WIP Wed, Sept 3rd, 2014

I'll keep this post short.  I have been working on taking one of the existing images and recreating it into CG, rather than taking more pictures.  With the weather misbehaving this week, I rather start working than waiting for it to clear up.  So for now, I am working on one of the Starbucks images I took.  This will be the first of many projects.
The biggest problem I ran into was trying to align the camera to get it just right.  It is still something I'm struggling with perfecting, but I had to do some research to figure out why it was always a little off.  I had already adjusted the focal length of the image, but what I was missing was the size of the digital back.  This is the sensor of the camera, and I had no idea what it was.  I knew it wasn't a full-sized one, so I couldn't use a preset in Maya (which is based on film, like 35mm), so I looked up the size of the sensor for my specific camera online, adjusted the image plane to view the entire image, and voila!  The image now matched a lot closer than it did before.  It is still hard to get it just right, but that is part of the nature of this without having exact measurements and the like.
So for today, I will post an image of the first round of blocked in objects, trying to align them to the positions and sizes as those in the photograph.  I also drew another picture on my iPad, but I am not satisfied with it, and won't be sharing this one right now.  I rather do more work on it or move onto something else.  It was an experiment in technique and I haven't quite figured it out yet.

WIP Tuesday, September 2nd 2014

I said I was going to do it, so here I go.  Due to some unfortunate weather conditions, I was unable to take photographs outdoors, so I took some indoor ones.  I kind of got stuck in a Starbucks, so I decided to use my time there to work on things.  Here are 4 photographs I took (of many), one of which I might start working on turning into a 3D image.  I will try to take some more tomorrow, but after that, I will have to pick one of these (at a time) and dive in to the 3D.  I hope to have some stuff blocked in for tomorrow, maybe more.
Any comments on which (if any) you like?

But I decided not to leave it there and just take some photos, I also wanted to work on brushing up my drawing skills.  I need to keep working on it, and I am hoping to find a modeling session somewhere locally I can go to weekly.  If anyone knows of one, I would be eternally grateful.  So right now the image isn't finished.  I am getting used to my new Wacom iPad pressure sensitive pen, as well as the way Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for iPad works.  So a lot of this was learning and experimenting, but I would like to keep working on this.  I hope to keep doing these daily as well to improve my drawing and visual story telling and lighting.  Still haven't finished the actual line art.  I want to work on the girl more, a lot more, add more detail, and fix a few things.  I only have base color and roughed in shadows, so I have a long way to go yet.

If anyone knows of a tutorial or suggestions for techniques for using Sketchbook Pro, I am all ears.  I'm just starting to learn this stuff, so I hope I can pick it up and start making these faster and better as I go.

So that's if for WIP 1.  Stay tuned for tomorrow!