Blade based off of concept art
polycounter lvl 8
Hi all;
I've decided to take the plunge and start posting my work publicly instead of letting it sit unseen in my folders.
The above renders are based on Daven's art from the 2D conceptbank thread, so credit for the design goes to him. Comments and critique are appreciated - while I've been doing 3D modeling for a long time, I've only recently realized that I would be interested in doing this professionally and that I really need to buckle down and start learning seriously instead of piddling around.
I know I have a lot to improve, but I'd appreciate help in any form. I'm a self-taught artist so I don't have formal knowledge of quite a few things, but I've tried to follow guides and such where I can. A few questions I have right off the bat:
1.) How can I make the background less "boring"? I don't mean in the sense of making a fully-detailed background, but more so it's not just a solid colour to add more contrast. Most of the time I see gradients used, is that passable?
2.) I'm struggling a bit with how to render well (with Blender Cycles). I get the underlying principle of it, but how to make it look nice instead of just solid colors escapes me. I tried to include a bump map and slight variation in the texture nodes, but it ended up looking blotchy instead of worn.
3.) What would be the best way for me to improve from this point? I know I need to just keep making models, but there's a difference between churning them out and actually learning from them.
(Also, if someone could point me to where I could learn how to make images click-through, that'd be appreciated as well - right now RMB->Open in New Tab redirects to a much larger resolution).
I've decided to take the plunge and start posting my work publicly instead of letting it sit unseen in my folders.
The above renders are based on Daven's art from the 2D conceptbank thread, so credit for the design goes to him. Comments and critique are appreciated - while I've been doing 3D modeling for a long time, I've only recently realized that I would be interested in doing this professionally and that I really need to buckle down and start learning seriously instead of piddling around.
I know I have a lot to improve, but I'd appreciate help in any form. I'm a self-taught artist so I don't have formal knowledge of quite a few things, but I've tried to follow guides and such where I can. A few questions I have right off the bat:
1.) How can I make the background less "boring"? I don't mean in the sense of making a fully-detailed background, but more so it's not just a solid colour to add more contrast. Most of the time I see gradients used, is that passable?
2.) I'm struggling a bit with how to render well (with Blender Cycles). I get the underlying principle of it, but how to make it look nice instead of just solid colors escapes me. I tried to include a bump map and slight variation in the texture nodes, but it ended up looking blotchy instead of worn.
3.) What would be the best way for me to improve from this point? I know I need to just keep making models, but there's a difference between churning them out and actually learning from them.
(Also, if someone could point me to where I could learn how to make images click-through, that'd be appreciated as well - right now RMB->Open in New Tab redirects to a much larger resolution).