A Day At The Museum.....

On the 16th October, AJ, Oz, Rich Daryl and myself jumped on the train and headed for the Nutural History Museum in London for some full on diversity research....

We were lucky enough to get to check out the new 'Cocoon' wing that houses the labs of the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity. The vast scale of the museums collection can be glimpsed in drawer after drawer of wee beasties ;o)

The achitectural gem that is the NHM, stunning!


The great man himself.... Charles Darwin, author of The Origin Of The Species.



Scary coconut cracking crab.



Armour plated beast.



Wooly Mammoth skull.



Armour plated little critter



For me, as well as the awesome collection, the building is also a major draw. It was built specifically for the purpose of housing the exhibits and has animals, birds and lizards sculptured into the very fabric of the building. Well worth a look if you're 'in town'

Spider customising ;o)

I've chucked on 'fur' Material now by grabbing Bitmaps of the original photo and applying to the shapes. I'm struggling to get the stripes on the legs right but I'm pretty chuffed with how it's going :o)

Modeling a Wasp Spider.....

I started the process with a Box Standard Primitive which was then converted to an Editable Poly. Legs were then added by Extruding Polygons. I tapered the ends of the legs by Scaling a Loop of Edges.

The legs and body were then Mirrored.

And the legs manipulated into different positions.

I then smoothed out the shape using NURMS Subdivision. For the body and thorax, I started with Spheres which I ten pulled into shape by manipulating the polygons. Finally the front feeding legs were added using cylinders.

Tiptree Heath Photos....

Wasp Spider similar to ones found at the heath.

Gorse

A hidden web in a hollow tree.

Research: Tiptree Heath Ramble.

I dragged lovely Anna out for a ramble at Tiptree Heath at the weekend (complete with flowery wellies;o) to take some photos of the insects and gorse.
Heathland is the countries most endangered habitat and we're lucky enough to have the largest heath in Essex on our doorstep.
To learn more about the Heath, and those that manage it, check the website..... www,tiptreeheath.co.uk

Lighting Tutorial

Pumpkin model created by tutor then lit in tutorial with various lightsources including an Omni inside.

Modelling Experiments......

Another Twisted Spiky Thing :oD

This one's had an Instance of itself Scaled from the original.

(See previous post for creation details)

Modelling experiments.....

Funky Spiky Thing :oD .....
The following are the rough steps used to create this funky image.....
Create a Torus Standard Primative.

Apply a Bevel

And a second which was then Smoothed and Subdivided with NURMS.

The spiky torus was then Twisted in all 3 Axis's.

(From a tutorial in 3D Modeling with 3DS MAX 7 by Steven Till and James O'Connell)

Milk Bottle created with Lofting techniques.



This model was created by adding Instances to a Path to drive the shapes from one form to another. Here, a series of squares are lofted into circles.

Uni Totorial: Mapping Techniques
This leave image was created from a step by spet tutorial provided by the course tutor.



The following are the basic steps which were used in the leaves creation:

1. Image imported into Photoshop.
2. Cut the leave out using the Magic Wand tool.
3. Create another layer and make it completely white.
4. Adjust the layer visibilities so that the background is black with an all white leave.
5. In 3DS Max, create a Plane.
6. in the Material box, import the Bitmap of the leave.
7. Texture the material by adding Bumps.
8. Apply the material to the plane.
9. Bend the plane into a more realistic leaf shape.
10. Render the scene.

Examples of first day covers. These could show how my stamps could appear and have their 'story' told.

Basic Modelling

I know it's pretty basic stuff, but we all have to start somewhere ;oD
I started off with a basic green Sphere, converted it to an Editable Mesh then moved Faces and vertices until the desired shape was achieved.
To make the 4 bumps on the bottom easier to manipulate, I selected the Vertices, then named and grouped them in the Named Selection Sets entry field.

Once I become more profficient with the 3DS Max Software, I'd like to have a go at modelling these skulls as they show the variety of different creatures in a more subtle way than straight photo's.

Images continued.....