Final Major Project

WEEK 1

this week ive looked at many different ideas and ive tied to find a group of things i can test out and start drawing and start to develop some sketches. i also like the sound of the project and im excited to start it. 

WEEK 2

 so this week ive started some sketches on the violin im really liking the idea of modelling a violin. i like it because it gives me a challenge. Next week i will start looking at other objects just in case i prefer something else. 

WEEK 3

I only worked more on the violin this week i started doing more professional drawing so not so much sketches. Micheal is bring in a violin for me next week so i can get my own resources. 

WEEK 4 

This week i was able to get my own resources and again i started trying modelling in Maya and testing out new things. 

WEEK 5

 Okay so ive changed my project idea ive learned it more towards potion bottles. i made this change because i can do so much with a potion bottle. for example i can do so much more research with it. 

WEEK 6

 This week ive worked more on colour schemes and started to look at the stereotypical idea for most potion bottles. 

WEEK 7 

this week i will focus more on modelling the potion bottle. i will watch tutorials on how to model the bottle i may have to watch perfume bottle ones and then change it to fit my bottle. 

WEEK 8 

This week ive just been working on my potion bottle. 

WEEK 9 

this week im going to be working on texture work and add textures. i will make my own in Photoshop and i will make it to the colour scheme. 

WEEK 10 

okay so its getting close to the end of project so im making sure everything is done to the best it can be. 

WEEK 11

This week im putting final touches on it so i can start working my evaluation next week. 

WEEK 12 

working on evaluation week. 

15/03/2017 This week my targets are:

• Carry on with research 
• start looking at concept art and showing that I'm coming up with idea's
• Also get own sources of my project e.g. get pictures of Violins 

Research

My project I’m going to model and create concept art for the asset of a Violin. The reason why I picked a Violin because it is an unusual shape which will create a challenge but it will also make a charm of an asset. Also with a violin I can make it to my will I can add my own small designs and add a story to it. For my own research I have took photos of a Violin my friend had bought in for me so I can Life draw it and also have the object right in front of me to model as it would be easier for me. Here are the photos I took and the one drawing I have done. I have made a Mood Board to.

This mood board shows all sides of  the extent of design in Violins. In this mood board I made you have the basic and very well know Violin and then it moves onto violin in concept art and how they have taken the basic idea and shape of a violin and bent it too there will and made a sci-fi looking violin. Further more there are a couple of designer violins you have the glass violin  on the top right corner and the bottom left violin that is painted they are designer Violins. The woman on the bottom right is my inspiration for the project her name is Lindsey Stirling she plays the Violin and she plays all kinds of violins she doesn't stick to the basic orchestra violin she plays electric violins. Further more in my project I'll talk more about the different types of Violins.

Structure of a Violin

For my project i will only be focusing more on the front of the Violin not really the inside because we cant see it. The main parts of the violin I'm concentrating on most is the Tailpiece and the Bridge also the Finger board, Top Nut, Scroll, Peg Holes, Peg Box and lastly the F-hole. The reason why I'm looking into these more is because they have more detail which mean they need more time to model so i want to balance my time out correctly when i come to make them.

My own Sources 

These upcoming photos are taken by me. My classmate bought there Violin in for me to use for reference and sources in my project so I took close and detailed photos of each part on the violin. I made sure i got each part of the instrument so  when it came to modelling it wouldn't miss a detail, i will explain under each picture I took what details I'm going to pay attention too.  

On this photo I'm going to concentrate on how the head has a slight dip in it which can be easily missed. This will be a nice touch to my model if i don't miss it when i come to modelling it. More over when it comes to UV i will have to add a shine effect so i can get the wooden material as perfect and as close as I can too  the original item.

The detail I'm going to pay attention to here is the the swirl in the head. This will be difficult to recreate in Maya at starts as I've never done anything like this before so it will be a good challenge.

The detail I'm going to pay attention too in this photo is the Lip that is holding the tension in the strings as there is a lot of detail and cut outs in it. Also further more in texturing it has a very pale wooden pattern with small freckles of colour so i will have to make sure i accomplish that when I come to texture it.

same again in this photo from the last, but I will also make sure I model the strings to show there is tension in them even though it's a very small detail it matters with this instrument.

22/05/2017

Start new

Potion bottle

I’ve decided to change my project I’m changing it to a potion bottle. I’m doing this as it’s a nice small easy asset that is very popular is games and is unmissable when it is seen in a game as it’s a key item. Also there is no end to the design on a potion bottle you can have it any colour any style and detail it’s how you want it. More over a potion bottle is such a nice asset to the project because I’ll be making a very well known and loved item from games. Potions are found in most games and the potions go from health to magic to poison so it’s not like I have to stick to one type of potion even though I’m going to make a Magic potion. The key thing that makes each potion stand out for what it is before you even see the name is the colour and I will talk more about this further into my project.

Mood Board

In this mood board you can see that there is many different versions in a potion bottle there is some concept art and some 3D models of potions. This is what I aim for in my project to reach the level of what I have found for this mood board I’ve created. These give me a lot of inspiration for what I have to come in this project. The key things I see in this mood board is they use the colour green a lot which makes sense as the colour green is associated with health and healing this is why the potion bottles are mainly green. I'm going to use these as inspiration for the way i design my own potion bottle.  

As you can see I have made a mood board around health potions to show the stereotypical looking health potion and the main colour that stands out for it happens to be the colour RED. This is because it relates with the colour of the heart which is red and also blood it's like it's a metaphor for restoring lost hearts or blood which equals lost health these potions are all from different games that have different developers which shows that this stereotypical colour is across the board and not just to one game company so this shows the favouritism of it and how it's stayed over the years of games. You have Skyrim leading to Final Fantasy potions in this mood board and it still stays to a theme that all the gaming audience understand.   

Here I have made a mood board for Mana potions to show the stereotypical mana potion is games all over the boards as it's easy to see the main known colour for mana potions is BLUE this is because the colour blue is known to calm down and also aid a person also the colour blue is a colour that pops and is difficult to miss.  

IDEAS ON LIQUID DRAWING 

Disney Designed bottles

THE HISTORY OF POTION BOTTLES IN A WELL KNOWN GAME FRANCHISE 

           

BOOK REFERENCE
I was looking at the influence potion bottles have on many different things in the world and my tutor told me the name of this book and this book has some beautiful potion bottle artists work on it. All of them contain a girl in the bottle whichas adds a weird but Unique touch to it. The book is called 'The sin eaters daughter' I haven't personally read the book myself. I've only added just because of the beautiful art work that relates too

The inspiration I got off all these bottles is that they all have a theme and themed colour this is made and from the girl in the bottle of you notice the colour theme is made around the girl in the bottle. For example if we look at the last bottle the girl is in a orange coloured dress and the rest of the bottle is then either yellow and red that really shows alot of contrast.

  INSPIRING ARTIST 

 I was looking at Different artists too inspire me for the potion bottles. On ART station I found this artist called Vera Velichko. She is from Russia and is very popular on art station. What inspires me with her art is that she doesn't miss any detail she captures effect of coldness or warmness of the bottle of potion. Just from a quick look your mind wonders on how this bottle can be and the back story I have put some of her work underneath to do with potion bottles. Also the detail she adds to the assets on the potion bottle is really effective she doesn't miss anything at all. The main thing that stands out for me is the glow she adds to the liquid really sets the mood off from the drawings.

 With this bottle what really stands out is the beautiful decoration that is around the bottle also the glow from the bottom dying down into a dead/mystic blue. How the light bounces off the bottle really captures what the bottle is really about, it adds the sense of mystic to what is would do if it was put into a game.

 This bottle is really calming to look at. The colours they have used are really complimentary with the whole bottle this bottle has an Egyptian feel to is with the gold and the Ruby red bottle. Again the lighting in the bottle adds a nice glow to the bottom half of the bottle and a nice shine to the glass on the bottom half to the left. The writing at the bottom also the old writing on the bottle shows the story of how it may be a ancient potion.

 This is my favourite potion bottle out of them all. I live the glow to it and the moths that are flying around it that are attracted to the glow of the bottle. The colours are soft and calming too look at and the way she has drawn her moths in a soft brush adds to the way of how calming it looks because of this, this bottle shows how it may be a healing bottle with how soothing it is too look at. The small rope and tag on the bottle make it look like it's a elvish potion bottle or a bottle from the warrior times .

This bottle straight up reminds me off a bottle from a tavenue in the local village with rough and damaged it looks. The rope also gives it this effect that it belongs to a poor traveller that can't afford much. They may even have alcohol in it for how it looks. This is achieved with the rough textured green they used for the body of the bottle and the dead green makes it look very old.  Also the rope looks like it's had good use to it, the way she has achieved this is by the frae of the rope .

This bottle has a soft and royal touch too it. This is because of the soft and calming colour blue and also the lid of the bottle the amount of detail put into this bottle is really nice and has a delicate essence too it. The shine to the metal of the lid is also another nice touch to it makes it look lighted which leads the the fact it looks like a health potion of some sort a potion that will help you.

With this potion bottle I really like the colour and how it's a bit damaged at the top where the Cork is it really adds something to the bottle like a back story.

This bottle looks like it could be poisionness with how it looks like blood is splattered all inside the bottle.

The brown bottle looks like it's part of a dark potion.

I did a sketch of all 3 of them next to each other. With them all next to each other it has a nice touch to it because they are all so different in colour and shape and what story each bottle looks like it holds. My sketch really captures the look and what stands out in the bottles at starts. The way I've put all the bottles together at contrast with how the bottle in the middle is smaller than the other two bottles. Also how the bottles go in colour contrast order too adds a nice touch.

So here I have started my bottle and this is the Lip I made in Maya at the top of the bottle to give the bottle definition.  

I've started making a key for my bottle as a little charm on it. The way i designed key on the bottle is to make it look effective but simple too make.

This is the main shape of my potion bottle so far I went with the same idea of the Cork like the potion bottle I took photos of andetail sketched. Also I like the stereotypical shape of the potion bottle because it really adds effect to the fact it's a potion bottle.

This is how much I've worked on the key so far I'm not completely happy with it so far but I will keep working on it to see if I get something I like. 

This is how much I've worked on my bottle over the past few days I added a bead chain on it and I'm working towards finishing that you can also see my reference image in it too.

This is also the concept art I've been working on it really like the contextat the fact it's in a forest but I want to add more I don't think it's enough I still have to draw on the beads of the potion bottle and add a insect in the image to show the size of the bottle overall.

I drew a character with the potion bottle because I wanted too see it in context of the potion bottle belonging too someone that's why I did this character art with the potion bottle I also changed the them of it I added a mystical purple theme to it and the character I drew is a witch to add a dark side to the bottle that the bottle is taking over the witch with its poisionness gas.




STARTING A NEW POTION BOTTLE 

I didn't really like how the other potion bottle was working out I felt like I could add much more too it. So in my spare time I started watching tutorials in how to make potion bottles in Maya I'll put the links to them underneath my intro. After watching the tutorials I felt like I can do much more and achieve better now so I started fresh still around the fact of my potion bottle but I'm taking a different approach too it.

I started making silhouettes in Photoshop to get shapes together of what I want of my potion bottles into.

QUICK SKETCHES OF BOTTLE LIDS

The start of me making my bottles in Maya.
I started with the lid of the bottle I wanted to add alot of detail into because there is only so much detail you can but on the bodynamic of the bottle.

This is how much I've worked on this bottle top this lesson I've added nice a simple detail too it but enough to make it effective and over complicated.

Over this lesson I have worked on the main Base of my bottle and the shape of the first bottle because I have decided to make many different bottles to show more of my skill 

Making the skull

so I started with a cube and i cut it in half and I extruded it too this shape, the basic shape of a skull not fully complete but i will work on it more when i put more detail into it. 

This is how I have broken down half of the skull and how the polygons form onto the side of the skull. Ive also formed the eye cut out but it's not properly shaped yet. I'll come to shape it more when i come to work on kit more. 

This is the skull so far it's nearly finished I just have to line the bottom of the jaw and then I'll be able to copy and flip it so I wont have to re make the other side. 

This is my skull fully modelled obviously it's not to perfect form of a real skull it's not real life accuracy.  But it does add effect of a skull which is what i wanted for my potion bottle.  

This is the texture i'm using for my skull. It might be stretched on my skull when i put it on there but I think I'll like the effect.

Making of the flower

I used the soccer ball polygon to create the flower I deleted all of the faces but the ones that create a flower shape. 

I extruded the end of each side to create more of a flower shape and brought the ends up to add more of a flower shape to it. 

I then copied them and made them a bit bigger each time. to create more of a flower shape and then i shaped the hyper shade colour on each separate flower shape. 

This is my flower finished i just then got the sphere shape and used a yellow hyper shade to   add the effect of pollen. 

Textures

These are the textures I used for the liquid inside the bottles and the rope. i used these textures bc it would be easy to use when it came to UV'ing it.  Further more i used these textures because the small detail will add alot of effect. 

My backstory for my potion bottle
My potion bottle is found inside a medieval cave. This cave fell in a very long time ago and people in the village couldn't access this cave for many years even centuries as time went on nobody knew what was in this cave. Until this old man had a vision of this blood red potion bottle that seemed so capturing in this mans mind. Many nights after he kept seeing this potion bottle in his dreams and each dream answered more questions about what this potion bottle would do. Over man weeks he found out through his dreams that he only had 1 month left to live unless he found this bottle tat would restore his youth. The old man searched for this cave and he found it with only 3 weeks left to live. He found his rusty mining axe and spent weeks mining the bricks out   until he had hours left to live according to his dreams. As he took his last swing the bricks fell through to show this beautiful luscious blood coloured bottle filled with life. He stumbled to the bottle and took a massive drink from it. his youth was restored. My scene is the eye view from the old man when he first saw the potion bottle.    

Evaluation

For this project we had to make a asset for a game. The asset couldn't be a weapon or anything that looked like it would create damage or violence. So at the start of this project I grabbed many different idea's I started looking at Buddha statues because I thought that would be a effect idea and be fun to make in Maya but in the end I became bored of that and looked into many different types of items that would make good assets. In the end I came to the decision of a potion bottle. I chose a potion bottle because they are overly famous in games and in every game each potion bottle has in each game has it's own little touch to show it's part of that game. So i wanted to give my own twist on something that's so cliche to any game. I started by looking at different types of potion bottles and how the colour of them symbolised the meaning behind it and also the decoration of the bottle too. I made mood boards of the main two types of potions which is Health and Mana and i did further research which shows in my blog. 

Making the potion bottle in Maya really pushed my skills and I learned many new things on the way to make my finished piece. I started off not being to confident in maya this is shown with the first potion bottle i was working on. I did the best to what i knew but i felt like it wasn't good enough for the standard of this project I still continued wit it for a little while to try and get more out of it but i was never happy with it I didn't feel it reached the standard of work i should be hitting. So I started fresh and worked on my second set of potion bottles, before I started working on these I watched many different tutorials on different skills in Maya for the potion bottles I watched many perfume bottle tutorials because it was the most close i could get to potion bottles. Through watching this tutorials at home I learnt many new effective skills. When it came to making my new potion bottles i was more confident in what i was making. I was able to make a variation of bottles i made sure each bottle had a unique shape to itself and a different charm to it. I did this by making silhouettes of bottle shapes then i bought them to life in Maya. The research of bottles helped this because i gave each bottle a theme to what it would do. The first bottle i made was the Red bottle with a chain around the lid. This bottle was more difficult to make because it was he first time using these skills I had recently learnt but after a while it became easier. The chain around the top was was my favourite part of the bottle the chain was easy to make because once i made he one i just had to copy and paste the rest. The second bottle i made was the blue circular bottle with the Celtic crown around it. The bottle itself was easy to make because it was the same technique of making the other one. The Celtic crown was relatively easy to make I watch a tutorial in how to make it and then i did it myself in maya but i changed it a little to fit my bottle. Then I put a hypershade on it to give it a crown look. Moving onto the other things that really pushed my skill in my second scene I made a skull, rope and flower for the detail of the bottles. The skull was a test to make because i had to work out how to mover each polygon the create the shape of the skull. After I did that i just copied it and flipped it and lined it up with the other side of the skull and I combined it. For the rope that only took me around 15 minutes because I found a way to make it that would make it very simple. I lined up 4 circles in a square shape, the I used the curve tool and drew the shape i wanted the i combined them and extruded them to make he rope. The flower was made out of the soccer ball polygon, i deleted the faces so i got a flower shape and then worked with that to make it look more flower like and copied them and each time i made them smaller I placed them on top of each other and then i became a layered flower like a rose so yet again it was quite simple. I wasn't happy that all the bottles the the 2nd scene were so randomly coloured there wasn't a theme so I made all the bottles to different shades of blue. Then I had the idea to make it look like a pixie grotto but again I wasn't completely happy with it because it didn't have the focus of ONE bottle in it. So that's when i started fresh again and i made my third scene in 2 hours I was more confident in Maya this time from my practice on the other bottles. So my main aim in this was to give the lid intense detail so I worked on the lid for most of the time and i was happy with the outcome. I gave it a golden hypershade because I liked the sense of royalty in it. You can see the close detail of the lid in the screenshots i took while making the bottle. The body of the bottle was difficult to add detail because it being glass but I made the detail on the bottle visible when the light bounced of it, this is why I added bumps into the glass so the light would bounce off it and also you can see i added the chain onto the bottle like i did on my other bottle. Moving on the stand for the bottle was easy to make as it's symmetrical the aim with the stand was I didn't want it too over crowd the bottle it's self so that's why I kept it plain looking the gems in the side match the colour of the lid to show the connection of the stand and the bottle that it is supposed to be there. Again I took the skull rope and Celtic crown into this scene because I was really happy with the outcome of the modelling of them. I added them to my final scene so they complimented the scene not over crowded it. overall I am happy with my finished 3D model because i believe it shows my full potential of my Maya skills at this given time and it shows a wide range of skills I've used in Maya.

Moving onto the 2D art I did for my final scene the main problem to start with was the scene was to dark so when i first drew it you couldn't see the potion bottle at all and it just fell into the dark of the image, so i had to draw it so the viewer would be drawn to the bottle. I did this by taking the colour spectrum of red and used the lighter colours of it e.g. pink/orange to give it a glow look so it stands out and looks like there's some for of magic coming from it. I also put these colour on to the detail of the glass on the bottle, i did this because so it overly shows the detail of the bottle and that it's noticeable. I also had to draw the gold in the image much lighter and use more white on it to show the light shining of it. I did this manly on the gems on each side of the stand. Painting the skulls was difficult because I had to get the right shade of shadow on it so it wouldn't look out of place. and i made it look more softer in the 2D so it would't capture the viewers eye of the potion bottle. This also went for the other things in the finished painting I made sure it was only item in the scene that had sharp detail. The rope was easy to paint it was simple colour's of browns and the shade of those browns. More over the crown was pretty simple to paint because I just had to overly show where the light was hitting it and that was really effective it. The final part, I added a few things that wasn't in the original image for example I added red smoke going across the scene I did this to show that this cave was misty and old also I used the colour red to show the sense of danger and alert that this potion has been found further more I made the smoke red so it would match the bottle so it looks like the smoke was created by the bottle this adds fear and unknown about the bottle which is what I wanted to capture in my finished product. Also the small white dots were to show dust to overly show that this finding is really old and nobody has touched it for years. You could also say it adds a fantasy touch to the final image. Overall I'm happy with my final piece of 2D art for this project it has captured everything I wanted it too. If i had to change one thing it would be that I would draw the bottle much bigger but because of my scene that was very difficult to do. I love the colour choices on the image and the portion of the photo and i do believe the bottle stands out as a effect asset. If i had to put this asset into a game I would put it into a game like Dragon age or skyrim.    

The book covers 
https://www.amazon.com/Sin-Eaters-Daughter-Melinda-Salisbury/dp/0545810620
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31291543-the-scarecrow-queen
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26625494-the-sleeping-prince

Texture
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=the+sin+eater%27s+daughter&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=
https://www.pahydrographics.com/product/green-flames-100cm/
http://glitterbugwallpaper.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/GBW38-e1406716015926.jpg
https://www.filterforge.com/filters/9129-diffuse.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8d/d8/16/8dd816177dd196a9b1e2e7ea604f2a82.jpg
http://sutproxy01.corporate.bmet.ad/access/web?id=055f1318-421e-11e7-b678-0025906c75cc

potion bottle
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-potion-bottle-3d-model/888446

Buddha Pictures
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5f/e9/bb/5fe9bbefe3dcf310276313d4ec272eb5.jpg
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51rI%2BIadlyL._SY355_.jpg
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/165155511307765852/