A few days ago I was musing about how some days it seems like absolutely nothing is coming out right. Today, I’m glad to say, seems to be the opposite.
I took a second stab at modeling the honor tokens from Ascension, in the hopes of using that model for a how to play video recorded with Tabletop Studio. The first time around I decided that with the curves involved on the token it might be easier to go the sculpting route. I was horribly wrong about this. So today I took a different approach and tried the more traditional hard surface modeling techniques, and let some fancy work with the subdivision surface modifier and judicious creasing take care of the curvature. I’m not sure I could be happier with the result.
Now, the tabletop simulator doesn’t seem to have the options for the translucency that I used for the display render, but I think the crystals still look pretty decent all the same.
To follow that up I combined some of the array modifier techniques that I learned in the CGCookie classes with a Celtic jewelry making tutorial I found on line to produce this simple wire and clay amulet. Simple, but effective, and decent practice toward making more complicated patterns in the future.
And to follow up even further I decided to spend some time back in the 2d realm and put some time toward some art assets for Runic Alchemy. I’m working on getting the user interface up and operational at the moment, and I’ve been making do with simple text buttons and focusing more on function than form, but it is making it difficult to really get a bead on if the layout is going to work or not. So I made an initial test button. I don’t think that this is by far the final design, and I’ve only really put in the simplest detail, but that’s mainly because I’ll need to plug it into the game to see if it’s going to work visually. The detail that I have already gets lost if it’s scaled down too much, and I think it may hit those levels on a phone screen, so I need to balance the detail work and also make sure that the function of the button stays legible. Still, even with that being said, I’m pretty happy with it so far.