A Shadow in the East devlog 3: TV show inspires my 3d modeling process
How "Forged in Fire" is my inspiration for my 3d modeling process in Blender
Opening
Hello, readers!
Today, I am watching Forged in Fire on Pluto TV while I write this new A Shadow in the East devlog. For more info on what the latter is, I advise reading my first two devlog articles. As for the former, it is a hidden gem TV show that used to be on Discovery+ but aired on History Channel before streaming existed at all. It's about four expert smiths (depicted above) watching, testing, and judging the blades weapons forged by friendly competitors who are also expert smiths. Drawn from World History, all of the blades on the show belong to various Ancient and Medieval warrior cultures.
How this show inspired my current process
On the show, the guest smiths get 3 hours to forge knives in the first round, 3 hours to put handles on them in the middle round, and 5 days to forge Historic weapons in the final round. As for A Shadow in the East, I have decided that I should follow a similar process for every new mesh I make in Blender. Not just for Age of the Ring, but also for vanilla Battle for Middle-earth and for Edain Unchained. You are welcome to look those up on ModDB in another tab if you want to learn what those are.
Namely, when I go to make a new mesh, I'll give myself a 5-day window for each mesh, and each day will be for a different three-hour phase, as listed below.
Day 1: Design by drawing annotations in a new Blender project
Day 2: Model by adding and shaping the pieces of what will all be joined into one mesh
Day 3: Edit by doing a UV Unwrap and mapping the pieces in a coherent way that leaves room for many other meshes’ UV maps
Day 4: Paint by using the texture paint tab in Blender and adding color in layers like undercoat, base coat, surface and edge highlights
Day 5: Texture by adding photorealistic patterns to the colors and assigned areas in Gimp, exporting the lifelike texture as a DDS and a TGA, and swapping the PNG for the TGA in Blender
Why this will help me
This new process I came up with will cause me to take my time with each and every new prop I make in Blender. Spending 15 hours a week on one prop a week will allow me to jam in multiple minute details. And to jam in lots of photorealism, maybe before I get to the Texture phase! And I will have props worthy of showing off in new YouTube videos on my channel. Speaking of that…
Where's my Content Creation schedule?
It still exists, I just changed it is all. Changed it to reflect my need to balance this activity with other creative work, my bird and two dogs, my housekeeping, my social life, and my job. Rather than have an official day of the week for each phase of 3d modeling or of video making, I will just book a time window for whichever phase of whichever creative project every time I get the chance.
Closing
Thank you all for reading this. Please subscribe to both this journal and my YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@KylePerkino