Becoming great at anything requires constant practice and that is especially true with 3d modeling. If you're here it's probably because you want to become a better digital artist. I myself want to improve my 3d modeling and texturing skills and that means I need to model a ton in order to become better.
Building a consistent habit is the path to becoming great and with that I wanted to provide a challenge to anyone else here who wants to join me. The challenge will be to model one new 3d model daily for 30 days.
The goal of this is not to create amazingly realistic models, but to get you practicing your modeling skills daily. You are not competing with anyone here but yourself.
Each day this post will be updated with the object to model based on that week. Below are the rules and guidelines to make this more interesting:
Themes
To make this more interesting, every week will focus on one theme. Each theme will represent a set of 7 objects that are relatively easy to model, but each have unique elements to them to challenge you in different ways.
The themes for the next 4 weeks include: Home, Weapons, Props, Nature
Rules
Submissions
Post a rendered image of your completed model. While texturing won't be required, it is highly encouraged.
HOME (June 1 - June 7)
For this week we'll focus on objects found around the home. Typically these objects are relatively easy to model and reference. You are free to get as creative as you want with these as long as you modeling what is requested for that day.
June 1 - Sofa
June 2 - Lamp
June 3 - Book Shelf
June 4 - Coffee Table
June 5 - Lounge Chair
June 6 - Shag Rug
June 7 - Floor Speakers
Week 1 is Done! Congrats on making it through the first week of this modeling challenge. On to week 2.
WEAPONS (June 8 - June 14)
For this week we'll focus on creating hand held weapons. Think melee weapons. These usually have a mixture of primitive and complex shapes. You may use sculpting during these models, and some may actually require it to achieve the look you want.
June 8 - Axe
June 9 - Combat Knife
June 10 - Spear
June 11 - Shuriken
June 12 - Spiked Bat
June 13 - Sickle
June 14 - Nunchucks
PROPS (June 15 - June 21)
This week will be focused on props you might commonly see in games or background scenes. These can be reused to add "filler" to an environment. These props mostly reside outside.
June 15 - Barrels
June 16 - Tires
June 17 - Filled Trash Bags
June 18 - Concrete Barrier
June 19 - Shipping Container
June 20 - Dumpster
June 21 - No Object
June 22 - No Object
Vegetation
This week will be focused on organic plants and objects you'd find out in nature. Think of these as natural props.
June 23 - Grass Clumps
June 24 - Rocks
June 25 - Flowers
June 26 - Bushes
June 27 - Hollow Log
June 28 - Vines
June 29 - Trees
CHALLENGE COMPLETED
This officially ends the challenge, technically it's 29 days but we have another challenge starting up on Monday so use Sunday as a way to gather reference photos and start your next modeling challenge with vehicles!
Thank you for everyone that participated in this challenge. Some objects were easy, others were challenging and I hope you learned some new tips and techniques. This challenge was about keeping a habit going and learning some new techniques and use different tools to create something you may not have otherwise. It was great seeing all the new renders on a daily basis. Good or bad, you've created something and that's what matters. See you all in the next challenge!
jgonzalez hey Gonzo, I like these challenges of yours but maybe not handy to do these in the same months as a CGC Community Challenge and a Class month...
I didn't attend the first week because I was going through the art of sculpting course. I'm nearly done with it and since I love to model weapons, I thought I'd give this a shot. I hope being an hour late (according to my time zone) for the day is alright :) I started making it this evening so I had to rush a bit. Some minor details are missing.
It's a bardiche but bardiches are like elongated axes on a pole. I hope that's alright too :P
Modeled in Blender. Textured in Substance Painter. Materials were made in Substance Designer some time ago.
ssmurfmier1985 Yeah they can be moved around so there's no overlap with any other existing challenges or contests.
Hey there, *real* late I know but I've been fairly busy these past couple days. Didn't get a proper time to texture and render my speaker but here's the model nonetheless:
Probably won't be able to keep up for the next 2-3 days or so but either way I'll be seeing you all shortly!
jgonzalez Texturing and game assets are two subjects I'm interested in
jgonzalez I second the motion to keep these going and think your list looks good. You could also add texture creation to practice drawing and photogrammetry and such. That's something I want to learn eventually.
The challenge has helped me get into a practice routine which is something I have struggled with on CG Cookie. The casual format feels a like a happy medium between completely self paced training and classes on a fixed schedule.
Just a viewport render this time. I'm planning to take all of the weapons to Substance Painter when I finally take a spin on the trial month in the near future.
I'm going out today so I'll pass on texturing this one. The grip was going to be bone, the guard and the rest of the hilt was going to be brass and steel and the blade was going to be pattern welded steel. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Simple matcap screenshot :(
well I now know what a combat knife is, this one is not from army surplus. My time is up again, so it is what it is, at least you can tell it is a knife. Amazing the difference between evee and cycles and what a difference moving a light does.
Another day well spent, as far as I'm concerned!
The modelling took me about 8 hours, so I've only spent 45 minutes on texturing and shading and lighting and camera placement and background, but I'm quite happy with the result and learned a ton...
I am impressed by the great results achieved here in one day.
After my own solution were unseccsessful I grabbed a tutorial.
I need much more training and have problems to finished this kind of model in a short time.
I'm late posting my axe... I'm not even going to try texturing it, the mesh inside is a mess. I'll have to model a new one so that I can practise texturing. This was a challenging one for me, eh...
Awesome weapons everyone! Here is mine. I didn't follow any tutorial or anything for this and I think I did fairly well for the most part. The topology isn't as clean as I'd like, but I did the best I could. Also figured out how to bridge vertices, so that's a new thing I learned with this model. I usually add a noise node and use that for the roughness to break up the super clean look and this time it worked well for the metal. Reminds me of those Japanese blades that have swirl marks in them so I left it in.
As far as the recommendations for future challenges. Texturing is definitely something I can throw in. That's an area I really don't know much about though, but all the more reason to dive into something like that. For those interested in texture creation are you interested in using tools like Substance Designer (or Alchemist)?
I'd like to have the challenges rolling month to month as long as it doesn't interfere with any other community or class challenges. Maybe it's something that can be incorporated. This was mostly a spur of the moment thing for this current challenge so after this one we can discuss it more thoroughly.
So these combat knives are popular with soil scientist to dig and cut samples in the field. Some of them get handed down from adviser to grad student. I assume many came from Vietnam. Many pictures of soil profiles include the knives as a scale. Of course they don't stay as sharp with this kind of use.
jgonzalez I'd definitely love a texture challenge, I'm quite poor in that area. I don't know about the software you just mentioned, never used any of them, but it would be good for me to try either of them out.
Your combat knife looks good btw
