BA3b - Week 11 Summary

This week I got feedback about my mouse character model sheet from Kaleigh, after I had worked on the legs. She gave me advice on the back view of the character, as I hadn't shaded it so it looked flat and didn't bring the same feeling of depth and fur, and the digitigrade legs were not apparent. I hadn't planned on colouring the other two drawings, as the first one has a lot of details, but I think Kaleigh had a point on the shading of the lower half so I decided to see how it would look. Below is the current model sheet. I also changed the shading slightly on the left drawing, as I preferred how I had done the texturing of the fur on the right model and the left one needed adjusting accordingly.

I am pleased with how it looks, it gives more of a sense of depth and you can see the way the legs bend. I will try to get more feedback about if I should add detail to the rest of the drawings, and adjust the fur on the middle one to fit with the others, but for now I am pleased.

I also worked on the environments. I decided that doing a 3D environment first, and drawing over it with more details would be the smartest decision as it would help with perspective and sizing of elements, and I would also already have a good idea of what the room will look like. I decided to pick up Maya again and try to relearn how to use the software, as its a software that I will more likely be using in the future. After a little while I had remembered most of what I had previously learnt and it was going quickly and far easier than Sketchup. I took screenshots of the process below to where I am now.

 

This is what I had at first, working closely with the drawings I had made previously with the bridge running over the small lake, a big pot for a tree in the left corner, large stain glassed window, and the balcony with a spiral staircase.

 

The bridge going over the lake felt flat to me, like there was no purpose to it, so I decided that maybe I could have a small island in the middle that the bridge crossed over to. I thought I could have a gazebo or something similar in the middle area.

 

Liking the new idea for the lake, I decided to add more elements such as simple blocked furniture and looking at where the door would be. I thought the door would make sense if it opened to look straight at the bridge.

 

The area with the tree felt not entirely logical to me, and I wanted to have him have a desk with a mirror attached somewhere but couldn't think of where it would be placed. I tried moving the desk to where the tree was to see how it would look, but it still felt empty.

 

 After talking to Kaleigh about the new ideas for the room, she told me that it would be logical to have the trees near the large window due to the light, and perhaps having smaller ones on each side would help the window still stand out. I also a moved the table and chairs to the area by the door, and moved some sofas to the area where the big tree was going to be.

Below are more shots of the room.

I'm pleased with how it looks so far, and the next step will be to draw over it.

I also did a quick 3D block out of the mouse room, seen below. It hasn't really changed from the original mouse room design I made at the beginning, as it didn't need much change.

The mouses room is the opposite of the cats room, its humble and small, more worn and may have more obvious signs of love. The room didn't take long to model, and will hopefully be useful to use as reference for the drawings.