It took me a while to decide who would be a good figure to model in history, but I finally decided on Vladimir Lenin. My major concern was the difficulty that would be presented when modelling the mesh with such a low amount of polygons, but also being able to create an identifiable face. Lenin seemed like a good option because I had just learned about the effects of communism in APUSH, and he seemed like a very influential figure in developing the communist doctrine. Additionally, Lenin has a very distinct complexion that could be easily expressed in the style I chose. The statue and environment can be broken down into three assets: mesh, material, and lighting. For the mesh, I started out with a cube and continuously subdivided it, manipulating the vertexes to form a body, an arm, and eventually a head. In total, I ended up using only 650 verts and about 210 triangles, which is very low. The next step was making an adequate material, which took a very long time. I had to create over 30 nodes and individually manipulate scatter density, occlusion, and reflection, among many other factors that go into creating a realistic material. I settled for a copper material because most communist dictators in Russia had their statues made with copper. This process of mixing to get just the right material took about 5 hours alone. Finally, lighting was put in place to create realistic reflection, ambiance, and shadows. I switched over to 'Cycles Render' and created a 'sun' object, and added ray casting to create a diffusing shadow. In all, it was much more specific than what I have described but this was the most simple explanation.
Prior to creating this piece, I did a lot of research on various historical figures from many time periods, stretching all the way back to the Bronze Age. Eventually I settled for Lenin because of the reasons stated in the preceding paragraph. Additionally, I did a massive amount of research on how to properly utilize the tools in Blender, and how to create a realistic material and atmosphere. I also researched various styles such as Neoclassical sculpting and low-poly designing, both of which were implemented in my bust to create an interesting contrast in art movements. I drew more influence from low-poly and minimalism because I felt like it would fit the medium of a 3D rendering program better, and it would create a greater contrast with the time period that Lenin was in.
I feel like I hit most, if not all of the learning targets stated on the rubric. I took my time to fully familiarize myself with Blender and get an understanding of the tools and nodes of the program. My use of the styles researched was adequate enough on all sides for each style to be seen as an influence in this project. I utilized organizational principles to create a structurally feasible and materialistically feasible bust; my work could most certainly be made in real life with the proper tools. My use of art history when choosing the styles and when selecting a proper figure to model was very comprehensive and thought-out. As far as personal goals, I feel like my skill level in Blender has raised dramatically, especially in modelling and creating materials; before I never had the knowledge in order to create metals or even leather, cloth, etc.
My strengths in this project would be my previous knowledge with using this medium, as well as a thorough understanding of many styles. Of course, my knowledge of Blender could also be considered a weakness, as I did not understand many facets of making a proper mesh. Additionally, I am not very good in general with creating realistic figures, so I took influence from low-poly so that I would be able to exaggerate features of the particular person I might have been modelling (i.e. Large forehead, extending chin in Lenin) whilst also making it look very good and stylistically appropriate.
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