Articles 888
February 5, 2018 1:30 PM
by Editor in Chief
The modeler of the famed "Scale" of the Sintel Blender Open Movie is back with another impressive animal model. This time: a bird with full feathers! Don't forget to check out his WIP page:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?366948-Bioluminescent-Macaw
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?366948-Bioluminescent-Macaw
How, then, can you too qualify for this award? Please have in mind that this award is reserved for those that are on par with or that excel top-notch works published by artists and studios. If such work does not appear during a given week, this award is not being given to anyone. So please submit your best work to www.blenderartist.org or to the Member's Gallery of this site, or Contact Us to show where your work is available on the internet. It doesn't have to be a Blender render, internal or Cycles. Any other render engine is fine as long as Blender was used as a part of your workflow.
So, it is with great pleasure that www.BlenderNews.org introduces to you the winner of the Render of the Week Award for the week of February 12, 2018: Kevin Hays.
Title: "Scarlet Macaw"
Genre: Modeling
Renderer: Cycles
Final Renders:
Geometry:
WIP Thread:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?366948-Bioluminescent-Macaw
Artist's Comment
About Me:
Hi, I'm Kevin Hays and I've been using Blender since 2006. I started with a strong interest in modeling and practiced by participating in weekend challenges and speed modeling contests on the blenderartists forums. In 2009 I began to develop an interest in sculpting. I participated in a community modeling sprint for the animated short Sintel, and the team liked my models and sculpts so much, they asked me to do the sculpting for the dragons. Sculpting has been my favorite thing to do in Blender ever since.
About "Scarlet Macaw"
After completing my crystal turtle project, I wanted to make another glowing animal. I picked the scarlet macaw because I really liked the long tail feathers and vibrant colors. The idea was to make the feathers glow like fiber optic strands. Unfortunately, I found that it's very hard to convey that something is glowing with a daytime or evening lighting setup, even in shadow. You really need a nighttime environment to make it obvious that something is glowing. The problem with nighttime lighting is that it drains the saturation out of all of the colors, making everything look duller than I had envisioned when I began the project. In the end, the vibrant colors were more important to me than the glowing feather idea, so I decided to aim for realism instead.
Related LInks:
1. https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?443638-Scarlet-Macaw
2. https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?363015-Crystal-Turtle
3. http://blendernews.org/xe/Feature_Articles/10109
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsGyueVLvQ