This handsome devil I made & a tutorial for you

Hey Steemians - I've been trying to be a good Steemian myself, and so have not only been commenting and upvoting, but also have been providing insights to other artists. So I was telling @rainite about ways to improve 3D- it was a few comments on a 3D post, explaining the levels of detail... The correct evolution for a 3D (though, also applies to 2D) pieces.

So here's the image:

The steps of a 3D created image:
Modelling:
1)Primary Detail - Basic shapes
2)Secondary Detail - Refined shapes- add details.
3)Tertiary Details - Fine details.
4)Posing
Rendering
5)Materials / Textures
6)Lighting
7)Camera
8)Final Render
9)Compositing/painting
^^ The above are not the numbers that you see on the images below.

These are not in exact order, as the order can be swapped out based on your preference.

We start with modeling (the art of creating things in 3d)

I was telling @rainite that great 3D should look good just fine without any textures. The other stuff can enhance it... but great 3d should look just fine plain. So, I thought I'd take my own advice, and create something that looks peachy without textures or a paintover.

So here's what's called a turntable - it's a spinning version of the model, so you can see it from all sides. As it changes colors, what you're seeing is just a change of material. It's often wise to change materials, to see what the details look like... Different materials show different materials differently - metal might be more reflective, some materials show too much detail- too much detail? How can that be? Well... The materials may have Sharpening Filters built in to make them look better, but they are an inaccurate reflection of the model + material, and when you 3D print, the final piece may be too round/blurry. But don't worry... this isn't a tutorial on 3D printing, that's a whole other ball of wax.

The thing I was explaiing to @rainite is the 3 phases of geometry.
1)Basic Geometry - I think I've gotten the order of the images mistaken - 3 and 1 might be swapped. As you look through the 1-6 images, you can see the model getting lightly refined...... from basic plain geometry (3) to clearly defined anatomy, an improved pose (not to be confused with posing - I'll touch on that shortly)- changing the rotation of the legs, the posture, etc..

Basically, Primary Geometry is coming up with the base shape... You should be able to look at the Silhuette (shape without any lighting - like... a completely black shadow) and know what you're looking at. You can do phase 1 with just primitives (cubes/spheres/cylinders) - and you can tell what your intention is for the piece.

Secondary details are refining it.... adjusting the shapes, smoothing things out, carving detail into it (not too much), so that you can tell what you want... but you're really refining it here... But not too much -- In fact.. I'd say that I didn't even enter Tertiary Details on this one (I might do a part 2 of this). A piece can be completed in just secondary.

So #7 - what's that? 'cause things look different now.... THIS is what I referenced earlier as posing. It's changing the pose of the model. How are they standing? Where are they looking? What are they doing? How are they in relationship to other items/characters in the scene? A complex scene can have A LOT of posing :)

Now the difference between #7 and #8 is the lighting. Lighting can make a great big difference in everything. Especially mood. See how in #7 the lighting is coming from above - and in #8 the lighting is coming from below... Think "Flashlight during telling horror stories by a campfire".

Image #9 is the composite -- I added a piece of rusty metal as the background, and gave a light red tint to everything.... This is not the same as texturing a piece. That would be painting the scales on the demon, giving the horns more of a bone feel. But basically in the compositing/paintover stage you fix glitches, add enhancements, change the colors... You turn it from a 3d piece to a finished image... There's many things that you can fix much faster in photoshop than you can in 3D. This particular image did not require any painting over to repair. It was just made to show you the progress from stage 1 to stage 2.

Here's a few other progress shots. You can see the shapes get more and more refined... a tail appears.. Hooves take form, etc...

My software crashed part way (tip #1: save often!) - so I didn't get to record the entire process of creating this... The sculpture started as a sphere, and was stretched and carved to become what it needed to. While I didn't get the whole thing, here's a quick clip (greatly sped up) of what it looks like working in 3d... Here I am adding detail to the horns and changing their shape.

The closeup of the head - the top of it is further refined, thus is smoother, than the bottom- which is still in extremely low-rez. Most people add too much geometry too quickly. Same applies to the closeup of the body.

So there you have it. I'm basically out of characters to use, so I'll stop here.

Make sure to follow / vote / resteem --I post new stuff daily, and strive to make it good.