It has been an eventful journey, one which has gained me a hand full of new friends, and I have finally given in to working full time in February for Perfect Day in Soho. It has been a Perfect Day more or less every day. It has given me the opportunity to work for some great clients, interesting projects with a great team, and we have good coffee in the studio. We are spoiled.

Almost as a parallel universe in time, in the past 3 months, I have continued to  work on small freelance projects and attending an evening course at Escape Studios. The small freelance projects sneaked in to my current busy schedule because I knew it would make a real difference to these businesses, and of course, the flattering comments from the clients. They have now finally exited my evenings and free time.

Bellow is a few screen-shots which capture this parallel universe which consists mostly of very late nights, working weekends and an organized agenda.

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Tiny Treats

Branding, website design and website. www.tiny-treats.co.uk

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O Alentejano Bakery

Identity and branding.

It is worth explaining that ‘Alentejano‘ is the name for people from ‘Alentejo‘ in the South of Portugal. They are widely known for being the majority farmers and shepherds, with a very sedentary lifestyle easily found sitting under trees retreating from the hot sun in the open fields. Here are a few shots which illustrate what a typical Alentejano looks like:

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3D Chair, Roman sandals  and an apple using NURBS in Maya

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3D Tap, headphones and a mustang using polygons in Maya

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Currently working on final project

Final projects are due in September, and that’s to make sure we get it to look as good as if it was a real photograph; so plenty of time to polish off all skills needed: modeling, texturing, shaders, lighting and rendering. Bring it on!

I picked the Pentax K1000 as my model, and currently modeling the baby. Fingers crossed and I shall have time to finish this soon enough to start a second project before September.

Once I finish this project I will post up the blueprints I drew in Illustrator for anyone to use if they wish to model this camera too.

I will soon post progress on my 3D project, in the meantime, enjoy the rain.

Angel Hatching by Anita Klein

These are my findings for Mayfair. To find out more about the Big Egg Hunt visit www.thebigegghunt.co.uk.

First ever bit of lighting homework

I have named this post as Lighting a chess board #1 as I have a feeling I will be getting back to it and try to light it in different way.

My main concern was to avoid over-exposed areas and black shadow areas. I also added a 3D environment dome to bring up some reflection on the flat surfaces on some pieces. I’m pleased with my first attempt in lighting.

This was our first bit of weekend homework from our Maya Core evening course. I was really impressed that we were (briefly) but nonetheless taught about 3 point lighting.

Through other artists suggestion, I have started reading the ‘Digital Lighting and Rendering Book‘ by Jeremy Birn, which prepared me slightly to what was to come in this class.

I totally recommend and think it should be mandatory reading for anyone doing any course in visual effects for film or advertising. I have luckily found an online version of the book and think it would be a good idea to skim through here to get an idea of what it’s about and definitely purchase the real thing.

Chess board lighting – moon light

Chess board lighting – blue moon light

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UV mapping a wine barrel

We learnt about UV mapping, bump and specular mapping in Maya by practicing it all on this barrel on week 5, day 7 of the Maya Core evening course.

I thought the textures were so bad I didn’t even bring myself together to touch the files again. I mean, what’s going on with the floor texture? It’s like a 3D console game from 10 years ago – no offense to whoever was in charge of this, I’m sure this is probably meant to make us appreciate the stuff we will do further down the line during the process of the course.

It was a particularly tiering day, having been at work all day work all day doing a task which required some concentration for most part of the day; the texture below was created to simply amuse myself and stop me from nodding off with fatigue. There was another hour or so to go and it did the trick. You gotta have a bit of fun.

Something to make me giggle after a tiring day at work, the 3 hours of learning Maya

It was nothing to do with our tutor, Mark, or anyone in class. (just thought to make a note of that)

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First experience extruding faces

This tap was generated using box modeling. Again, my first experience with the technique and I enjoy it.

Most of the stuff taught in class is available on the e-lerning section of the Escape website, and I find it useful to go back to it after going through it in class, to ensure maximum absorption.

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First experience extruding faces

To exercise extruding faces we modeled a chair in class. This was week 4, day 7 which is an equivalent to the first half of the 4th day on the Visual Effects Professional.

I can see this becoming my favourite thing to do when modeling in Polygons. Also, knowing about pressing ‘G’ on your keyboard to repeat the last action made this class a little more enjoyable.

When I manage to keep up with the class, I tend to play around with lighting my objects.

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Learning about curves, NURBS and all that beginner Jazz

Here’s a little snap of my first few classes at Escape Studios, learning about all Maya basics: CV/EP curves, spans, proxy, revolve, lofting and NURB surfaces.

This is a shot from our 2nd week, day 4 of the Maya Core evening course, which is an equivalent of day 2 on the Visual Effects Professional course.

It was all slightly overwhelming at this point, having just started a new job as digital designer at Perfect Day Soho, and only ever used Maya for a Max. 4 hours as preparation for the course, it’s an interface that definitely takes a while to get used to.

Hopefully, sooner rather than later it will all become second nature to me, and I’ll be able to simply use Maya as a tool allowing myself to be more creative with my 3D work.
Ideally I would be able to make my simple NURBS and Polygon 3D data look like what Samir Ansari did to my obj file below.

My apple lit by Samir Ansari in Vray (quick test)

A new website has just launched for tiny-treats today – a bomboniere/favor company in London. 

The website uses  CSS font-face for the site title which is also seen in printed materials such as the poster below. The CMS is wordpress and this is a bespoke theme carefully hand coded for tiny-treats.

The photography used focuses in highlighting the gorgeous details of each product, allowing for space to breath and shine.

Click here to visit the new born favors website.

Celebrity Penguin – Canon EOS 450D with 100-200mm Sigma Lens

Action shot – Canon EOS 450D with 100-200mm Sigma Lens

Robin – Canon EOS 450D with 100-200mm Sigma Lens

Performing parrot – Canon EOS 450D with 100-200mm Sigma Lens

Pelicans – Canon EOS 450D with 100-200mm Sigma Lens

Celebrity Penguin – Canon EOS 450D with 18-55mm Canon Lens