I'm not that much of a technical artist, though I've always been attracted to technically challenging stuff. Ultimately, technical brilliance is just not "me." I'm a 5' 8' guy who wants to be an NBA center.
In every project I do, I come to a point where I give up my fantasy of making something technically brilliant and embrace my own awkwardness in the name of "honesty" or some crap like that. I think I'm drawn to technically challenging projects because they distract me from the horror of creative freedom and inspiration.
I think fear of the randomness of inspiration is why pop music folks eventually go insane. You can write the best song of your life in 15 minutes when the muse decides to visit... but what the hell do you do with the next 15 years of down-time? The technical challenges give me a steady "day job" that keeps me boring and preoccupied.
So, I've re-worked the scale in this model. The size relationships between the various pieces were all wonky-- the building was/is too small, curb/sidewalk too big... now, it's... kinda fixed. Sigh. I also, lowered the camera to simulate a first-person view. At this point, the camera angle really emphasizes the flatness of the building model too much... Whoops. The building the model is based on is super flat, (as are most of the buildings in Springfield, OR), so I'm toying with the idea of giving it a big thick roof with eaves, as seen in the drawing in a previous post below. The point being to create a chunkier, juicier 3D experience and this means leaving the source material behind-- ooh!
Finally, this image is a quick render - no compositing, ambient occlusion, color correction yet... and the lighting is still the generic basic sky/sun set up. Hey, it's all "in progress,"folks. I ain't fakin' it.
