Hey there everyone…just noticed something differently in the past few days.
While doing some personal projects, hardsurface mainly, im constantly leaning towards the support of kitbashing rather than traditional modeling.
for older projects i never kitbashed anything, everything was made frm scratch only. but after that i wanted to try kitbashing for a change and boom my projects were done quicker and results were astonishing and one of my artwork even got the 3rd place in BOBA 2023 under technologies category.
but then again im feeling i kinda lost something on the way. when i try to make anything frm scratch no kitbash included i always feel bored or even tired at some point, the vision is there but the process feels heavy and even if i make it it feels somewhat inferior to the other works i’ve done.
i know im unloading a pile of stuff here, but i love to know your opinions, same situations and remedy’s if possible.
This might sound boring… but… it may depend on the rigth mix… ?? You wrote:
Do you mean the whole project ?? Then start with kitbashing and maybe inbetween “make a break”… by doing some special modeling ( for the same scene )… maybe not even from scratch but by ripping something from the kitbash and use it as a base and do some variation…
Do not put yourself under pressure by “must do something from scratch”…
So in this way you maye re-discover the joy of blending again… ??
I think that in some sense kitbashing is a blessing, about having to deal with boring assets, as for example in forest scenes (rocks / trees / grounds) or cities (poles / trashcans / garbage / postboxes) etc…
These objects are something like pointless, because they do nothing other than fill the view with clutter. But on the other hand as well is very important to have them, otherwise your scenes would look dull and unbased.
Funny oxymoron, is that you have to use ‘boring objects’ in order to make ‘interesting scenes’. Nobody could ever knew!
However the looks of a scene are based only on world-building, so consider that in some cases you might have heavily polluted places, or other times super clean and neat places. It has to do with how the scene is supposed to be based on the world view.
(for example dozen of different houses… and no doors at all)
…so even for this it has to be suitable…
…and it’s always the details which make some things “plausibe” even if they do not make any sense…
For example greebles on starships, space stations, death stars…
…but also there are a lot of scifi-space-fighter-thingies with lots of different wings and engines… which do just look silly… maybe two different engines and proberly not in different sizes… anything else is just absurd… ( the half cylinder parted new xwings …turbine engines can’t go half circle !! ) or… see the above mentioned doors…
In some way, if you try to hit a very unique and fresh design language, you would have to make things from scratch.
Say for example that we talk about sci-fi or fantasy, as in Bioshock were it used “Art Deco” language, or in Fallout games it was something like “Diesel Punk” world, etc…
These are very unique cases, that they do require specially handcrafted assets, in order to make things very based and give a very specific vibe to the entire creation.
Now you could say, that going for a design like GTA5 or GTA6 where everything is based on the current era, where all assets are direct equivalent of the real world. These sort of games, fall into the REALISM category, mostly because in that sense is a direct reference to the everyday design/objects/architecture as found in the current real world.
Since there are thousands of thousands of realistic assets available on the market, it would be very questionable if you tried to make everything from scratch. Not that is a bad thing, but if you would try to weigh the pros and cons, you would have to find lots of justifications or excuses about going for it, or not going for it.
But say for simplicity of the example that it boils down to only about paying 100$ and getting a pack full of assets ready to be used. In that sense consider that at best if you spent 100 days (best case scenario) to create all of these from scratch, what was exactly the gain:
• that you saved 100 days of intense work
• that you accumulated experience
• that you have custom-handcrafted assets (you have 100% control of your IP to do anything you want with these)
• that you saved 100$ (and many more future-purchases)
There could be lots of different correct outcomes, so is not exactly easy to say that this is OK and the other is not, about making the assets (or not) from scratch. It is more something like a “strategy” related to business-oriented thinking or project management, is not an easy to think of it.
Well this is closely related to including external resources in your own work, assuming you’re using other’s kitbash.
I think when it’s about personal projects I think it’s kind of whatever it takes approach.
In the professional world, or if you do personal work in order to get a job, then my rule of thumb is it’s ok to use external resource as long as I’m able to modify or recreate it. Since this often append in professional world, everything you do is likely to be asked for change , so you should stay in control of your work.
Anyway, one solution to your issue is to build your own kitbash, so what you do is 100% yours. Which isn’t mandatory, but that can be more satisfying as an artist !
)… maybe not even from scratch but by ripping something from the kitbash and use it as a base and do some variation…
again… ??
…turbine engines can’t go half circle !! ) or… see the above mentioned doors…