[FINISHED] Dynamite Bag | Stylized Prop
I’m not sure if anybody will actually take the time to read through any of my little squiggly artist commentaries but…what the hay, I’m gonna talk anyways and for those of you actually reading this---hello and thank you for reading!
Y’see there comes a time in every artist’s creative journey when you’re torn between both scrapping a project and moving on vs taking a break from it and returning to it later. I started this project about a couple months back at the start of the year but took a break from it in order to complete another project that I started around the same time which was titled “Zero One”---based off concept by artist Nigel Goh. You can find the completed piece over on my Artstation and Art Blog.
Like
many of my 3D projects, this current project is based off of an original
concept by artist: Daniel Protsenko.
This is the second design from Daniel that I wanted to translate to 3D and was
actually meant to be one of a three-part
mini-project inspired by his work where I challenged myself to complete models
of three designs that I really liked from Daniel.
It was only last week when I resumed progress on this project with the intention of completing it by the end of this week. That was the deadline that I set for myself. Everything was going pretty smoothly…until I began the texturing phase.
No matter what I did---not matter what techniques I applied, I just ended up not being quite happy with the outcome. It just…wasn’t working out for me with this project. I went into this project with the intent for it to have a blend of stylized PBR with a bit of a hand-painted finish as I’ve been experimenting with that a lot lately and that’s the style I wish to master as someone aspiring to become an environment Artist. Lately, as I continue to explore my 3D skills, I’ve been contemplating a lot on the type of 3D artist I want to be. What type of 3D art would I love to see myself making and possibly even specialize in one day?
And ultimately, I decided that I really wish to become a 3D Environment Artist with a preference for stylized props and environments because that’s what I love. It’s what I’m most passionate about and in respect to this current project that I’m sharing, it’s what I’ve been slowly training myself to get better at.
The thing with that is, as an artist, often times I don’t like dwelling too long on a given project. Particularly ones where I more find myself feeling dissatisfied with the results and growing more impatient and frustrated with the project as opposed to just having fun and enjoying the learning process. I tend to work on what I often describe as a “creative drive”. Just imagine one of those little HP or MP bars that you see in videogames but in my case, rather than representing health or magic stats, my creative drive represents it’s my overall interest in or the amount of creative energy that I have to invest in a particular idea or project.
While I could always take another break from this project and come back to it, however if I do that, chances are that later I either a) may not wish to resume this project at all and leave it incomplete/scrapped or b) may or may not have the same level of drive that I originally had for it in the beginning, if that makes sense. It’s one of those cases where I go “If I don’t finish this now, chances are I will never finish it”; y’know what I’m saying?
It was then when I found myself at what I’d like to describe as a “creative crossroad”. I could both scrap this project all together and move on or I can take yet another break from it and come back to take another crack at it at a later point. After a week of struggling over this project and feeling dissatisfied with the results I was getting, I can feel my creative drive for it simmering to a slow crawl. And it’s at this point where I come back to my creative crossroad question. In the end, I decided on going with the latter which was to simply just power through and to quote Tim Gunn from Project Runway---“Make it work!”. Sometimes that all you can do to finish a project.
I didn’t want to scrap the project all together since…there are elements to it that I quite like. Techniques and new approaches that I wanted to experiment with for this project that I feel super proud of myself for doing. So I didn’t just want to not finish it. So with what little drive I have left, I'm gonna do my best and power through with this project.
To help with that, I’ve decided to start documenting my ongoing progress with this project (as well as any others I plan on doing moving ahead) here on Polycount. As someone who enjoys sharing and talking about her progress as much as learning from others who share theirs, I’m hoping Polycount can be a good platform for this. I’ve heard that Polycount is good community to receive constructive criticism and feedback so I’m hoping that I can take advantage of it.
With that being said,
here is where I’m currently at with the progress of this bag:
I think the metal parts are slowly starting to look decent, at least to my eyes. Any feedback on how it looks thus far will be greatly appreciated.
Hoping to make more progress with this over the weekend.
Replies
- Your yellow its so saturated and bright, try tweaking values and hue shifting.
- The straps on the concept are bigger and wider than the ones you modeled. You are also missing that X detail (at this point you might paint it on the albedo)
- Try adding some reddish-brown hues on the handle and lock to create some contrast. Same on the brown parts, look for something blue-purple-ish to add into shadows so you give it more visual interest. It's a WIP but at the moment its like you have the same color with different values.
-I wouldn't stick much to the color of the concepts since they are influenced by some blue/green lighting.
In case yo udon't know them, I recommend you to look at https://www.artstation.com/curlscurly and https://www.artstation.com/orb , those are some stylized environment artist I think you might use as inspiration
GOOD LUCK!
Hi @UchiLT
I’m new to Polycount so I’m still very much figuring out the site and how to use it. I actually ended up finishing the project on my own and I didn’t notice your feedback until I checked my Polycount today. I figured Polycount would’ve notified me via email or something about comments or feedback but it didn’t. So I’m afraid I’m only just reading your feedback today. Sorry ^^;
I actually ended up making some of the tweaks that you mentioned in your feedback on my own. But for the most part, I also just went with the same vibe that I had before which was to power through and finish the project to the best of my ability.
Still I wanted to thank you so much for your words of encouragement and your feedback. Wish I had seen it sooner. But still thank you so much. Ironically, I do know about Jasmin [curlycurls] and Orbs and definitely plan on studying their work more as I move onto other projects. So again thank you very much for your time and tips. Much appreciated.
I would actually like to close this topic or delete it since I'm done with this project. Since you're more familiar with the site, do you know how I can delete a topic on Polycount by chance?
I've never tried to delete a whole thread, what I do its editing the name of the thred and add [FINISHED] at the very beginning so people can see it at first glance