This piece is actually based on a photographic concept, which was partially derived from Fig02.Originally, I was asked to create this piece based on the original photographic reference image, but I feel that the point of shading and lighting is to show off your texturing skills and give it better lighting, if possible. As you can see, the lighting is too strong in the original image, so I added more information to my own scene, like the blue cheese, cubes of cheese, Brie, almonds and crackers, just to make it busier. I also wanted to make it more painterly and with a better composition.

References

It is always good to have more than one reference to look at when modelling and texturing. Try to find ones that you can purchase and have in front of you when modelling and texturing. This is because the pictures you grab online can have bad lighting, be pixilated, or may not contain enough detail. Here are some of the references I used (Fig03).

Modelling

For the strawberries, I modelled one in NURBS and converted it to Polygons. I checked the normals and then reversed the normals (this is very important, but I will explain why later on). I then UV-mapped it (Fig04). For the strawberry leaves, I used Polygon planes and the Append tool. I shaped it with a Lattice, and then UV-mapped it (Fig05). For the bowl, I used a NURBS CV curve, revolved it, and then used the Rebuild command on the surface (Fig06).



For the crackers, I modelled one in Polygon and extruded it. I modelled only one side, not two, because no-one will see the back of it (Fig07). For the cheese cubes, I basically modelled one good one in Polygon with rounded edges, and UV-mapped it. I then duplicated it and shaped them all individually with a Lattice, to make them look less uniform and less perfect. Then, when I placed them, I rotated each cube so that the camera could only see just one side of the textures. This saved a lot of time (Fig08).




For the blue cheese, I used a Polygon cube, shaped it, and then extracted the Polygons to separate the skin and the cheese. I duplicated the skin to make the wrapper. I deleted the polygons at the back of the cheese skin, because no-one will see it. I used a Lattice to bend and shape the wrapper (Fig09). For the almonds, I used a NURBS sphere, converted it to polygons, reversed normals, and UV-mapped it (Fig10). For the Brie, I used NURBS CV curves, which I lofted, and then shaped them by pulling the vertices. I converted the surfaces to polygons and UV-mapped them (Fig11).