Adventures in 3D Modeling Cubes

I've been practicing UV mapping in Blender. I worked through some 3D animation tutorials about a decade ago, and then hardly touched the program since. I wanted to make 3D models to preview how boxes I'm designing will look when printed and assembled. It's been useful: I was surprised at how much worse the boxes look when I make the cube's net cross-shaped than when I made it T-shaped. (Note: I was very happy to learn the term "net" for when you unfold a polyhedron.)

Once I understood how to slice the model and arrange the nodes for the UV map, I wanted to get pretty pictures documenting the designs. That's where I hit a brick wall. I didn't understand how lighting works in Blender. After a lot of confusion, I found Wikibooks' Blender 3D: Noob to Pro, which has been a great help when other sources talk about what I can do, but skip a lot of steps in how to do it.

So, I had my textured model and my lights. I was ready to render, right? No, it turns out I didn't have the material set properly on my cubes, so they just rendered as a flat color. A sad, flat color.

I found out what I'd done wrong pretty easily (I was far from the first to make that mistake!), but fixing it proved vexing. I thought I had everything set up like the guides said, but it still didn't work. All I can figure is I must have been clicking around and toggled a setting that kept the other settings from working properly. Since I couldn't find where I'd gone wrong, I went back to square cube one: a new file. Redoing the UV mapping was quick and easy, now that I understand how it works. I carefully followed the instructions for setting up a new material and then roughed in the lighting to test it: BINGO! I had beautifully skinned boxes.

I've learned a lot today. Next I want to re-learn how to do simple animations.

Intergalactic Space Ferrets

I'm doing another #Botober drawing prompt for Artober. This prompt, "Intergalactic space ferrets," is from the Things list.

I made an effort to relax with this drawing and I enjoyed my quick ferret sketches. I made the background in GIMP and digitally collaged them together.

The Bot Said Y

Artober day 3: I turned to Janelle Shane's #Botober prompts for inspiration. Today's prompt from the Concepts list is Y. This is my drawing:

Personifying a Peroxisome

I love cell biology. I'm fond of lysosomes, ribosomes and the endoplasmic reticulum. Earlier this year, after reading an article about peroxisomes, I imagined a roguish character equipped with a large variety of vials containing powerful potions (representing the diverse array of enzymes peroxisomes can contain).

For my second Artober drawing of 2020, I present Peroxisome:

Foxy Start to Artober

For the first day of Artober 2020 I decided to draw a character for a multimedia project I'm dreaming up. This foxy fellow is holding a cue stick and looking fine.

Rain Deer 01

I have long had notes on a series of strange deer I want to draw. Here is one I created while experimenting with Rebelle 3. Please welcome Rain Deer 01 to the world:

Fruit Challenge Character 01

When I saw Sea Lemon's 30 Day Art Challenge: Fruit, I thought I might take inspiration from it and combine it with my desire to practice drawing characters. I drew a character and then did the coloring based on the fruit list. Here's my first drawing for this series:

And here is the drawing, digitally colored as per watermelons:

I'm not holding myself to finishing the challenge, since I started this drawing on May 2nd and only just colored it today!

Zinger and Hornet Illustration

Zinger (you know who you are!) challenged me to draw a hornet standing on a "zinger." I accepted the challenge, although I had to look up what a zinger was first! It's an in-joke, but I hope others will like it, too.

Inked with Sakura Pigma Micron pens, colored digitally

Wherever you are in the world and whoever you are, I hope you and your loved ones stay safe!

Athlete with Mattock 001

While I was riding in a car, I thought I saw a woman in athletic-wear holding a mattock. This is my interpretation of the sight, finished in different ways.

Digital Paintings 004 & 005

004 is another practice landscape. This one was inspired by Bob Ross - Ebony Sunset (Season 1 Episode 3)

Digitally painted landscape 005 is not based on a tutorial. For this one, I challenged myself to work from a random prompt. I generated this prompt from Random Landscape Generator

You stand in a hilly region smattered with broken dark stones. It's also replete with huge shrubs.  You can see a bog on the horizon and a monastery in the distance.  The temperature is warm and the sky is partially cloudy.

Digital Painting 003

Another practice piece, reinterpreting a Bob Ross tutorial digitally. Here is what I made inspired by Bob Ross - Mt. McKinley (Season 1 Episode 2)

Digital Painting 002

I decided to practice digital painting by interpreting another Bob Ross tutorial digitally. Here is what I made with Bob Ross - A Walk in the Woods (Season 1 Episode 1)

Digital Painting 001

I recently watched some videos of people following Bob Ross tutorials. Some of the artists in the videos tried to follow the oil painting tutorials digitally. I watched them struggle. Maybe it was all for show (having trouble makes for a more dramatic video), but I found myself thinking of ways to do it better.

I opened GIMP and plugged in the Wacom Bamboo tablet I'm borrowing from my mom. This is what I created following the video Bob Ross - Meadow Lake (Season 2 Episode 1)

This worked better than I hoped and makes me think I can do better. Now I want to practice more digital paintings of imaginary places.