Anatomy of a Picture #4: The Traedeskaton

I have a confession to make regarding this piece...I traced. Anyone familiar with 3d modeling knows it's not for the faint of heart. I cut my teeth on 3dsMax DEEEECADES ago, sold on it being the "golden ticket" that would open up so many jobs to me. For years I labored under the impression if I scrimped and saved up enough I could get a professional license...only to find when I became financially stable to support myself, not only did it change to a hated subscription model...but it was no longer "industry standard": Maya was. I know jack diddly about Maya.
I used to wonder why I avoided "the profession" like the plague. Something set off alarm bells in my mind when I was younger. Seeing what's going on these days, I think I've reconciled myself that I made the right choice in the end. My job isn't exactly my dream job or the most glamorous, but I can support myself, my art, my hobbies, and 4 cats. Contrast to "professionals" who make 3-4x what I do, can't live by themselves in their own home, live like paupers for slave wages by the standard of living in their locales, and recently are being laid off by the truckload. It's a very sad thing to see.
You ever wonder what ever happened to that show you used to like about a slacker who pilots a robot, or the webcomic whose author tried pitching his idea to a big shot studio? It's because companies scammed them out of their creative baby. Oh just sign the dotted line, sell us your idea, sign a contract, it's so convenient, you'll make so much money...whisper whisper whisper.

Rescue Kitten by Mardrena

Then they just CLAW the idea from the creator. Iconic composers no longer own the rights to the music that made them famous, movie directors get shut out of their own pitch and have to watch helplessly as it gets corporatized and sanitized and frankensteined into less than a shadow of what it once was. I think it is far better my works remain a labour of love than trying to monetize it, because there'll always be some RAT slinking around, sniffing, craving a piece of that pie, nibbling nibbling nibbling away until your craft starts to suffer.
Ok I was supposed to talk about a piece...I legit feel scammed because I never knew Blender existed until relatively recently. I've only barely begun scratching the surface. This is a bit of a lost file I made as part of a school project about how real architecture can influence fictional designs. It's probably on a burnt CD or ZIP disc somewhere, but I simply can't be assed to dig it out and more than likely I'd have to pay for data recovery since I no longer have a ZIP drive...fond memories of those things tbh. They felt like a actual cheesy sci-fi tech from a cartoon...

Traedeskaton, Old Concept by Mardrena

Tradeskaton, Old 3d Render by Mardrena

I chose the Traedeskaton for my entry for Building category for WorldEmber 2023. I'd always had a vague idea of what it'd look like but this would be the first time I'd really get anything solidified. It's meant to be massive, iconic, able to be recognized at a distance, sort of how I use the Williams Tower to tell how close I am to my residence. If there's any other Texans on WA, think of The Galleria, George R. Brown convention center, Memorial Hermann, Moody Gardens Pyramid, and the Williams Tower all piled on top of each other for scale. I don't quite know the precise measurements, only that it's so massive on the inside I've only ever drawn tiny corners in artwork and mockups made in kitbash programs only depict single floors.

Traedeskaton Concept Sketch (new) by Mardrena

The Traedeskaton Map Version by Mardrena

I could have drawn and colored it on paper. I got large sheets and the bigass metal rulers for perspective drawing, I just didn't have the energy to sit down and wrangle with that...also cats. I wanted to make a full 3d model of the skyline of Bainshaebo but my early experiments with Blender's geometry nodes leave...much to be desired.

Fun with Geonodes I by Mardrena

Fun with Geonodes II by Mardrena

Watch it spin 'round to a beautiful oblivion!

Ye Olde Default Coob by Mardrena

Starting up Blender takes you to the humble Default Cube. Most tutorials tell you to delete it, but for what I had in mind, I'd be putting it to work...and through the wringer. I had just enough box-modeling muscle-memory to hammer out a rough shape, and it took some tweaking to get the proportions right. I wanted something that combined not only that very old early MAX model, but the image I had in my mind. After moving alot of vertices, scaling faces, copious amounts of loop cuts, insets, extrusions, and bevels, I created something that looked right. Not to scale mind you, but we'll get into that in just a moment...

Traedeskaton Model 2 by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Model 1 by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Model 3 by Mardrena

I couldn't quite get the lighting to behave the way I wanted and maybe it would have looked better with a HDRI, but I was working against the clock. I found out the hard way during SC23 the drawback of overextending myself, and even though I had less categories to juggle, I didn't want to fritter away precious time fiddling with trying to make it look "perfect". I'm not aiming for photorealism in most of my pieces. It's meant to look simple, quick, and messy but with enough details to convey the element of my story. Anyone familiar with Blender might know how much of a fickle mistress its node system can be...

Blender Node Map by Mardrena

I could have textured it in 3dCoat I suppose. I do own a copy and it's got a ridiculously huge PBR texture library, but I decided in order to save time I'd take a bit of a shortcut.

Traedeskaton 3d Model by Mardrena

BlackInk, My Ol' Buddy!

This is one of the few pieces I completed mostly in BlackInk rather than importing an Inkscape image to add a background. I could have drawn it in Inkscape I suppose, but sometimes I just like to have fun and experiment with the brushes. I've tried and tried to search for other programs that equal or surpass the functionality I get with BI and I just haven't. On the Linux rig I tried using Krita and MyPaint, and I just couldn't get the brushes to behave the way I wanted to. I couldn't even add gradient colors to brushes!
I came across Flame Painter 4 by Escape Motions recently and downloaded the demo on the Win7 rig and while it looks...nice? It's lacking alot of basic functionality I've gotten so accustomed to with BI. Not only does it cost 3x more, but additional brushes have to be purchased in separate brush packs as DLC. Their flagship product Rebelle is also VERY expensive with paper textures available as paid DLC... Maybe if I win the Texas Lotto or I'll keep an eye out for a sale, but for now I'll stick to BI for particle effects and RPS for painterly effects. If you're into digital painting or just like messing around, check out the BlackInk demo available on Steam or from Bleank's website.

Traedeskaton Preliminary Lines by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Color Block by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Roads by Mardrena

For the lines I went with the Gel Ink pen and used the straight line mode (K). When using this mode, lines leave behind little "ghost markers" at the ends allowing you to snap to nodes easily so lines are consistent and you don't have to eyeball it. Just be careful not to turn off the tool until you're finished or switch layers or else the markers vanish. I used the Polygonal Fill tool to add in color in sections. Seven is a sacred number for the Thangiens, so when designing the Traedeskaton I gave it seven levels, counting the pinnacle at the top.
The complex sticks out from surrounding buildings because it uses a completely different material, and to add the marbling effect, I used the Ruins brush and the new wand feature to limit strokes to just the walls. For the windows I added some reflections using a soft airbrush. There's two suns, so not a great deal of shadows, but I wasn't terribly worried about that. For the sky I used Linear Noise and one of the gradient presets from the recently added gradient library. I added some wide paths to represent roads leading to and from the complex.

Traedeskaton Sky Horizon by Mardrena

Traedeskaton City Skyline by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Grass Lawn by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Foot Traffic by Mardrena

I used a tweaked Sticks brush to block in some distant buildings. Civilian structures in the city aren't that tall, and the Four Corners are meant to be visible above the skyline. Bainshaebo's wall extends across the horizon in the distance. A couple years ago I did a custom piece for Firo and created two custom brushes I've since used quite a bit: Simple Grass 1 and 2. One is a modified Hard Fur brush and the other is a modified Sticks. I used a combination of the two to add a nice landscaped lawn between the roads. I also have two modified Follow Bubbles brushes for foliage. If I need a quick treeline, just blob and go! This is meant to be a view of the complex as if someone is standing on the ground looking into the distance. I used a modified Dots brush along the entrances. Those aren't lights...that's foot traffic going in and out of the structure!

The Final Piece

Full-Size

The Traedeskaton (Exterior) by Mardrena

Traedeskaton Interior Concept (Floor Level) by Mardrena

I wish I could upload higher-res versions of my pieces but on my current connection, WA image manager has a hissy fit with anything over 1mb even if Master allows for max 10mb files. One of these days I'd like to create a fully-modeled, fully-textured version using cel-shading, built to scale that you could walk around in, but that's a can of worms for another day.
I would like to do more with Blender and 3dCoat in the future, but all things in time. Trying to do a particle tutorial took so long to render I was able to visit my parents 3 hours away and come back and it had just BARELY finished rendering... The last time I tried to do a full image for an article completely in Blender, trying to add volumetric clouds using geonodes punched the poor rig in the nads...