Concept Inspiration - Mythology
I have chosen to endeavour into the realm of mythology as it is a topic I am very fascinated with. Another reason for choosing the topic is that it is fresh in my mind as I am currently reading the Trials of Apollo books by Rick Riordan.
A great weapon in Norse mythology is Gungnir, Odin's spear. It has a simple style of a spear combined with runes and intricate ornaments near the spear point which would provide different levels of detail to the model. All of the runes that it has will most likely make it very hard to complete as well and possibly wouldn't fit with the time frame I have.
There weren't many images of Gjallar the horn of doomsday online and it would be nice to create my representation of the bringer of Ragnarok. A war horn would be an interesting experience as most of its details are simple with curve inclusion, but it is important to find a good texture for it. Similar to Odin's spear the horn has runes that will be difficult to carve.
And my last Norse item in this list is Sumarbrander, the sword of Summer( or the Sword of the Vanir god Frey). This legendary sword is said to be the sharpest sword in the Nine worlds and as a model it would be a good example of the sword style of that age. The shape of it would be easy to make out but a reoccurring theme in these Nordic items are the rune inscriptions which might come as a challenge.
A golden apple while a magical artefact of great value will be a fairly simple model. A challenge in this would be to attempt to simulate the reflective nature of gold and its shine. Since it is an organic shape it would have many aspects that I haven't dealt with yet and could prove difficult.
Being one of the three great weapons created by the first 3 cyclopes, sons of Uranus and Gaia. The shaft would be pretty straightforward and the curvature and angles on the top would be a simple display of bezier curves and corners. The trident of Poseidon will also add variety to a list of weapons other than just swords and spears.
Zeus' lightning bolt would be a good model to display glow effects similar to a light saber. The bolt wouldn't be very difficult to model and will portray key features of modelling.
The helm of darkness would be a very interesting object to model but due to the engravings on it and the hollow areas of it, it will prove very difficult to design.
The exact circular shape of the Aegis and repeating shapes on the side would be achievable but the main challenge would be the gorgon's face and the bend on the shield from the middle out to create the inner curve.
Apollo's bow is an object that includes a lot of curves and a variety of different materials such as wood, gold and string. It will provide for an interesting model different to the rest from the list.
The Ankh is a nice simple shape that can be connected to a medallion and wouldn't be hard to make. It's symmetry and geometrical shape make it a very nice and easy shape to start off with and practice for the more complex models. In some versions ankhs have engravings on them but those, similarly to many others on this list, would prove very time consuming.
A khopesh would be a nice example of combining curves with the sword edges. At first glance the object looks simple enough but if you look more closely you will find there are slight curves, edges and all over the blade and different width and thickness throughout. Unfortunately it might not make it into the top list due to other options being selected.
The crook and flail of Ra would be another pair of simple to shape objects which would then focus on ornaments, textures and colours. Adding a metallic shine to them would also be an interesting task if I were to choose these.
Developed models
Starting off with the lightning bolt things went fairly smooth and I was able to wrap it up easily. Playing around a bit with the illumination of the object in order to simulate a glow. I'd hoped I could make it more irregular when I was looking into the lightning effects 3Ds Max has but unfortunately found out that they were more for electricity generated between nodes and sparks which wouldn't be fit for the purpose I had in mind. I hope in the future to find a better way to add more effect to this lightning.
Riptide was a very pleasing model to work on. I was able to model the handle quickly through extrusion and insetting and then move on to the shaft which I created through a separate box and then sharpened the edges. The big issue with this particular model came in when I accessed it through a more modern version of 3Ds Max than the other models and the workstation I generally used which caused major compatibility issues. I spent quite some time looking into this and found it is a very common issue on the Autodesk support forum. I was disappointed to find out that the save to a previous version option did not work. Eventually with some advice I was able to export the object as an STL file and import it into a 3ds Max 2015 file and solve the issue but the whole experience was very uncomfortable especially as when I opened the file in the more modern version (3ds Max 2018) I didn't make any changes to it but simply saved it.
Work on the trident saw me encountering several unexpected bumps and staggered the general progress of my modelling. The spear points proved fairly hard at the start and found me redoing the entire object several times but after solving that issue I was able to quickly wrap up the rest of it and move on to the next one. The trident doesn't really use any textures outside of a simple turquoise colour to resemble the on in the planning image of the statue.
Riptide's pen form proved much less time consuming and due to its simplicity in shape I decided to spend some time messing around with textures and materials in order to try and create a metallic shine on the pen itself. Unfortunately the results weren't what I was looking for so I scrapped the option and just created a standard metallic material with slight self illumination.
The ankh was a late edition to the list of models due to my decision to scrap the spear but even though it has a fairly simple shape it proved rather interesting. I was able to practice on creating a curved ellipse for the top part which assisted me in development of another model down the line. I also focused on making its texture golden and add a more interesting camera and lighting angle. I wanted to see the extent to which one can play around with lighting and shadows as can be seen in the image displayed bellow.
You know what they say, save the best for last. The last model in my list is Apollo's Bow. At first glance I was overwhelmed with all the details of it but once I sat down and looked into a it a bit deeper I was able to plan out the design, separating the different segments in it into different tasks in order to make it simpler to focus on. In the end my work on this model is the one I am most proud of within this 6 model project and has expanded my possibilities in the future greatly. I also experimented in applying more complex textures other the the standard ones that I'd been handling until now and applied a wooden texture to the bow's shaft.
After completing all six models I moved onto working out all of the best angles to take screenshots with and fiddled around a lot with shadows and lights. In several models such as the ankh I attempted to portray not only a shadow being cast by the object but shrouding parts of the object itself in shadow in order to experiment with and portray the capabilities of this feature. Lighting can be very important to an image and can have a great variety of effects depending on what you need from it. In the case of the lightning it contained self-illumination. With the the weapons I used angles to portray their position ,embedded in the ground ,and the shadow they cast. With the other models I focused more on working with the various ways shadows can interact with the object.
Here is the revive of my lightsaber and axe models :)