The Designs and Creations of Syd Mead

Okay, so in the long line of hero's and influences, Syd Mead is definitely up there in the pantheon. I never really had the chance to delve into his works and seeing the way he uses color and light is incredibly gratifying and inspiring. I couldn't believe when I found out that he had been a designer for 20+ years before even touching movies AND he did Gundam. His futurist stylings have molded generations to the point that many of us don't even know how effectively he's permeated and permanently shaped the landscape of design.

 

Material setups and drawing basic shapes

So on this project I felt like I was introduced to a life changing tool inside of Photoshop, the smudge tool. It felt good to go back to basics and try and see how my rendering of form was on the computer. I felt like I haven't really had a formal art class in quite a bit, so the process of kinda sitting back and exploring felt a tad nostalgic and fresh.

I started with the basic renders, like shapes and gradients 

 

Then moved on to some 3-D work (love dat smudge)

Then a girl punching a frog

I felt like in the realm and scope of the things I'm about to dive into, I may never get another opportunity to have someone punching an amphibian. Fingers crossed though! 

Week Box Level

HEYYYOOOO! So this is the first installment of many on the journey of me dipping my feet into the 3-D realm. First task given was to create a simple box level or scene in unreal, as someone who has never touched and engine before, this was incredibly fun to obsess over and gave me a small scope of the power of these programs in a rendering format.

First was the obstacle of nailing scale for the scene down 

After that, I beveled the edges and made it ready for importing into Maya

After that, I set up a cool tile texture with the help of my class mates and Youtube

It was neat to see how you could create repetition inside of an material using Photoshop and grey scale images to create bevels and layers on the overlays! After that I made a cool metallic instance

The result was the creation of this bath house inspired design 

I feel like I learned a ton in this one project! 

3-D, the first

3-D, the first