Making a concept sketch was really useful. I was going for something a bit weird. I kept a lot of the design, including the small, circular spider eyes on top of the “head”; the peculiar navigation flippers in the front; and of course the four legs with different tools on the ends. I ended up…
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This free, four-part tutorial on YouTube is one of my favorite tutorials so far, including paid ones. You learn to sculpt the droid using hard-surface modeling; then to rig it so you can move the parts and animate it; then to texture-paint it; and finally to animate it and make a video. I think a…
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Windows my friends, Microsoft itself, Adobe and its Photoshop, are no longer an integral part of my waking existence. You could say that they can join Facebook & Twitter in the hell-o-sphere. I fooked off the proprietary, pay-to-play, hold-you-hostage platforms, and am now smooth sailing with all free, open source programs. I would have done…
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I’m old school on reality. Well, technically, I’m kinda’ old period. And white. And male. You could say I am a remnant of a bygone era. I still believe that reality should be sought, and accepted, and that to do so is healthy and necessary. We should defer to the greater argument. There are a…
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It got a paint job. Texture painting in Blender takes a lot of getting used to. It’s not exactly what one would call intuitive, as in, you can’t just figure it out yourself. All objects need to be UV unwrapped before you can paint on them, and UV unwrapping is its own discipline. There are…
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I am absolutely certain that you will never find in over 500 posts on this blog that I’ve ever referred to my art-making as a practice. I just make art. I don’t have a practice. Recently, a lot of people are referring to their art-making as a practice — even landscape painters — as if…
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You may have seen this character from a few days ago. I added a subtle motion blur to the background by creating an animation, and isolating this frame to make a still. Then I decided to explore the possibility of animating the droid-ship flying through the tunnel. You can see the higher quality result on…
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Hot Dog! I figured out how to do some basic animation to get this droid careening into the enemy landing bay, hovering for an instant, then planting itself, extending its arms, and getting ready to use its tools to cause some dammage. You can watch the version I made for Instagram, which I had to…
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Mission accomplished. I wanted to knock out a full-fledged, original 3D scene before the year was over, and make a print [see bottom of post]. I’m planning more scenes with this droid, and I already shared a test scene, but here I created the landing bay, posed the droid with its arms and fastening disc…
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Up until recently, Basquiat’s infamous portrait of Andy Warhol was only known through a reproduction leaked online. An article surfaced in May of 2017 alleging this painting was being auctioned on the dark web for $150,000,000 following the sale of Basquiat’s skull painting for $100,000,000. Both paintings appeared to be from the same period, and…
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The end of the year is coming, and people are making posts about the art they created in 2020. I thought I should complete one full-fledged, original, 3D scene. How about putting my new droid-ship in an environment? Here I just tested making a quick environment just to see if I could put my model…
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This just means the model (or mesh) is finished. As is the rigging, so that I can easily pose it. Next up is the “materials” phase, where I will see about improving on the uniform metal texture. Then I’ll need to create some sort of backdrop or environment. But let’s get on to the new…
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New developments! Each of our droid’s appendages are now outfitted with tools for dismantling enemy machines, and the descending disc includes a suction cup mechanism. Let’s take a quick look at the tools: You just gotta’ have a saw. Each tool has an adjacent rudimentary eye (that’s the green dot). We’ll get to what the…
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It wasn’t even the plan. It’s a flying droid, and it has arms or legs that will be outfitted with various tools. I designed it to be able to stand, and even walk if necessary. I put globular, glowing modules on the tips of its legs to help it gain purchase on surfaces. But I…
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Remember this guy? I’ve made some additions and modifications. [Note: you SHOULD be able to click on any of the images to see a larger version in a new tab, if you’re using a computer, that is.] Working on the legs. It’ll have probably more than two, not sure about 3 or 4. You first…
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It might remind you of a jumping spider, a cuttlefish, or a Cylon ship, because it reminds me of all those things. This is just the main structure — OK, think of a head — plus a few of it’s extra apparatuses (eyes, guns, and ailerons]. It will get more weapons, a grill of sorts,…
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There’s something special about Blender tutorials. Even more than digital painting tutorials, you really get into the instructor’s minds, and learn their workflows. Part of the difference is that digital painting has a lot more to do with the physical process of drawing, whereas in Blender the computer handles most the mechanics of representation, and…
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A glass head! That’s the one idea I had before starting, and a vague notion that I wanted to go retro. OK, to be fair, it’s not really glass, but rather some super sturdy, shatterproof, glass-like substance, of course. It’s an excuse for me to put lights in there and who knows what else. The…
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Course evaluation of Blender 2.8 Complete Training by Julien Deville. This adorable robot is not my design. Anyone who completed the course would have produced something very similar, along with a bunch of other small projects. [Never fear, dear readers, in order to retain the skills we learned, I’ll create my own original robot next.]…
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No, this gawdawful mess is not my “art”! It’s a stage in a tutorial course, where I’m experimenting with how to paint on a model. I’ve done hundreds of hours of tutorials, and finally I get to some of the bits that for me are the real fun part. I mean, the main reason I…
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Waldemar (gotta’ love that name] has been growing on me. I mean, I disagree with him quite a lot, not only in his assessments of art and artists, but just in terms of how he describes what we are looking at. He might declare a painting morose that I find quite chipper. But after initially…
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The first version is essentially all Blender, and the second incorporates using Photoshop to show one desk as mostly wire-frame, and the other partially so. The concept addresses the theme of “modern learning”, and I was commissioned to create something along those lines for a forthcoming publication. My idea, because I am so busy learning…
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A possible downside of creating this vintage desk in Blender is that now I want one, and can’t have it. Even if I could track down one of the extant remaining models, and have it shipped out to SE Asia, not only would I have no place to put it, but it wouldn’t be my…
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I’m doing a little side project, or what would be if I weren’t involved in it (you’ll see why]. And when I say “would be” I’m referring to “little”. I’m making something for a publication on the topic of “modern learning”, and my idea was to use a vintage desk and make a gradient where…
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In 2020 you can make traditional fine-art still lifes using the free 3D modeling program, Blender. Above is the result of my going through an online tutorial by Zach Reinhardt, with CG Boost. It’s one of several tutorials I’ve been doing simultaneously. I added the bananas, changed the materials on the knife, and did my…
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Long term followers of my blog know I’m not a huge fan of Maurizio Cattelan’s banana duct-taped to a wall stunt. Some might even say that I was one of its most outstanding critics [see: Is Maurizio Cattelan’s $120,000 Banana Brilliant Art or Bullshit on a Platter? and A Moment of Solipsism Triggered by Maurizio Cattelan’s Banana.]…
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My obsession with Blender continues, and I’ve been doing a bunch of tutorials and courses simultaneously. One has you make a basketfull of apples. After learning how to make the apple with the provided resources, I thought I’d practice what I’d learned on another fruit. First you sculpt your banana, which was more challenging than…
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