Getting Over the Hump

For the past six months I have been riding my bike to work. I’m a big guy, strong but big. Getting rolling takes some effort, but once I am up to speed, I can travel with pretty consistent momentum. I try my hardest to find a path to work that requires the least amount of stops and starts. The worst is if I get stuck at an intersection with car traffic. Most intersections are graded to avoid flooding, which creates a large hump in the middle.  Starting from an intersection means starting on an uphill.

Art, for me, is a lot like this. Getting started on something new is an uphill battle. But, once I am over the hump, I can keep rolling with consistent momentum. The past few weeks have been all about this hump. I have been painstakingly re-examining every step of the process that take to create 3D art. I knew going in to this new endeavor that there were a lot of new skills I needed to learn and some I needed to relearn. It has been a great exercise to be able to take this process through step by step. It feels like a whole new way of working and in the end it will make the work I provide to the community that much better.

So, here is step one of the path, just about to get over the hump. This is a work in progress of my first hi-poly model, which will be what I use to create the normal map that I will apply to the low poly game model I will be posting. I’m not sure if I am creating this in the right way, but, you know, it’s all about trying and improving. I still have a number of steps to go before being able to get these out on a regular basis — here is a screenshot showing my progress.

Stay free.

~shs~