Rockin' the Cornice

So, I've done a pretty terrible job this semester of updating my blog with my updates. So, after going to class and watching hours and hours and hours (yes, many hours) of tutorials, I finally feel like I'm starting to SCRATCH the surface of Maya... but only a scratch.
First, I drew out the shapes in Illustrator and then imported them into Maya as curves (shown in older posts)... unfortunately, I had no clue what I was doing and ditched that idea. I now know how to do it that way, but I did not used that method for this project. Instead, I reverted to good ol' box modeling. Here's what I came up with (click for larger image):

The shape was weird and I had a hard time building this without getting triangles... I literally rebuilt this about 20 times, and I still would have built it differently. Finally got it to work though.

Alright, so next I delved into the main body some more. I deleted the area where the glass would be, and the bottom where the back plate would be. I had to tweak this quite a bit to get everything just right.

Next, the band. The cool thing about the band is how I bended it. I just selected all of the duplicated links, grouped them (ctrl+g) and added the same bend deformer that I used on the links. It just took some tweaking to get it just right!

Finally getting to the end. At this point I've started messing with the mental ray shaders. I knew I wanted it very shiny like chrome but darker. ALL of the shaders are from the mental ray shaders built into maya--they are surprisingly rockin!

I was pretty happy with it the way it is now... but then I found out about image based lighting. First, what makes chrome look shiny? The objects around it. That's why the inside of the wrist band looks better than the outside--because things are being reflected. IBL gives the watch something to reflect. Here are my final renders and this is what the IBL did. Enjoy!

And a turntable animation!

Maya

I'm in a 3D modeling class this semester and this is my first attempt! There are still a lot of things wrong with it, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Especially for a first go at it.

Holy Stick!

So, I'm not one of those artists to take pictures with my work, but I couldn't resist with this sculpture!

This was a joint effort by myself and Mike Jaggi, a fellow designer that happened to be in my class. He's a stud and I enjoyed working with him on this piece.

We built this piece in the early spring when everyone was throwing away their tree trimmings. Altogether, I personally spent about 12-15 hours. Very tedious but very fun. This piece made such an impression on the Landscape Architecture department head that he asked if he could re-locate the piece to a property in North Logan. He is using the piece to show how stick sculptures can be integrated with landscapes. He will be documenting it's aging process as well.







































Photo below courtesy of Sean Michael.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost

So, I'm not a huge reader but I used to love S.E. Hinton. If you've read "The Outsiders," you've inevitably read this poem. I liked the idea that this poem was written about childhood. Things are never as golden as they seem when you're a child. Thus, bringing us to my next piece. I used to have these red cowboy boots as a little kid that I refused to take off. In fact, it was easier for my mom to put me to sleep in those bad boys than to take them off. So, with all the stress of life and college, I wanted to make something that reminded me of the golden age of my childhood. It's supposed to be a rocking horse, but a lot of people call it a dog... I'm very fond of dogs so I take no offense. This sculpture is made up of lamps, a fireplace (yes, you heard me right), log holders (next to a fireplace), and magazine racks. Definitely a labor of love.

Plaster... Need I say more?

While trying to remain optimistic, I'll say that working with plaster was an interesting experience. I would be lying if I didn't say that I occasionally took the freight train to profanity town, but I learned a lot. Here is a piece that I created from a hunk of plaster. My main goal was to create something a little more organic with nice flowing lines. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Thanks to Jinman Jo for the awesome pictures!

"You be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted."

Man, I love The Princess Bride.

So, I have to design a catalog in my Type, Image, and Visual Continuity class. Well, we need materials to fill this catalog with... so, my teacher thought we could make some masks! Yea! Anyways, this is what I came up with.