Hi there!
Welcome to my Polybook where I will post my current work in progress.
I wanted to get back to some hard surface as I've been concentrating on characters lately and in my mind I've planned a motorbike of some sorts for a while. Also, it seems to be a good time to transition to 2.8 so I'm gonna work as much as I can in there.
I didn't want something too complicated as my last attempt at a motorbike wasn't that successful really so I've decided on one of those old school bikes, a Triumph Tiger Cub. Luckily for me (not so much for my wife :-) ) there was a classic car and bike show not far from where we live. They had a tiger cub which I was able to take some good reference shots of.
I've just started with a basic block out for now, hopefully I can get a bit more done this weekend!
ssmurfmier1985 That's great to hear! It might be a bit slow going though, I'm not the fastest :-)
Here's a bit of progress today, I figured the front wheel was a good starting point and I should be able to get the rear for free, or at least some of it I hope (it looks like the brake drum is on the opposite side in reference pics). I found using the array modifier was pretty useful here as I've only had to model a few spokes and a small part of the rim. I'm not quite sure if my spokes are 100% how they are in real life, but I've decided to go down the plausible road with this project. I'm thinking the engine might be one area where I need to use some artistic license as it looks pretty intricate, but for now I'm avoiding it :-)
I tweaked the frame a little bit, I've just been using some beveled curves so I can adjust these as needed and the tyres are just place holders for now. I'm not sure if I can make the treads as a texture or if it's better to model them, I'll cross that bridge later on.
beefkeef Hi, and welcome to the community! I understand not wanting to post WIPs because projects can be quite personal since it's something you made and take a bit of pride in, but I always come back to the question of how does one improve if one never shows their work? Good for you for taking that first step in getting feedback.
As for your motorcycle, it looks pretty good so far. Keep it up!
silentheart00 Keith won the cgc challenge so I'm guessing he's not entirely new here ... ;) he has a cool new profile pic though :)
silentheart00 Thanks for the welcome Silentheart! As Miranda mentioned I have been hanging around here for a while but never really ventured onto the forums too much, so it's nice to meet you too! :-)
You're absolutely right! Getting feedback is really great, good or bad because it helps one grow as an artist and I'm always grateful if somebody has gone out of their way to make some constructive feedback for any of my previous work. I guess maybe because my WIPs are pretty rough I felt a bit weird about putting them out there! And maybe there's a bit of fear too, of not finishing something I started because that never feels good, right?
Only time for a little bit of progress today, I used part of the tyres to make some mudguards with a solidify modifier and tried to keep the edge flow correct to allow me to extrude some details that I might need later. I might need to shape the seat a bit more, but at least something is there to sit on, and it's slowly starting to look a bit more like a bike now!
A little more progress today, the day job just gets in the way sometimes! :-)
I've added a few more basic shapes here and there, not too much detail on those parts just yet.
I wasn't sure about modelling the tread on the tyres or using a texture somehow, but after thinking about it I decided on the former - I found out that these bikes tend to have a more nobbly tyre at the back and the texture just wouldn't work I reckon. Seems I didn't get the rear for free after all !! :-)
I've been suffering with a few crashes in 2.8 just when I'm panning the view around, of course always when I haven't saved in a while. I did install some new video card drivers and grabbed the latest version of 2.8 too - no more crashes so far which is good.
Headlight and engine are going to be tricky, so I'm still avoiding these parts for now!
It's not good news here!
The crashes on my PC have come back with a vengeance and currently I'm not able to do anything except browse the web or watch videos on my machine. Working in Blender or trying to kill a few people in Hitman is just totally out of the question!
It looks like I finally need to upgrade my PC, which is pretty overdue as it's getting pretty old now. I've done a fair amount of troubleshooting and it appears to be a problem with the GPU. I planned an upgrade this year anyway, but not until later in the year as I have other commitments right now.
So in the meantime I'll just have to put my 3D modeling on hold for a few months and come back to finish this project when I've got a (hopefully) shiny new system sorted.
Well, I'm back here and blowing the dust off my long forgotten Polybook! Santa was kind enough to bring me a decent PC this year - so no more random crashes now! It's heaven :-)
I've only been away from modelling for a few months, but it feels quite overwhelming looking at the motorbike I was working on. I figured that a few easier projects should get me going again. And then come back to the bike.
I had an old clown project that I worked on last year that just needed finishing off so that seemed like a good place to start. Here are some work in progress shots that I kept, maybe it's useful if anybody else is doing something similar. It's based off a nice 2D reference from Fred Fields that I stumbled across one evening.
For the block out I just sculpted on a sphere to get the basic proportions, I found the standard inflate and clay strips brushes good for this. For the mouth cavity, I used Kent's trick of masking an area and inflating it inwards to give me what I needed. The hat was a simple skin modifier extruded in to shape.
I then added some simple teeth to give him his winning smile, and just added more details where I could - gradually going up in detail.
Thanks spikeyxxx I'm really loving the new PC, much much faster than the old one! I decided to go with AMD this time as a change from Intel and so far I'm glad I did!
Here's a few more WIP shots that I took, this time working on the hair. I used a simple plane to make a low poly 'scalp', and then grew hairs out of it using the particle system. Then it was just trial and error changing various settings until I got something half decent. I repeated that for his eyebrows and some stubble too.
Hair 1
Hair 2
Hair 3
Next was the body - just using the skin modifier again to get the rough shapes I needed, then adding the detail in gradually.
Once I'd got to this point, I decided to put him into a pose. Then I sculpted a bit more adding creases and wrinkles. To be honest, I found this to be the hardest part - it's really difficult to make creases look 'natural' and I started over a few times in the process.
The next step was retopo and unwrapping, not my favourite part of any project but it's totally worth it when you come to paint later. It's not perfect by any means, but I feel like I'm getting better at this process, slowly!! :-)
I then went on to bake some normal maps from the high poly objects to use in substance later.
Here is a close up of the eyes for Monica ffreiredesign
Nothing too fancy at all! Just some spheres that I squashed a bit, and flattened. Then it was very easy to paint the iris in Substance
Final result
A little bit of progress on the Cub today, I blocked in the cylinder shape in the engine and just added some shapes here and there. I sculpted the crank case and quickly cut some holes using a boolean shape, just as an experiment - I'll come back to that bit later!
Still looking a bit basic and lots of things to add, but it feels good to be working in blender again! Slowly getting used to left click select too
A couple more progress shots, it's looking a bit better with the headlight in place!
I had quite a productive weekend with Blender, and I *think* that I'm done with the modelling now - apart from the chain but I'm worrying about that later! Oh, and maybe a cable or two, but nothing major.
So, I should unwrap it all now and get it ready for painting - that will definitely take a while :-)
