With my birthday being Sunday, I decided to get some cake-decorating practice in. I've never used fondant before, so it was a real learning experience. The original plan had been to make my own from scratch, but I ended up using the ready-made kind after the recipe I used turned out to be an epic fail. I used melted white chocolate to paint the letters. I'm going to try and find a different method for making the shamrocks if I ever make this design again, though. Cutting them out of fondant was a pain, and they turned out kinda wonky. On the bright side, I learned that you can use scissors on fondant, which will make future work much easier.
This is my first 3D thing in Maya that I did after my first day in class. For some reason the bowl isn't casting a shadow on the table, but pretty happy with it otherwise.
Also, that's pretty good for your first day. The first real model (aside from some spheres) I made in Maya was a catapult. I hated Maya so bad for the first few weeks, and then I loved it forever after that. Finding your way around the hojillion menus okay?
Yes, but only because I'm focusing on the couple I've been taught and generally ignoring the others, but I am genuinely loving Maya just after a day. I'm really looking forward to doing more with it. I might actually try and get a few assignments ahead this weekend just so I can do some more stuff.
Fixed my model somewhat today, realized I forgot to check something in the light so that there would be shadows. Plus added a thing around the bottom to make it look less like cloth, and more like a comforter.
More cake. I signed up for a decorating class, and this is the first completed one. It's got some problems, but it turned out better than most other decorating attempts. They wanted us to write something on it, but no one I know is celebrating anything specific this weekend, hence what I went with.
@Viga: Thanks. I love Ace of Cakes, though I'm limited to watching clips on Youtube and their official site, since I don't have cable. They're amazing. It's the kind of baking ability that I aspire to.
@misakyra -- I don't know much about cakes aside from eating them, but that looks pretty solid. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with when you've got more cake-learnin' under your belt. How'd this one taste?
Here's a new page from the short story I'm drawing for what I'm told is a UFO Anthology for Ape Entertainment. I suck at drawing explosions (and pretty much all "effects") so I bought this book, but unfortunately, these things are on deadlines, and I haven't had a chance to read the book yet.
Please note that I don't think I suck at DRAWING, just at drawing explosions (and fire, water, smoke -- anything that's not solid, really). I wish I had more time to really get this right, but like I said, deadline. That's kinda the thing about comics. There's so much drawing to get done, often in so little time, that you can't be too precious about any particular drawing. If it doesn't come out quite right, you just hope it gets the message across, and move on to the next one. That doesn't mean it's not painful, though. And I too hope that colors will help a lot.
And I wish I sucked that badly at coding, sciencing, and juggling. And whatever it is that Günter does. So there!
To improve: Make the explosion less even around the edges, if it's throwing off a lot of debris and smoke then it should look spiky. The whole thing doesn't really seem to be coming from an specific point of explosion. Where abouts is the center of the explosion? The part of the explosion directly behind the two people doesn't work, you need to make it look like the explosion is coming at the camera, if it's centered in mid-air, with long tentacles of smoke coming out and bits of debris coming past the people to give it depth.
@misakyra -- I don't know much about cakes aside from eating them, but that looks pretty solid. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with when you've got more cake-learnin' under your belt. How'd this one taste?
The cake and the icing tasted fine separately, but not so good together. Lemon + buttercream = no. This week I'm going with strawberry cake and chocolate icing, so it should be better.
I promised strawberry cake with chocolate icing, and here it is. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way this one turned out. There were a few problems, but more practice will eliminate them. I'll try to get a cross-section picture of this when I serve it on Sunday.
Comments
I've never used fondant before, so it was a real learning experience. The original plan had been to make my own from scratch, but I ended up using the ready-made kind after the recipe I used turned out to be an epic fail. I used melted white chocolate to paint the letters. I'm going to try and find a different method for making the shamrocks if I ever make this design again, though. Cutting them out of fondant was a pain, and they turned out kinda wonky. On the bright side, I learned that you can use scissors on fondant, which will make future work much easier.
Good jorb.
Also, that's pretty good for your first day. The first real model (aside from some spheres) I made in Maya was a catapult. I hated Maya so bad for the first few weeks, and then I loved it forever after that. Finding your way around the hojillion menus okay?
More cake. I signed up for a decorating class, and this is the first completed one. It's got some problems, but it turned out better than most other decorating attempts. They wanted us to write something on it, but no one I know is celebrating anything specific this weekend, hence what I went with.
Here's a new page from the short story I'm drawing for what I'm told is a UFO Anthology for Ape Entertainment. I suck at drawing explosions (and pretty much all "effects") so I bought this book, but unfortunately, these things are on deadlines, and I haven't had a chance to read the book yet.
Even still, I too wished I sucked that badly at drawing.
And I wish I sucked that badly at coding, sciencing, and juggling. And whatever it is that Günter does. So there!
The part of the explosion directly behind the two people doesn't work, you need to make it look like the explosion is coming at the camera, if it's centered in mid-air, with long tentacles of smoke coming out and bits of debris coming past the people to give it depth.
This week I'm going with strawberry cake and chocolate icing, so it should be better.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way this one turned out. There were a few problems, but more practice will eliminate them. I'll try to get a cross-section picture of this when I serve it on Sunday.