Experiments In Unreal Editor

 

Here I have been experimenting in the editor trying to get the ceiling texture look just right, really wanted to perfect the gold leaf look. Made a specular especially, didnt seem to work when connected to the specular but I experiement with roughness and metalic and came out with some good and fun results. I would really like to master textures, and the editor. 

Most Relevant Reference Books

 

This 2 Books from the Libary were my Main reference's. Such nice books!

In the future I would love to sculpt and use filigree this detailed and elaborate in a project, I went for something more simple this time as I did not have time to increase my sculpting skills to this standard.

First/ Sadly Final Render

Lots of improvements that could be made, background lighting, shadow intensity I would like to be more but still able to see the horses and textures.

Sculptor: April Young

“My work utilises both 2D and sculptural media to explore the role of mythologies in a contemporary context.  I’m interested in the durability and cross pollination of stories, and the relationship between real and imagined times, people and places.  I attempt to place my work at the crossover between classical mythology – the stories that have endured for millennia – and contemporary experience, which continuously adds its own chapter to the legacy of storytelling.”

I stumbled across this amazing artist, April Young. I really enjoy her work, the first image I saw by her is the one below and I just thought Whoa the textures are really unusual and interesting, there is a lot of depth to them as there are images within, If I managed to accomplish anything close to the level of detail and style in her work I would be a very happy man.
Not so much the top image but the one below, I like how the paint seems to have worn away revealing different colours as well as something more beautiful, to me it looks like building illustrations. I really like the idea of something hidden beneath the skin. Unfortuneatly apart from the top quote I couldent find much on the artist so am left to make up my own theories of their meaning.

Sculpt Progression

I never found out the reason for the problems I had with baking and my texture, the mystery remains unsolved however after sending it to George it apparently worked when he opened it. When he sent it back to me he had changed the UV map to increase efficiency, and to have the seams in less visable place, see below.

Spiral Pole

The Poles in which Carousal Horses are carried upon seem to vary quite a bit but most seem to follow a spiral type design. I spent too long modelling such a simple thing, I modelled a Spiral (above) but then had lots of trouble baking it onto a more low poly cylinder. I then spent ages trying to make this work, I think it would of eventually but the spiral was at such an angle I couldn't make the top flat, without making N-gons and distorting the shape. After lots of struggle George showed me a much easier way, to create a spiral effect by making a light map in photoshop, and then importing it into either Crazy-bump or X-normals. This worked much better, quicker and allowed me to use just cylinders . Previously I didn't know how to do this in photoshop (especially rulers), so found it really helpful.

Creative Tangent: Four Horses of the Apocolypse

I stupidly did not update my blog every day, If I had you would see that I put quite a lot of time and energy into researching about the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. In the end it was all for naught as I thought it best not to go with the idea. My idea was to have the carousal, have horses that were the horses of the apocalypse on, however I started to think that there was something corny about this idea, as if it was trying to hard to be scary. I later thought that it would be cool for the abandoned carousal to have been graffiti'd slightly, perhaps four of the horses being graffiti'd in a way that symbolised each horse of the apocalypse Conquest, War, Famine and Death. I felt that this was a good way of getting the message across more subtly, less in your face and would allow me to experiment with graffiti designs and textures. However I eventually came circle and left the idea to go back to what I had originally intended to create.

Above show some digital variants and experimentations of the concept I had for the horse of Death, which I scanned in below. I was very happy with how it looks but then changed my idea to having the horses graffitied on instead in which case the skeleton wouldn't be so precise and clear. 

I was particularly proud with the drawing above and is the only real 2d art I have done this project however my project is aimed at doing 3d so had not planed on doing any. 

Above is a concept I did for what a carousal horse may look like if it had been graffitied to symbolise the horse of conquest/ famine. Apart from Death having a skeleton sprayed on him and War dripping in red spray, the other two were harder to think of symbols. As the horseman of conquest is always shown to be a king of some type, I thought a crown was the closest to resemble this, and to have each Horse with its Roman numeral scratched and painted onto the head.

Above are pages that I scanned in from Dave McKean's graphic novel Signal to Noise. They show how Dave McKean has portrayed/ illustrated the four horseman of the Apocalypse, I really like them all.