For assignment one we have to chose from a list of objects to model in 3D. For my project I chose the sword and shield.
I watched all of the Pirates of The Caribbean films recently so want to draw inspiration from them, specifically Davey Jones.
The design of his head is what I will use as my main inspiration as I think the squid/tentacles look will translate well onto a sword and a shield.
I had decided on the idea for the shield, which is to put a squid head on the front of a round metal shield.
For the sword I had a basic idea that involves the tentacles being on or around the blade, so I used google images and Pinterest to find inspiration.
Before doing this I sketched out what the base sword would roughly look like before any squid related parts were added, then a drawing of a very basic squid sword design.
On the internet I found the following images, which I used to sketch out 4 more ideas of what my sword would look like.
I decided to use option number 2, with the squid tentacles wrapping around the blade, as I think it would look the best and be a good challenge to attempt.
I started by making the base sword in Maya. I then added the body and head of the squid which is where the tentacles would be added to.
I originally used the pencil tool to draw out curves then add a sweep mesh to make the tentacles, but they looked really bad so I deleted them and added in 4 long cylinders, which I added multiple joints to so that I could manipulate them to look like tentacles and they turned out much better.
The shield was much simpler to create as all I had to do was create a round shield with straps on the back then put a squid head on the front.
The next step before putting them into substance painter was to unwrap the UVs of both:
-Sword
-Shield
I used photo shop to create a map of the textures so that they could be applied into Maya for the unwrapped UVs.
I was then able to put the unwrapped sword and shield into substance painter and texture them.
From substance painter i then exported the textures as separate files to then apply them in sketch fab so that the models could be uploaded.
SKETCHFAB LINKS:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/squid-sword-9d292dadd4cd439ebd76bbc690edfde2
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/squid-shield-8a68419f5d454a28a7bc36da4395be60
Reflection:
At the beginning of the assignment it felt sort of daunting as in the beginning I was finding it hard to grasp how to use the 3D modelling software. I managed to overcome this through watching the recorded tutorials on blackboard over and over again and through my own trial and error. It took a while to get settled on a model that was looking right in Maya but once I got the shapes to work and create the bases for the sword and shield, the rest came more naturally and didn’t take as long. The only real issue was the tentacles on the sword. I used joints to make them bend and mover around the blade and at times I ran into some issues like the tentacles warping all over the place but I managed to figure out how to fix it by combining the mesh of the tentacles with the head of the squid. I didn’t have any issues with unwrapping UVs as I had done enough practice in class and texturing the models in substance painter was fun as I got to see them really spring to life. Then transferring the models and texture files over to Sketchfab was no issue.