Assignment - May - Phase 2: A Seat

Where does a dragonfly sit? The original plan was a large leaf. The idea seemed perfect... the dragonfly on a leaf, with a light morning haze in the background, with a single tear of dew hanging onto the tip of the leaf... nice...

However, 2 evenings, several cups of tea and a toasted sandwich later... I decided to give up on the leaf idea. Creating the leaf was actually pretty easy. Making the shape and bending it to the right angle and direction was incredibly easy. The correct shapes took a few goes... but it wasn't too bad. The hell was in the texture. Leaves are pure evil. Not only do they have a nitty-gritty texture, but also have veins running down them. Photoshop/Flash didn't produce any good'uns. Some decent ones came out, but the veins were just insane. I even went outside (in the cold) snatched a leaf off a tree and drew the veins by hand. After that... I then had to try and get the veins to fit on the leaf correctly. The only 2 options were to get an image of one off the Internet, or scan one. Unfortunately, Google images is cheating (I think so anyway), and Mid-October isn't exactly the best month to go out looking for large, bright, vibrant green leaves... so I chose to scrap the idea. (I'm probably making a leaf for September anyway, so one headache is more than enough). A dragonfly is too heavy for a leaf anyway...

So I retreated to the idea of a rock. It seemed a little bit more natural, and the scene could work into a nicer idea anyway (A dragonfly on a rock by an idyllic pond. Get a bit of sun reflection in and it'll look quite nice!)

So to the rock. It was build within the 'Dragonfly' document. To ensure that the dragonfly didn't get in the way, it was 'hidden', thus allowing me to make the rock without getting distracted by the sexy textured wings. Rocks are crystallised and jagged... so working from a sphere would take too long. So I made a dome using the lovely 'Lathe' tool. Starting off with a simple jagged-half-semi-circle shape (Remembering to put the pivot point in the corner!), it was lathed into to dome shape you see above.

For the next 5-10 minutes or so, to the awesome tracks of Coldplay, the rock was converted to an editable mesh, and the vertices pulled about and played with, to create more of a realistic rock shape. After a while, I soon had a presentable shape. The whole of it wasn't vital, as I only needed the top bit (Remember, we only need to 'perfect' what's actually going to be seen!)

All that was left was to place the dragonfly on top if it! So it was 'unhid', to bring it back to the screen. The rock was then rotated and moved so that it nestled beneath the dragonfly (It was a whole object, and thus easier to manipulate than moving the entire dragonfly)

The legs were then tweaked so that they sat on the rock (Made incredibly easily with the 'Bones' tool!) From the previous lighting effects added, shadows were also added, meaning that the dragonfly now cast a shadow onto the rock. All that's left is the texture!

Whilst this might look rather complicated, it's actually just a lucky dip of Photoshop effects. If blogspot lets you open the picture in your browser (It sometimes hates opening pictures out so you can see them close-up), you can see the effects used on the little menu to the right. Started off with the previous "Light Brush and lots of colours" approach, the mesh of rocky colours were enhanced with "Grain", "Fragment" and "Add Noise" tools (All found under the 'Filter' menu)

All that was left was to add the texture to the rock! No specular levels needed. Just add the texture and job done! There we go! A place to sit! Doesn't Sav look happy now?

The left is a bit empty though... say... wouldn't a flower work nicely there...?