has been annoying me since i was originally trying to connect it to her hood....it was a mess believe me.

but at midnight and i cracked it by simply pushing the eye geometry back into the head which instantly gave her rounder cheeks and the brow i was after! huzzar! Left side is the new version compared the the right....you can also see where ive removed some of the edges which free up the geometry more.
smooth test...not too bad, the left side certainly has more detail than the right.
geometry is mirrored over
from the side, we can see the curves of the face a bit better, much more interesting to look at that a completely flat face.
quick duplicate and smooth test to see what shes looking like atm....nose looks a bit strange, needs more work. The hair needs further lattice shaping as it looks stuck on...size around the top areas possibly needs reducing, flowers fine, suit and face obv require more work, teeth and tongue need slotting in, sleeve needs more subtly...test frill on the bottom of the dress NOT sorted yet...
ahh....its when you suddenly pose her like this you realise the real proportions of things and MAN are her hands massive...gonna scale them down a bit.
testing out the length of her arms...think i'll change the hidden inside bit of the arm back to a cylinder so she can get the most from her movement....her hair may be a possible issue for being in the way of her arms....will need to sort this too.

ah in the name that is good and evil...shes disgusting...think its the face...big guppy mouth with no teeth. little test occlusion to see how the shadows etc will be forming and those brows are waaaaay too defined...she needs some more edges round the eyes to soften. Scaled down the hands now which is goooood and scaled up the legs to match the width of the arms a bit more. Im concerned about the following

a. the brows - will we be able to read the shapes they make if they're that close to the fringe?

b. what the heck happens to the frill of her dress when she sits down?!?!? we dont want that pushing through the mushroom geometry?! plus when she needs to run/bound etc her legs are gonna go through the frill geometry.

c. im really thinking overly too much about every single bloody thing at this stage!