Noodlecake's Sketchbook


I’m not amazing at Blender, but I thought this might be a cool way to keep track of my progress. I’ll include some of my favourite stuff that I made when I first started using it too. Still not very good, but I do more drawing and physical work generally. I mostly use Blender to try ideas out to inspire a physical piece.


This was a model I made for a university exhibition at Truro Cathedral, Cornwall. It was mostly so I could make a model from insulating foam using a milling machine, and then take a plaster mould from thast, and then cast into paper pulp. The image was modelled and rendered in Blender.

This was the end result. After all the work that went into it, I was too socially awkward to actually get anyone tyo take any decent pics of it, so I just have a few that one of our technicians took. There was a model of the little shard versions too but I didn’t render that one.



The first pic is the piece installed in the Cathedral, and the second one is my first cast of the main piece at the top. It fell to bits by the time of the exhibition so I had to cast a second one. Everyone says it looks like a death star, which is fine by me. :smiley: Not what I was going for but I can see the resemblance.

Pure experimentation trying to get my head around 3d modelling concepts.




Challenging myself by trying to model real things.


^ I think the image above was my first attempt at actually texturing something properly. I gave up, mostly due to feeling like my skills weren’t up to it. I would be able to do an okay job if I tried it again now, I think.


^ An attempt at modelling an old Victorian shopping till. I got pretty frustrated trying to get my head around applying normal maps and decided to leave this unfinished.


I had a bash at modelling a (quite constipated looking) head with no reference images. My first attempt at using any sculpting tools. I’m pretty okay at drawing faces with no references. It seems like if you have the necessary skills to draw or paint faces, sculpting heads in Blender must draw on those same skills because I found this much easier. At least down to the chin. I can’t draw bodies at all!

I can’t find the original renders of these, but they were initially modelled in Blender, and then an inverted version wasd milled out of insulating foam. I then used the insulating foam to cast in plaster, and then painted the casts with watercolours in an attempt at fresco. It was the wrong kind of plaster to use because it set way too fast.


^ Just plaster


Plaster and watercolours ^


Plaster and Indian ink, I think. It may be a mix of Indian ink and other inks, or it may just be navy blue watercolour. I can’t remember what I did.

I made these after getting my head around getting PBR materials working in Blender, and also discovering Substance Painter, which is about the most exciting thing I’ve ever used when it comes to 3D graphics. It’s so straightforward and gives such beautiful results.



This version was the original, although I did a lot more work on it without saving for ages and it crashed. Substance Painter doesn’t back up anything in case of a crash so I lost a few hours work. Decided to upload it anyway.