Nope, you are wrong if you thought I abandoned the project already! I’ve been continuously making progress for the last two weeks. Surely it wasn’t fast enough but my professional work keeping up its pace and going back to Mila project (the short film I am working as lead lighter) was already keeping my plates full. So I am happy with myself steadily working on this scene almost every day.
Since the last blog, my tactic has been trying to make at least one prop a day. Now the sort of big appliances are done, all the props are relatively doable to make in about 3 hours. That’s the time I usually have after coming back from work and done with dinner and a quick workout. I am trying to alternate between easy and challenging ones so I don’t get burned out from it. Here’s how it looks so far:
The mood of this kitchen is sort of small, old kitchen of New York’s walk-up apartment. Although, I have to say this kitchen is actually a pretty decent size for New York standard. So the person who got this apartment is quite lucky or maybe this apartment has a small bedroom instead. These are my chain of thoughts when I make my 3D models most of the time. It helps me shape up the kitchen with more personality and less “CG-like“ if you know what I mean.
Just like when you are writing a backstory for your character in your script, giving the room with some history helps tremendously. Who owns this place? what is the person like? What do they cook? All these silly sounding questions give me the inspiration to decide what to make next.
For example, I am imagining this kitchen is belong to a woman, about in their mid 20’s, loves to cook but doesn’t have enough time to cook because of her day job and community college classes she has to attend at nights. She tries to keep things tidy and clean but that only happens during the weekend so during the weekday it sort of becomes little messy. She also loves to buy second-hand vintage plates and plants. The kitchen is one of her favorite place to hang out in her small one bedroom apartment because of the large window and sunlight. Also, her heater in the living room breaks all the time.
By imagining these little fun backstory I can look for reference images with more confidence and a clear goal in mind. I don’t have to waste my time trying to decide what to make next and that’s a huge time saver when I am already tired from work.
Anyway, I can’t wait to add more props to the scene. Like I said in the title, I think it’s about halfway done. Things that I still want to make is couple more plants, frames, cookie jars, ladder, trash bin, dish detergent, sponge…the list can go on. You never know how much you actually need to make to make it look like a kitchen! Or at least a kitchen that I have.
As much I want to keep working on this project I’ve been a little slow on the Mila project so this week I will be giving more love on that side. But hopefully, I can finish the modeling and UV by end of February so I can move on to my favorite part, texturing and lighting!