May 21, 2012

Ultron

Inspired by the Avengers movie (well done, Mr. Whedon), I'm taking a swing at their greatest villain, that monstrous, mechanized megalomaniac, Ultron the robot!


That hideous jack-o-lantern face, the fusion energy boiling in his fixed mouth, his gleaming indestructible adamantium body...Man! I hope they find a way to make him the villain in a Marvel movie soon. Anyway, we'll start with just the head and see how it goes (click on images to go to the picture viewer window.)


Wrong! Meet Ultron's country cousin, Clemtron! You see, I started by pulling a basic head shape from a simple sphere. My mistake was scalloping out the cheeks (using the intersect tool) which made the mouth narrow too much at the chin. And just for kicks, I'm adding some classic Avengers covers to the background. No extra charge!


Well, this is better but still not there. Closer to the way George Perez used to draw him. But the mouth seems to yawn too much and, as a whole, it seems too alien. By the way, to do that plasma effect in the mouth, just pick one of the Sketchup water textures and drag the color wheel all the way into the red. Bingo!


Now this is what I'm talking about! I started with a whole new head and really opened up the mouth. Also, the eye holes are arched to give them more menace and not just simple triangles. This, to me, is more like John Buscema's version from earlier issues. Best of all, I found a Photoshop plug-in that generates pretty good Kirby Krackle! Now the fires of fusion really seem to be churning inside his gaping maw!


Finally, here's a quick top view. I don't remember the head antenna being that elaborate but I think they look cool, as does the band of circular depressions. I think I'll continue on this for a bit and see how the whole figure turns out. See ya soon!

May 16, 2012

Haunted House Paint Job


Well, alrighty. Finally got around to slapping some proper color and textures on everything. Here's the the first scene I composed for comparison. You might notice I added some railing to the tower balcony and dismissed the 3D scale figures that were loitering around (click on images to go to picture viewer.)


Above is a closer view of the front entrance showing the revamped second story window. Hopefully you can see the tattered curtains (which turned out pretty nifty, if I do say so myself) and cracked window panes. Overall, I'm still pleased with the cobwebs but you can see that some of them catch the light a little too prominently (SketchUp's light settings are a little more blunt than true rendering software would be.)


Here's a look back toward the dead tree clinging to the cliff face. That rock texture really fails close up. I haven't looked too hard but there's supposed to be some good texture packs for free download. Finally, I've creaked open the front door a little to beckon any unwary travelers. Don't worry, I am nowhere near done with this model. But I will take a brief side trip back to superhero town. Check back to see who shows up. 
 
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SketchUp/Screw-up by Timothy P. Butler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.