Ryeath's Sketchbook


(preview image)

Hello everybody.

As quick background I have no prior art or computer art training other than some sketching back in school 30+ years ago, so I am completely new to this.

I got started by playing a game which came with a dungeon editor. So in the process of learning to make dungeon levels people were talking about this free program called Blender and it could be used to make new items for the game. So I started using Blender to make some basic game items as shown in this picture. I had as little knowledge as possible when I started, not knowing what a vertice or a mesh was.

I made the altar, the gong, the urn and the gun (a request from another modder) from scratch and I modified the ogre monster from the game to make the ogre skull. I also retextured the wall hanging. I have been using paint.net to make my textures.

Then I found this website called Blender Artists and that’s where I learned I could use Blender to make pictures also, and there is this weekly picture contest. So I have been entering the weekly contest each week. I learn something every week and am slowly getting better. I have just started a piece that might be considered my first serious piece, but it is in the very beginning stages.

My stuff doesn’t come close to comparing to the other stuff here, but reading through the rules I sounds like it’s acceptable for even the upstarts to make a book, so here is mine. (I tend to ramble on…sorry)

edit: The bottom image is my very first Blender picture for weekly challenge #535. I didn’t know about curves yet so I made the facemask by extruding a cylinder over and over and over and rotating a little each time.

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The next picture is from challenge #536. I tried to make a hand holding the candle but after a couple hours gave up and just moved the end of the candle off screen. The time spent on the hand used up all my time and I couldn’t finish the picture how I wanted.

The one below is from challenge #537. This was my first attempt as using the cycles render engine.

The next is from challenge #538. This didn’t come out near as well as I had hoped. Still I learned quite a bit on this one, especially in the area of duplicate items and UV unwrapping. I tried to rig the turtles to pose them but failed miserable. The automatic weight paint did not work at all.

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Next up is challenge #539. This was my first attempt to sculpt a body. Most of the proportions are way off but I think it conveyed the message. I just used paint.net to make the clothes texture on the mesh.

The tree swing is challenge #540. Tried to do an unusual perspective on it. Finally used curves successfully to make the tree trunk. Could not figure out how to give the moon a glow.

#541 and I could finally sculpt something that looks like a hand, yay! Couldn’t figure out how to make the eyebrows render though.

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#542 is probably my favorite to date. I didn’t try to make my own textures, other than the label, using only cycles procedural textures.

#544 Again I got way to ambitious for the allotted time frame, as well as my own time limitations. After my last two this seems like a step back in the wrong direction.

#543 I worked a bit on improving my rudimentary sculpting abilities. Also first time adding post processing in paint.net

edit: got pics in the wrong order, had to re arrange descriptions.

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Last two and I am caught up :slight_smile:

Challenge #545. This one I made three big steps on, one I was able to build the model in the t-pose and two, I was able to completely rig the model so I could pose it how I wanted and three, for the first time I actually built clothes for the model instead of just texturing the mesh.

The last picture is my attempt to follow a tutorial on youtube by tutor4u iirc.

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nice sketchbook, you can clearly see through the post how your skills gradually improved… keep it up! :slight_smile:

Thank for the nice comment m_squared. I learn a little more each time. Wish I had more time to play around with Blender, but I think most people would say the same.

Here is one I did while waiting for the next weekend challenge to be announced. I followed a tutorial by VickyM72 on how to do abstract art. VickyM72’s sketchbook is incredible. Such a great eye for color and motion. On this I did the tutorial, changed the colors and a couple light settings, then did some additional work with layers in paint.net.

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Weekend challenge #546

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YEAH! Glad you liked it, and thanks for the shout! Nice work, keep it going!! :smiley:

Weekend Challenge #547.

I want to spend some more time on this one and try to make it better. I have already improved some of the textures and added some mesh objects to reflect in the mirror. I have also sculpted the flag so it is not quite as rigid and sculpted the stars match the flag contours. Once I get it as far as I can I will post the updated version as comparison.

A slightly more updated version (still a work in progress though)

edit: I think I’m calling this one done now. Perhaps I’ll revisit it when I get more knowledge.

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Weekly Challenge #548 - Ilizarov Apparatus. With over a million tri’s I should probably figure out the edge split or bevel modifiers. All geometry, no displacement or normal mapping.

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Quick update - my picture from #548 won the challenge, barely edging out mik1190 (which I think had a better picture though).

Weekend challenge #549.

A scene from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado.”

I was having a hard time getting more detail in the face. I started with a fairly dense mesh then applied a sub division mod, which apparently is not the way to do it. I am trying to re-topo the head, first time trying to do that, just to see what happens if I start with a different mesh and use multi rez. And try to work on the expression. Was going for fear but got “gee, something smells terrible in here.”
I was happy with the way the stones turned out though.

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A quick attempt at an abstract in the style of VickyM72 (although rendered in cycles). Just passing sometime before heading to the in-laws for Christmas dinner.

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I did an entry for challenge #550, but it was an unfinished piece so I won’t post it here. Maybe I will finish it up sometime.

Here is my entry for challenge #551. Tried a low poly cartoon look. The rug, floor and window are just plane with photo images. Looking at it now, I probably should have changed them to look more cartoonish to fit the rest. Oh well.

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Weekend Challenge #552 - Couldn’t really come up with a good image for the theme “Dreadnought” so I just made a play on the words.

Also my first dynotop sculpt. My sculpts to this point have been on sub divided cubes. I have since learned how to use the multi rez modifier so I can start doing that correct now. So much to learn.

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My latest weekend challenge entry. Like the flag entry I did earlier I think I am going to try and use this one as a learning tool and see how much I can improve on it. First step is to learn texture painting so I can paint right onto the mesh.

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And one more weekend challenge done. Had fun trying to figure out how to use the compositor.

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This one started out as another attempt at an abstract. I made a torus object, tweaked it a bit, and thought a star would look really good in the middle so I made a star and then thought that it looked neat, so I made it into flowers and scrapped the original torus object.

Anyways, here is “Star Flowers”. It’s my new desktop image as it matches our sunflower room décor at home. Not sure why the edges are white in the jpeg, but not in the png render image. Must have something to do with the paint.net program I used to convert the file types.

edit: figured it out. Guess there was a little bit of transparencies from the compositor. Fixed it in paint.net.

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I made this by accident but I thought it looked pretty neat so thought I would add it. I was trying to retopo the John Goodman sculpt. About halfway through I rendered just for giggles and the inkblot showed up. So I changed the world to white and re rendered for the final result.

Also added another weekend challenge.

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Here’s a quick sculpt (couple hours) done in small increments, a few minutes here and there. Not sure where to go with it or call it done.

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