Two years ago, when I got involved with 3D I just thought it would be a short phase. I was working for a web company (I still am) and we needed a 3d model of a shopping city and I guess I was the only one who wanted to try something new. Not to bore you to death, let me just say I got hooked instantly. Modeling wasn't a problem but I wanted to learn more about texturing so I ordered a book called »Digital Painting and Texturing«. It took me a whole day to read it. What can I say, I was hungry for knowledge. Inside I found a picture that caught my eye right away. It was called »The Old Cupboard Door« painted by William Michael Harnett. Two years later, I decided to try to replicate it in a three dimensional space.
Doing the research:
After scanning the page and cropping the picture for reference I had a close look at all the objects. Most of them were recognizable right away but then I saw a scissors like object in the bottom right corner. They weren't just any ordinary scissors, but had this odd shaped box on them. I searched Google Images like crazy with every possible word combo but came up with nothing. I was losing hope when a friend recognized them right away. It was a wick trimmer – you learn new things every day. With all objects identified, I fired up Google Images and gathered as many reference pictures as possible. I spent most of the time looking for nice violin and tambourine pictures. Having found everything I needed, it was just a matter of preparing the pictures so they could be used as reference inside the 3d program.
click image for larger version
Modelling:
I am not a big fan of nurbs or splines. Poly-modelling is the technique I use most of the time. I had to start somewhere so I decided to do the things around the cupboard first. Wall and wall boards were easy. Then came the cupboard door. I decided to go for the low Poly version so I just sculpted the planes using the reference image and applied shell modifier to give them depth. With the basic shape done, I added a few more segments to each plank and started to move vertices's around to achieve the tear and wear look. Nail holes were made with cut tool and then extruded inwards. For the hinges and the lock I decided to try something new. I traced half of the hinge with a spline, added a »Symmetry« and on top »Face Extrude« modifier. After collapsing the stack I ended up with a single face and handful of vertices's. It was time for spring cleaning. Enabling snap to vertex made a job a lot easier when I started cutting edges from one vertex to another. While doing this I tried to stick to quads as much as possible. When done, all that was left to do was to apply the »Shell« modifier to give it thickness, beveling the outer edges and throwing Turbo Smooth on top. The bottom broken hinge was a breeze. I just copied the top one, deleted the broken part, created a new Poly and that was it. I used the same technique for the lock as I did for the hinges. Here is a little tip from me on how to get away from the perfect/new/clean look. I think it adds a lot to the realism and is really simple to do. When you are done modeling, put a »Noise« modifier on top of your stack using really small values.
