After working on Mushrooms for such an extended period of time, one begins to go a bit let’s say, crazy…
Therefore, for a bit of a release from Mushrooms I opened up Maya again, what a relief it was to create something that wasn’t fungal or mushroom based… I was looking back through my sketchbook and I came across my design for the “Man-Made/Sci-Fi” Planet.
Just for a reminder…
Now, this was back in week 1 of our “Build a World” project. However, I just couldn’t help myself from having a go at making the circular rotating space station.
So I roughed out and based my design primarily on this design, but I had a look at other space station/shuttle designs. These were mainly within the futuristic Sci-Fi bracket of designs and were mainly to get me into the mood and thought process of space.
Some of my research:
Piece above – Artist: Dmitry Vishnevsky, Website: conceptships.blogspot.co.uk
Pieces above – Artist: Glenn Clovis, Website: glennclovis.deviantart.com
There were other pieces that I had looked up for research and inspiration. However, as I stated previously, I wanted to mainly focus upon my drawing from week 1, as I had already researched when designing it.
The “final” result –
I apologise for the poor video quality. However, this is the animation that I added to it… It does run on an endless loop. However, here is a 15 second video of the Space Station Rotation Animation.
I really enjoyed making this piece, I aimed to make it simplistic and smooth. I enjoyed putting the class lessons into action. For example, the use of groups as well as parent and child relationships between objects and locators. These were very helpful for controlling each of the rotations. I like the lower poly feel about it, I wanted to create a simple, smooth version of it. This is how I had envisioned it at the start of its creation, and I am pleased with how it ended up.
On that note…
On the theme of man-made and Sci-Fi, I decided to make the futuristic robot scorpion below. I based it of a Scorpion, and I very much enjoyed creating it. I posed it in a stance ready to attack. I didn’t use many sources or references for this piece as it was mainly just for fun.
I was experimenting with the combination of sharp angular edges with the rounded surfaces. The shell/body of the creature is very much angular and sharp, based upon more of a robotic shell. Whereas, the stinger is based more on a more smooth organic shape. Even though it was made as I went along with no real initial design, I feel hat it has ended up very well. In my opinion, it is reasonably accurate in its representation of a scorpion.
The idea for the legs probably came from another earlier drawing for a 2D Platform Game Character (image below)… This again was just for fun. I had made this based upon a conversation with my brother on 2D Platformer Games. It turned out to be very useful in the end and it was inspired by Portal.
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