Devlog 1: Gabbitt's Barrel (And Friends)

Welcome!

This week's work included getting familiar with Blender and its tools, creating a barrel (alongside a video guide), and then finally, modelling a Tasmanian tourist attraction.

After following some guides from Blender themselves, we were instructed to follow a video of SirPinkBeard (2020) creating a simple barrel. While very well-explained and simple, I was not able to successfully UV map my barrel, even after two separate attempts from scratch. Despite carefully following along, my UV maps always looked different to the demonstration, with too many warm hues.

My second attempted fail at UV mapping a barrel, following the tutorial by SirPinkBeard (2020).

Afterwards, I decided to follow a different tutorial, this time from a more recent demonstration by Grant Abbitt (2022). This tutorial was just as straight forward, and the art style was also much more to my liking. Techniques used to model included resizing, moving, bevelling, and cutting.

My attempt at modelling a low-poly barrel, as directed by Grant Abbitt (2022).

After modelling three whole barrels, it was time to model an object that one might find at a Tasmanian tourist attraction. Taking a similar approach to the last barrel, I decided to try and model a low-poly version of the Red Herring kombi van that used to sit on Liverpool St, Hobart.

The iconic Red Herring kombi van.

As a beginner, I simplified much of the van's design, but kept its core features that make it, well, a van! The model was mainly worked out of a simple square, protruding and extruding rectangular shapes to create a vaguely van-shaped model. Many shapes were conveniently created by using the 'Loop Cut' tool to section the van into different segments. Lastly, tires were added as skewed cylinder

While the model was not particularly different to mould, there were many times where I accidentally duplicated shapes that would simply sit 'inside' the model, and when manipulating the 'outer' model, these copies would reveal themselves. Oops!

The work-in-progress kombi van.

After laying out the van's shape, the van was coloured by selecting different faces of the model, and assigning solid colours to each. Keeping in the theme of a low-poly model, I kept the colour scheme rather simple and uniform. To add further softness, I also applied a 'Bevel' modifier, which curved out the shape edges of the squarish shapes.

The finished kombi van!

Overall, I am quite pleased with my low-poly rendition of the kombi van. Its shapes and colours are incredibly simple, but that is part of the charm of low-poly models. While I was unable to successfully apply the correct UV mapping to the initial barrels, I hope to play around with this feature more in my own time. Thank you :)

SirPinkBeard. (2020, February 28). Blender 2.8 How to Create a Wooden Barrel [Video]. Youtube. youtube.com/watch?v=HggtU6Nzlao

Grant Abbitt. (2021, July 31). Make A Low Poly Barrel - Beginner Tutorial [Video]. YouTube. youtube.com/watch?v=0jWLjAaIEMg