I have developed my stamp fish stamp design a little further. From my initial design I realized that if I wanted to include the fish's lure I had to make the fish quite small on the stamp. To overcome this problem I decided to make the stamp portrait. I created the queens head by using 'live trace' on an existing stamp in Illustrator. I applied a yellowish colored paper texture to give the stamp more dynamic colour & try to show its in deep sea. I also duplicated the fish, made it larger, set layer style to soft light & lowered the opacity to try and give the image more of a 3D feel. Im still concerned that the text would be too small to read when actual stamp size. I will create some stamp size versions & print them out to see what they look like.

As week 12 is drawing ever closer I decided to start thinking about how I will actually construct my stamp using my 3D model and how I will present the stamp. I wanted to give a 3D feel to the stamp considering all the hard work to create the 3D images. To try and achieve this I decided to export my render as a PNG which would give me a transparent background. I then created a dark background in photoshop and placed the image of the fish over the top with it overlapping the background and becoming cropped by the serrated edges. There is a lot of blank space in this initial stamp design so I will look to fill it with a tiny bit of information about depth.

For a bit of excitement & experimentation im also going to attempt to create a 3D anaglyph image which when viewed through the classic blue/red lens glasses will really make the image become 3D. First I have to get hold of some of the classic specs, a few weeks ago Sainsburys were giving them away for Channel 4's 3D week so hopefully someone will have a pair lying around. 

This model has proved much more difficult to produce than I expected. I ended up spending a lot of time creating the textures in photoshop. Making them seamlessly fit together has been a big challenge, & the final model is not 100% perfect but its to a point where I am happy with it now. My problems originate from having far too many polygons in my model which meant when I came to applying the uvw unwrap it was very difficult to arrange the map for easy creation of the materials. I wanted to use different techniques of production for all my models and I beleive I achieved this very well. For this final model I used primarily lofting & polydraw to create the two main shapes of the model, whereas in previous models I have started with a box and worked outwards from that.

These are the materials I created in Photoshop using the UVW unwrap method.

To create my Chambered Nautilus I initially selected 'Slines' and drew an Arc. This arc would form the shape of my basic shell. Next I lofted this shape which gave me a 'C' shape. I then arranged the vertices to give me the desired shape. I deleted half the shape and only worked on one side, then used the symmetry modifier to ensure I had perfect symmetry.

I then created the second shell piece seen here in green. To create this I found creating a 'plane' gave me the best results. Again I created the plane and moved the vertices around to give me the desired shape. I then created the animals internal structure that would provided the basis of the arms.


I then used the 'PolyDraw' toolset & specifically 'Branches' to create the arms. Once the branches tool is selected I dragged away from the model after selecting the initial polygon which left me with the arm. It was difficult to get the direction & size required using this tool, I couldn't seem to see the logic how the branches were being created, clicking the same polygon and dragging in the same direction numeras times would give very different results. After much trial and error I got the results required.

With the majority of the model created I turned my attention to the materials. The patterns on the shell of this animal are quite complex and to create an effective model I need to match these best I can. I used UVW Unwrap to create UVW templates that I used to create the right colours & patterns for the animal. However I still have a long way to go with the materials.

For my 3rd model I have chosen a chambered nautilus. It is over 400 million years old and is considered a living fossil due to the fact it has not changed physically during this time. Nautiluses are found throughout the Pacific and Indian oceans, where they spend their daylight hours at depths of about 1,800 feet (550 meters).

The Nautilis does not live as deep as the earlier animals I have chosen to model, this will give me the chance to model some of its environment, i.e coral etc. 

Their shells are highly sought after and have been popular since the renaissance. Because of this nautilus numbers are in decline and after surviving 400 millions, there is every chance they could be made virtually extinct by man.

Im now at about 80% complete with my Vampire Squid now. Since the last update I have used the symmetry modifier to create my full model & created the planes for the top and bottom webbed parts. I then used the 'paint deform' tools to give the body a more anatomically accurate and natural looking shape. I then used 'Unwrap UVW' & rendered a UVW template. Then in Photoshop I used these guides to accurately texture and colour the Vampire Squid. This method allowed me to seemlessly blend the two materials on the webbed fins.

I now have a number of tasks left to finish off my squid. I want to make the eye illumination appear so the eyes themselves are illuminated not just the light illiminating them. I also need to make the way the body and legs blend togther more natural & seemless. I also need to adjust the materials on the legs so that the texture matches that of the webbed parts better and adjust the opacity of the webbed fins to make them more authentic.

So I have decided to start from scratch with my squid model. The previous version was not going to allow me to create sufficient legs without deleting the vast majority of the model. Im happy I did start again because the second model is a big improvement over the original.


To create this model I started with a sphere for the head and extruded a group of polygons to create the eye-socket. I created the legs by making a long rectangle and used the 'hinge from edge' tool to make the bends in the legs. For the webbed section I created a plane and moved the vertexes to create the correct shapes.

Still a long way to go with this model, and it will be interesting creating the semi transparent materials for the webbed sections.

Ive started modeling the vampire squid and already I feel its much more complex than my angler fish. Again I've started with one box and created a reference image by roughly tracing an image of the squid in Illustrator. I then moved the vertexes around to form the basic shape. Ive found im using 'cut' quite a lot on this model to be able to achieve the desired shapes.

The next animal il be creating will be the Vampire Squid. This is another deep sea animal that uses 
bioluminescence as a method to stay alive, but in comparison with the Angler fish this animal uses
it as a defence mechanism.


The clip here is from the BBC's planet earth series. Narrated by the legendary David Attenborough!
Vampire squid comes in at 50 seconds.