inspiration – speed model

Awesome little video I found on youtube showing someone modeling in 3d with lightwave:

I really need to get back in to Lightwave. I might start doing some stuff with it in 30 minute bursts from time to time to get back at it a little. I’m still on version 9.6 so am a bit behind the times, but it does the job for now.

Eventually, I wouldn’t mind learning blender, but it’s got a gui that will take some getting used to. Who knows maybe there’s a online learning class for it somewhere? I have a book or two on it, but it’s still hard to learn. I’m still in the Canvas Network Social Media Class right now, and loving it. I signed up for a few other freebie classes there and at a few other similar places. I actually have http://www.class-central.com/ as a home page tab nowadays so I don’t miss sign ups. Not sure I’ll have time to do all these classes, but they are pretty fun, and free, so it’s definitely worth giving a try. Really makes you think and learn new things, even on topics you may already know a heck of a lot about.

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Art Challenges Links

I might possibly try some various Art Challenges eventually in the 1000 day challenge. I’m not sure about which ones, but I’m posting some challenges that I know about here for future reference. Even if I don’t take up the challenge, I feel these links might be helpful to any fellow artists reading this…

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=577284 – Weekend Drawing Events on WetCanvas Forums

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=197 – Mini Challenges on CG Talk Forums

http://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?22-Speed-Modeling-Contests – Blender Speed Model Challenges

http://forums.newtek.com/group.php?groupid=7 Newtek Speed Model Challenges

http://shootandpaint.blogspot.com/ – Shoot and Paint Blog Challenge

http://www.3dm3.com/forum/f82/3dm3 Challenges

http://www.united3dartists.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=20United 3d Artists forum challenges

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewforum.php?f=291 – Sketch U Cation Forum Challenge

I think Spindquad.com has challenges too, but won’t put up link now since google is telling me there is malware on that site at the moment…

http://www.good.is/post/the-good-30-day-challenge-art-every-day/ – interesting ideas how to add art to your daily life…

NanoWrimo – National Writing Month is in November. This challenge is to write an entire Novel in November of any given year.

http://www.julieduffy.com/creative-challenge/ – list of various art challenges online

11/21/2011 morning speed model – aircraft

Speed Model 11/21/2011 – Time took from about 5:00 AM – 6:23 or so.  Recorded video around 6:25 AM.  I’ll go back and finish it later. Trying to do a speed challenge like this daily til I get better at 3d modelling, and have some stuff to put on Turbosquid besides my texture photos.  If camstudio didn’t take so much ram/cpu usage, I’d actually try recording the modelling process as I work…  Did a 10 minute completely blind contour drawing before this.  Not sure if I’ll scan it and upload, but might later.  Learned to do that reading the Drawing on the Right side of the brain.  I think it’s a nice way to enter ‘r-mode’ before taking on something like this speed modeling stuff, etc.

 

New goals…

I’ve been procrastinating on things a bit, but no more! I’ve decided that I want to start getting up at 4 AM instead of 5. Up til now I’ve been trying to get up at 5, but usually ended up going back to bed til 6 sometimes, or more often got up and just wasted time online on forums, etc. Going forwards, I want to change that… I have no idea if I’ll be able to do this or not but think if I can I’ll see some major improvement in my art, in my attitude, etc.

Goal is to do more art, do it in a way that suits me and gets things accomplished, and make time to live life a little too more than in the past. No more wasting time…

so… tentative schedule is…
Up at 4 AM. Do 3 pages of Morning Pages for The Artist’s Way/Journaling/diary type stuff… Then eat breakfast (probably a bowl of cereal, maybe fruit on occassion) In theory, that’ll take up til about 4:30 ish… maybe 4:40 or 4:20 sometimes?

4:30 AM – 5:00ish (maybe earlier depending on the above) do a 10-30 minute drawing… probably with ball point pen since it’s a speedy thing, but maybe other stuff like charcoal or color pencils sometimes?… maybe even graphite even though I hate the shine graphite produces. Number one reason I hate acrylic too unless lots of matte medium is used – also why I love oil paint and have decided on encaustic as painting medium of choice…

5:00 AM – 6:30ish = Work on 3d Modelling. I’ll probably do speed modeling for now… then go back and redo the fine details as needed later on. Maybe do a whole week of work without going back in to finish it up til the weekends?… I’ve been on Turbosquid for a very long time, so am at the level in there where you can get the keywords for free, so those keywords will be my subjects for these 3d models since that’s stuff that is known to sell, etc. I’ve been trying to copy/paste the keyword lists in to an open office file every morning, and will continue to do so and then will pick the subjects that interest me… I may sometimes stray from that and use my own ideas or keywords/topics, but there’s lots of ideas in there, so I think I’m going to focus on that a bit.

6:30 – Take a Shower, Make Lunch, Get ready for work, etc.

7:00ish – Head to work…

At work, walk with my Aunt on my morning and afternoon breaks (assuming I’m not on hold with blasted insurance companies when she takes a break)

11:00ish (my time for lunch varies) Eat Lunch and Read a page or two out of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or The Artist’s way… Maybe other books on kindle, etc. Possibly do a 5 minute doodle session at lunch, but probably not as there’s not really much time since I only have half an hour lunch.

After work – Start up the Encaustic heating up as soon as I get home… Maybe draw for a few minutes while it’s heating up and the wax is melting. Paint after it’s hot with the encaustic til Tekla gets home.

When Tekla gets home, we’ll head to the Arc to workout. This is something I’ve neglected doing way too long, and is really why my sugar’s not under better control at the moment, even if it’s not too hugely bad yet.

After that we’ll have supper, and enjoy the rest of whatever is left of the night spending time with one another and enjoying our time together.

Go to bed around 10 or so since that’ll give me 6 hours of sleep. If I can get myself off of caffeine, I think 6 hours of sleep is enough… Going to be hard to do, especially at work since it’s free there and they have a huge thing there that keeps 3 pots going all day every day… they usually have one pot of decaf, one of regular, and one double strong – I usually try to mix half decaf with regular but half of the time the decaf is gone… need to drink water more, coffee less… very difficult to do, but I think if I can and can excercise more, this crazy schedule might work…

Horse Head © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Horse Head © 2011 Jeff Thomann

This is a horse head I created in Lightwave tonight as a part of the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188. It took about one hour and 45 minutes to create the 3d model. I may go back and add some hair to it in saslite eventually.

Speed Model Challenge: Spear

Spear © 6/8/2011 Jeff Thomann

This is a 3d model I created tonight for the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188.

The Model took me approximately an hour and a half to create, but I was a bit distracted since we were watching America’s Got Talent at the same time, and I was also using an internet browser to look at various spear reference images at the same time. I was originally intending to base this on the Hofburg Spear of Destiny that supposedly the spear that pierced the side of Christ according to some, but decided that since I was on a timeline in order to complete this in less than 2 hours, I was going to sort of go off in my own direction with it as a generic spear that just has the rough basic shape as that spear.

I probably spent about 45 minutes adjusting various settings in the procedural texture settings in Lightwave to get the texture I was aiming for. I didn’t focus too much on lighting the scene. It’s just using the generic default light from Lightwave. I didn’t do my usual 30 minute ball point pen drawing tonight, but that’s ok because we spent some time at the mall in Barnes and Noble tonight where I looked at several books and magazines related to 3d modeling and drawing. I’m going to consider that a part of my weekly ‘artist date’ for this week. The ‘artist date’ is a part of The Artist’s Way Process. It involves spending time ‘filling the well’ by doing various things your inner artists guides you to do.

Another part of my ‘artist date’ earlier this week was playing Grand Theft Auto, Vice City for a few hours over the weekend. It’s always a little fun to go and act like a crazy stuntman driver in that game causing all sorts of havoc. Neat way to blow off a little steam.

Ear Ring © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Ear Ring © 2011 Jeff Thomann
Media: 3d Model created in Lightwave 3d

This model was created as a part of the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188

Total Time creating this model with both the modelling, surfacing, and rendering took approximately 2 hours. The modelling took up the biggest portion of that time.

Speed Model Challenge – Dumbbell

Speed Model Challenge – Dumbbell

The above is a quick ‘speed model’ I did tonight for the speed model challenge over at cgtalk http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188

I plan to do more of these speed model challenges in the future to get my 3d modeling skills up to a level where I want them to be. The above model took me a little over an hour to do, and the texture (which I’m not 100% too happy with at the moment) took about 20 or so minutes. The model was created in Lightwave 9.

Plant

A quick little plant I just created for the speed modelling challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6915314#post6915314. Total time to create this was about an hour and 25 minutes or so.

Egg

Just a quick egg model I put together in the last half hour or so. Did this for the speed modeling challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6915314#post6915314