I’ve been working on a illustration to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven”. After a good bit of modeling, I think I have the general layout together. Hoping to get some feedback on how things are so far. Some of the models still need more details (clock face, table legs, etc).
The bird itself is also a massive work in progress. Yes, it is unposed and just floating there. I’m still working on getting the plumage right. I’ve made a ton of progress, but still have a long way to go. The flight feathers don’t blend cleanly enough into the wing, and the head is still a mess. The amount of feathers and the stacking and such is off…etc, etc. Here are some closeups atm:
Very cool idea! Looking forward for a gloomy textured render. Overall shape of the raven is nice already, but the feathers on the front wings seem either to small or too puffy, can’t really tell which.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered weak and weary…”. My favorite author. I tried to do a scene from “The Cask of Amontillado” for weekend challenge #549. Nowhere close to the level you are working at though.
I am very curious as to the workflow on the bird modeling and how you would go about posing it later.
It took quite a bit of reference image comparing and trusting I had it right at some point (spoiler alert, I did have to tweak it a bit later). I retopo’d that, doing it by hand to make sure I got all the loops right. Projected that onto the dynamesh sketch, baked it down, and sent it back to Blender for feathers. To get the flight feathers, I’m basically using the same technique as this tutorial: http://cgcookie.com/blender/2010/04/29/modeling-feathery-wings/
Except rather than a single feather model, I’m using a dupligroup so I can have the feather made from two pieces. A plane for the barbs, and a beveled curve for the shaft. Gives a bit more flexibility and control that way. The body feathers are a particle system duplicating a single feather mesh (this one doesn’t have a shaft, since it’s too hard to see on those kinds of feathers).
The nice thing about setting it all up this way is I can edit anything on the feathers just by modifying a handful of feather objects off to the side in the character file. Eventually I’ll be rigging the bird and proxying that into the main file to pose it, but I haven’t gotten to that yet.
This is looking really nice already. If you will keep the same camera angle, you may want to add something to the empty space in the upper portion of the render. Seems a little empty.
After a lot of suggestions and offered-reference-pics for victorian studies, I’ve reworked the layout and framing a bit. I tried to make things feel more cluttered and claustrophobic. I’d always imagined this poem taking place in a dorm of sorts (or whatever the equivalent is) and a lot of images I’d found seemed cramped.
Speaking of looking through more images, I’ve dumped the board floor and am going with hardwood or tile (prob hardwood) instead. So for now the floor is just a flat plane. Bear with me on that one. I also added wall paneling. Not sure about this particular version. Looking through google it seems this wall paneling comes in a lot of different versions. I tried a few designs and this is the first one I managed not to hate, so sticking with that for now. (what’s the deal with that wooden wall paneling anyhow? Why was it done?)
I also did a detail pass on a bunch of environment doodads on Sunday afternoon, and worked on the bird a little more. I also extended the shelf on the door to try and give him more room to perch. (the Gustav Dore paintings unfortunately seem to have taken a bit of artistic license on the relative proportions of doors and ravens).
Making headway with the initial texture pass! Desk, clock, bookshelf, end table, frames, and coatrack still to go. And dealing with the books, but that is a whole different mess…
Note: the walls textures are just a quick 3D paint to get the detail scale and basic color/pattern down. I know they look very uniform atm, I’ll add some more flavor and details there later on.
Very nice! I’d also say the left corner one makes the room look more threatening…like walls closing in. Idk if you’re done with lighting already but I would personally make both textures and lights a little darker…So there’s room for strange things lurking in the dark corners
It looks decent, but I think I’d expect a little more variation in the wood style and hue between the chair, desk, door, and the shelves. Also the bookshelves are too wide; they would sag without support in the middle.
The raven itself is a little lost in the composition. If I didn’t know the thread title, I’d assume this was a picture of somebody’s study. The Dore picture works because the shadow looming over the corpse leads your eye to the raven above the door. There’s nothing in your room at the moment that would produce a similar effect.
Just to clarify, the scene is not at all lit right now. Just ambient light so you can see textures, I’m holding off doing lighting for right now.
@rjshae, thanks for the note about shelf width. I didn’t even think of that. I’ll add a support beam up the middle. I’ll work on varying colors on the wood up a bit more as well.
Not completely done with texturing, but got distracted trying to find a lighting setup that worked. After trying a lot of different things, I finally settled on something I liked. The supernatural halo on the raven finally feels like something that draws focus to it without being corny stage lighting.
Other todo items:
-Finish textures, primarily the desk and curtains
-Make raven materials/feathers look better
-Fine tune lighting setup so it isn’t so dark
-God rays, smoke, other effects/comp stuff (the godray right now is just a temp paintover from photoshop)
Tightened up a few things. And gave the raven a decent-enough pose rig. Starting to feel like I’m ready to be done with this project. Not entirely happy with some stuff though. Especially the curtains. I might try a few other things with the light on the raven. My hope is that with the final god-ray setup it’s more obviously sold as a “supernatural light”. That may or may not work though.
I also added wall paneling. Not sure about this particular version. Looking through google it seems this wall paneling comes in a lot of different versions. I tried a few designs and this is the first one I managed not to hate, so sticking with that for now. (what’s the deal with that wooden wall paneling anyhow? Why was it done?)
