My Final Painting so Far...

To anyone that caught it, sorry for accidently posting this on the group blog it was meant to be for mine, I must've pressed the wrong new post button :S

This is just my work so far:

(Just playing with textures)

It's a bit shoddy I know but I think I know where I'm going.
I want one bright light source coming in from out of shot, illuminating the chair and mask, which cast a big shadow on the wall behind.  I'm going to have a lot more detail in the scene I'm just trying to get the angle right, the last one is almost there I think but feedback is much appreciated.

More soon!

@Phil Help Please!

I'm getting myself a little too stressed out and I REALLY need some feedback!

 I'm really stuck as to what my final scene should be. I'm struggling to find the right composition and this is not good at all. I'm so confused that I'm even thinking that I may not include the gas mask idea and I don't even know whether to have it in a room or in a hallway.  The only thing I know is that I want it in a house which is not that helpful at all!

Here's a load of new thumbnails that I've been doing to try and get a little more sense developed:

Here are my previous thumbnails:

http://mollybolder.blogspot.com/2010/12/feedback-please-lots-of-thumbnails.html

http://mollybolder.blogspot.com/2010/12/some-thumbnails.html

I know I want the scene to include billowing cloth maybe from a window but I really don't know what to include.  The gas mask doesn't look like it's working in the scenes, not in the newest thumbnails anyway.  I quite liked the idea of including something grand such as a huge wardrobe/dresser thats doors are slightly ajar revealing something inside but you're not sure what.  Something that dominates the room and creates an ominous shadow or tone.  Also, I want there to be a powerful light source, probably through a window so I can have some powerful shadows and contrasting areas.  I probably won't include the sofa and chair that I've previously made, and I don't mind as long as I can work out exactly what works and what doesn't.

A Little Treasure...

...and a LOT of learning!

Tah DAH!

Restarted and finished! I'm a knackered but very chuffed bean!

The only things I changed were the design on the coins:

And the map:

I couldn't help myself, it had to be One Eyed Willy's treasure map!

I feel 80% prepared to take on my scene again now. Here goes nothing! :)

More Sofa...

Just trying to get the UVs right so here are a couple of the different stages, there's hopefully slightly less distortion in each:

 I managed to fix most of the big problems but I'm having a lot of trouble with the arm of the sofa. It's still really distorted. I'm not sure if it's because I haven't mapped out the UVs correctly or if it's the geometry but here's what it looks like at the moment:

 That's the same sort of problem I keep having with other parts of the sofa too.
Other than that I'm pretty chuffed with how it's going.  More tomorrow! :)

Adventures with Texturing...

These are the first textures I've played with since we made some in Photoshop.

Carpet:

 I'm pretty happy with it but it's too chunky and it doesn't look convincing enough when close up so I'll have to tweak this if I use it.

Sofa Texture:

 I wanted to pick a material that was similar to the sofa in my source image and I think this one works fine.  I need to sort out my bump map as it's looking a bit too deep at the moment.  If I keep this I just need to tweak the realism from the bump map and hopefully add a little wear and tear as well.

A Kick Up the Backside...

Twice ill + Christmas = severe lack of work.

However! Panic and worries aside I gave myself a swift kick up the backside and have just been trying to get my head around Maya.

These are all really generic and have only been roughly based on photos.  When I've got the hang of texturing and shaping things then I'll be making objects that look much more realistic.  Here's what I've been trying out:

Gas mask:

This was my first attempt at shaping something that wasn't a square or instructed on a video so it's really unconvincing.

The reason there's only one lens is because this distortion kept happening when I tried rotating it. When I remake it I'll try to make sure this doesn't happen again.

This was just me playing with the vertexes to try and make the rubber appear more fluid.  It's worked but before I got confused and a bit worked up I moved onto another object.

Dining chair:

 I'm going to have chairs in my scene so I thought this was a nice, safe start point.

 Success! Very basic and not properly textured but it definitely looks like a dining chair!

 Next step up, the sofa:

 

I did base this shape roughly on the Herculon 1950's sofa above so atleast it's a little more convincing than the dining chair. 

 I really enjoyed making this, I don't think it's a bad attempt at a basic sofa but I did struggle with the UVs and texturing.

The bump mapping and texture were a good first try but they were horribly distorted around the edges, I think my geometry and UVs were badly messed up .

A shot of the trouble areas for distortion.

 My first attempt at rendering it.  Horrible lumpy bits because of the distortion but I'm generally happy with the progress I'm making on Maya.  I should be okay with a few pointers and many more experiments.