Week 5: Contextual Review. Storytelling and Mudbox!

So this week....

I have found free parking! And also get the benefit of a 1/2 mile walk per day, along the Perth Road!

I handed in my first course essay...
Brief:
Write a contextual review and subject a piece of literature to critical analysis.


Storytelling workshop - looking at themes, tone, structure, active questioning. This workshop was brilliant!
Mark Grindle http://writersfactory.co.uk/mark-grindle/ provided us with a comprehensive set of writing tools and methods, which will help us shape and refine the ideas and story for our final projects.

And today. Mudbox!
http://www.autodesk.com/products/mudbox/overview


Wow...

Check this out.
A simple cube, with a glass finish. Amazing to 'sculpt' in real time, as the highlights and shadows are perfect
and there is no lag whatsoever...

Cube, with an added new subdivision (a tighter grid mesh) which refines the image.

Playing with the sculpt tools.

Commands were sculpt, grab, scrape. I found that if I held 'ctrl' then the sculpt command was reversed and I could push the surface in. Release 'ctrl' to pull.

 The blue is the 'freeze' command. Any part of my model that I don't wish to modify

A simple sphere with a chrome finish. Similar move controls for the X,Y.Z axis to Maya

We imported an object file (.obj) of a basic head model into the modelling space

And then played!

This is my first attempt at a 'character'. The mud naturally lent itself to 'slack' flesh, so I had fun creating an old man...a tad grumpy too!

I used the reverse sculpt command to push deep eye sockets.
The mirror command (along the X axis) was great for creating symmetrical shapes, such as the
ears and the back of the scull.
I turned it off when creating the eyes and features, as I was taught in life drawing that faces
aren't symmetrical and they look more convincing if uneven.

Skin tone was tricky to create...the colour hue kept looking darker than the swatch, so I am going to check out Digital Tutors and practice!
Here's a quick dry brush of some hair...looking forward to following some tutorials to find out more about creating hair!