Cosy Shack

Here is another weird little space, inspired once more by Stray (2022). I just love the aesthetic of the game (particularly Midtown) and wanted to explore this further; using hand-painted elements and textures, the use of props and lighting.

This is also inspired by a small part of an older project I’d created in 2022, entitled The Street, that contained some rudimentary carpentry to provide a shelter for an old TV set. This was revisited to include a short clip of Gladiators (1992) to indulge my nostalgic tendencies.

The aim of this project was to be more detailed than usual; incorporating a good number of props from previous projects and using high quality textures. It would then be printed at A2 for my house.

As this wasn’t intended to be animated, I could put aside any concerns for optimising the project. Not that I usually worry too much about that anyway, but I tend to keep projects fairly simple to keep rendering times down. With this project, I could just bring in as much as I wanted and use high resolution textures, until I either ran out of energy…or my computer dies.

Procreate

This was the first time I’d used Procreate (iPad) in earnest for texturing models in a Blender project. Even having completed the project, I still feel like there is a lot for me to learn about the pipeline that runs back and forth between Blender and Procreate. Time after time I was running into issues with the UV map when importing into Procreate, and so a lot of time was being wasted with trial and erroring my way through it. That said, this is absolutely how I learn things and retain the information.

Once objects were importing nicely into Procreate, with no complaints around overlapping UVs(!), I was able to get to the fun bit. This truly was the fun part of the project; the freedom to doodle and paint and add texture to objects I’d modelled. I also think this process carried my enthusiasm for the whole project, allowing me to stretch my imagination further and develop a new style I haven’t explored before.

I wanted the scene to be a little tired and worn out, with plenty of graffiti and dirt in all the right places so that it looked like a world that has been lived in. I didn’t include any people, but I wanted plenty of evidence to suggest they have definitely been here, and have well and truly left their mark…as humans are typically good at.

Props: Old & New

Over the last few years, I’ve built a good number of props that I was able to reuse for this project. I wanted the scene to be a lot more detailed than I have ever made before, so having a library of different products available was very valuable. Most of the scene has been filled with assets from previous projects, with only a few exceptions. The only props that I’d sourced from online (freebies) are the Monstera plant and the chair. For everything else, let’s have a look at the list…

PREVIOUS PROJECTS

MADE FOR COSY SHACK

  • The Shack (Carpentry)

  • Ceramic Pots #2-4

  • Ladder

  • Shipping Crate

  • Books & Bookshelf

  • Paint Cans

  • Curtain + Pole & Hook

  • Lamp

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Sharp 10P-18H