Feeling slightly better about 3d [maybe

Just posting a few things I've done recently. The 3d is still laaame but I wanted to redo some of the early projects.

















I really needed to get better at both modelling and texturing...Even though they're simple things, I think I at least improved a little on building geometry that wasn't completely messed up on the inside. With my first house, I had no idea what I was doing. In the new one, even though it's smaller and less complex I can count the mistakes which I didn't know how to fix, the only problem I couldn't fix with the geometry was when you get two edges next to each other?? I couldn't figure out how to weld them into one edge, so the rim around the roof is technically wrong, I guess. There's also parts of the unwrapping I did wrong. But in my first model I did ages ago, there were loads of these types of problems which were pretty unfixable by the end of it, so it was pretty much untexturable. Making a rocking horse was pretty simple, my first one just looks terribly embarrassing now, I might delete it from facebook over the summer.

For the texturing contest...Got some help from Del to see it as a flat image, so I could see the shading on the texture more clearly...I don't like how Max shades things, its way too dark? So this is just a diffuse map. I did do some research into normal maps, but all the sites told me I needed a bunch of new software, some of which wouldn't install because I needed yet more software and plugins I couldn't find. Is there an idiots' guide to this somewhere?
Well anyway, i really liked this female model! I wanted to make a preppy-looking character rather than something grimdark. I'm really into salmon red and turquoise recently. The dress pattern is loosely based on this disaster of a 1980's swimsuit I saw in a vintage shop. Ah, I really messed up on the hair! But by the time it was all unwrapped it was too late to change it...Everything is planar, so in future I really need to do things seperately rather than trying to economise too much, I had something different in mind for boots but because I didn't unwrap them right, I had to improvise a little in the end...Anyway, I really enjoyed this project! Painting the textures is kind of really tedious and precise, where loads of little adjustments need to be made, but it's fun to see the end result.

Oh, and some 2d junk...






















Gahh doing shitty sketches is much more fun than fully rendered digital painting. I might start doing those posemaniacs sketches again...Neeed to find a life drawing class I can go to over summer, or some kind of art class. I want to do this course so bad 'cos its a really good college, but I think I'm away for it...