Getting Out of the Comfort Zone!

I'm linking this post to SITS "A post you wish more people had read because this was a project that I did over the summer, in my 3-d digital media class. I worked my butt off on this project and I felt like nobody got to see it:( I'm really proud of my train station. My kids joked that I should have put a picture of myself sleeping in the corner of my train station. And believe me, I became so familiar with the space that I felt like I did live there. I hope you like my little virtual world as much as I do:) I wish I could give you the real tour. It looks so cool zooming around the space with the camera. Thanks for indulging me:)

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It's been over a week since my last post. That's a long time! I've been busy finishing up the class I've been taking this summer. As you can read in previous posts, I took another Digital Media class, 3-d modeling and Animation. We learned mostly 3-d modeling and just touched on animation at the end. Yesterday was the last day of class and I turned in six renderings of my final project, a train station with train. I'm not a gamer and never got into the whole virtual environment world. The whole concept was foreign to me. Many times during the course of this class I felt like a fish out of water. Every time I tackled something new, polygons, NURBS, texture, lighting, animating I literally left class with a pounding headache. However, every time I completed a task I felt like a genious!:)

I spent endless hours modeling my train station, and texturing it. I ran out of time to truly explore lighting ( I'm a little dissatisfied with how that part turned out because I didn't put much time into that aspect of it). Yesterday was the last day of class and for better or for worse this was what I turned in.

The train was my first project. When I complete my train I felt on top of the world!



This is a cross section shot of the overall station. I modeled the light pendants after the ones I have hanging in my own house:)



This is a shot of the upper level(there are three) This is the entrance and ticket booths(I didn't really get to finish the detail of the booths)

Here is a shot from the bottom level. Would have liked to put spot lights on the artwork(ran out of time). My train station is a mini art gallery too. I included paintings of trains from famous artists(Monet, Munch, Warhol, Magritte). I also added little decorative and architectural details such as, marble inlay, marble stair and finials, and wood trim.



This is a shot of the seating on the second level, the "lounge". The chairs took me 7 hours! AND I'm still not 100 % happy with it!


Here is a birds eye view.



I found the perfect brick carved relief sculpture to add to the scene! I'm trying to retrace my steps to give proper credit to the wonderful artist who did this work. When I find it I'll post it.

So there you have it! I did it! Stepped out of my comfort zone and it feels great! Now excuse me while I go find a nice warm soft cozy place to retreat:)

To see earlier steps in this process click here

Have a wonderful day and don't forget to step out of your comfort zone every now and then!:)