In keeping with my ‘Bull in a China Shop’ idiom, and the concept that my Sketchfab pose would show the first stage of some catastrophe in the making as my character is serving afternoon tea, what else could my prop be, other than a tea set and tray; the proportions of which, when compared to my bull’s huge mass, would also emphasise his exaggerated form.
Needing a prop that increased visual appeal, helped tell the story, and added another dimension in 3D space to my final Sketchfab scene, but at the same time didn’t detract viewer attention away from my main character, I looked online for some references, and complied the mood board below.
Having decided upon a simple, rounded form for my tea set items, but that they had a more complex handle design that would require the use of a Bezier curve, after watching only a few minutes of online tutorials as a quick refresher (youtube.com, 2022, youtube.com 2023); turned them off, and using the hard surface modelling and texturing skills I’d learned throughout the course, I quite easily created my props.
With pastels traditionally associated with femininity, often used in children’s tea sets, and in animations, such as in the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party scene of Disney’s 1951 classic, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ above, I consciously chose pastel shades to contrast the sheer size, power, strength and masculinity of the bull, and to emphasise the delicacy of the china. These colours too, and the white interior used to ensure the props didn’t appear too bland, would also contrast well with the plain Sketchfab background I planned to use. Finally, as a finishing touch, I increased the metallic value, and decreased the roughness value of the tea set items to replicate their shiny, reflective glaze, and on the tray handles to highlight their metal composition.
Overall, I found this task very enjoyable, and was encouraged when I realised I already possessed the knowledge and skills to model these items independently, and no longer needed to follow tutorials.
References:
youtube.com. (2023). Create a Teapot in Blender in 1 Minute! – BlenderVitals [online]. [Accessed 23 December 2023].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geCFC-2xN1s
youtube.com (2022). Creating a Coffee Cup and Saucer in Blender (Time Lapse) – Blender Forge. [online]. [Accessed 23 December 2023].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQKL2va2djQ