For the sake of some new perspective, I’ve decided to leave the first set of “Sprites” at this point. Completely modelled in 3d Max, rendered with Mental Ray and a little post production with Photoshop. The render itself is low rez as my poor machine can’t cope with so many mesh smooth iterations.

The inspiration for the characters comes from a few melded sources. Driven by the the endless stream of genius characters Theodoru Badiu creates in Modo, whilst I have recently become an admirer, through my 18 month old daughter’s TV viewing, of “Uki” with clean simple shapes and characters and some landscape ideas from Bob The Builder.

Any comments, crits and questions are very welcome

Currently I’ve been working on the 45* Block which evolves into the Torus ring and although there have been a lot of renders, this simple texturing of concrete slabs leaning into each other is my current favourite. I haven’t bothered to slip it into a fully worked scene, rather just using a daylight system and the factory settings to make this one look like it’s a sculpture on some beach/salt plain in America.

Another of the kitchen goods finished to the level of detail I think is necessary. For the front fascia I simply used a Blend Material and making an approximation of the buttons in Photoshop. Simple and yet I think effective.

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Probably wont do anymore to this one in isolation, rather create some more of the geometry for the kitchen scene and see how it stands up to the detail. I found a handy tip on a site a while back, and have used it here.

Create a number of black blocks in a grid, make them unrenderable and invisible to the camera whilst making sure they don’t cast shadows.  These attributes are  in ‘object properties’. What happens is, the reflective material of the oven has something to interact with and it gives a more realistic feel.

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As part of the ongoing kitchen scene I’m building, here’s the oven. You have to love the names given to them. Rather than cutting all the air vents in I think I’ll save poly’s and time by using materials to give the impression.

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As I’d been warned, the hair and fur modifier in Max takes up render memory more easily than a thirsty camel, so after a couple of crashes I’m glad to get out at least on render of the Butterfly. I will have to leave it there and thankfully my wife is pleased.

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Having nothing in mind to carry out, I asked my wife to suggest something to model and texture. ‘A Butterfly’ she said. And so duly here is the WIP of the tiny beast, I just have to decide what species. I had in a younger days created a ‘Vampire Butterfly’ . The caterpillar nestled in the neck of sleeping maidens and having drained them to a shell would form a cocoon and give rise to the most beautiful butterfly…hmmm I wonder

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A friend and I decided the only reason Solar Panels haven’t taken off is they aren’t sexy enough, so I redesigned and this is the finished result. Would you buy these rather than flat panels if the KW output was similar?