#squiggle 3d: prop project

[sc-squiggly3d]

🪙"Reward Vault" 🪙

 IT’S ALIVE!

Three animations. 1 rig.

This is a Reward Vault I created using Valence3D app (on Ipad) and Substance Painter. From there, I created a simple rig and produced 3 animation sequences, all done in Maya.

This was part of a personal study on creating 2D game art and animations using 3D. This was also a way to practice learning how to rig and animate in Maya. Nothing complex. Not really aiming for “production level quality”. Just something simple to get the job done for me.

I grabbed a couple of game art animations from 2D games I found on Pinterest to use as inspiration and desired to create something with that kind of vibe/aesthetic.

While I’m still very much a novice to this side of the process, I’ll admit that I am very proud of what I accomplished from this exercise. Compared to my first rig and animation attempt with the Candy Chest, this is certainly a step up and learned a lot, especially on the animation side of things that I’m hoping to carry forward to other experimental projects.

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Tools Used: Valence3D (Ipad) | Maya 2024 | Adobe Substance 3D Painter | Marmoset Toolbag 4 | Photoshop CC 2019 ———————————————————————————————————

♦ SQUIGGLY ICONIMATIONS ♦ HammerTime | BoomBoom! | Reward Pot

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SC (2025)

[artoflittlemisssquiggles]

CAFE MARSHMILLE ☕ DTIYS CHALLENGE

*screams from the mountains* FINALLY! It is done!!!

A DTIYS Challenge that took this squiggle meister way too long to complete cause I just had to be EXTRA and be like “Oh why don’t I turn this into a cool mixed media project that has both 2D and 3D in the artwork. I’ve been wanting to do that for sooo long so why not try it with this? Wouldn’t that be swell?”

So after a hot couple of weeks, here it is. The fruit of my labour. I don’t actually think anyone will really notice (or…even care) that this is supposed to be a digital mixed media. But hey, at least I finished it! So HUZZAH for me!

Like I said, my main objective for this piece was to create an illustration that combined my digital art skills with my 3D modeling skills where the end result would feature an art with 2D and 3D elements as well as a stylized 3D prop project.  Something I can also share over on my 3D art blog.

This meant that I had to make my 3D models match the style of my drawing of Marshmilla (the featured character) which, for those of you who have seen some of 3D work, is a style that I really love. I’ve been wanting to marry my 2D with my 3D skills for a long while and this is my first step towards that personal goal.

In case you couldn’t tell, all the props in this piece are 3D models while I drew the character. Speaking of which, the character in question is named Marshmilla.

Marshmilla and her wonderful Cafe Marshmille belong to the very talented Sonia Stegemann. I’ve been following her work a lot lately over on her Instagram page. She actually held an official DTIYS challenge before with the same character but I didn’t get a chance to do that one. This design of Cafe Marshmilla is actually from her personal redraw challenge and I loved the design so much (along with the cafe props) that I asked Sonia if I could draw this version of Marshmilla in my style and she gave me the ok.

Didn’t tell her I was also going to 3D model her cafe prop designs though XD So, for what it’s worth, I hope she likes my rendition of her designs. As always with these challenges, I hope I did the original justice and you folks like my take on it.

Enjoy ya’ll!

~LittleMissSquiggles (2024)

[visuallanguagerachel]

3D soft sculpture drawing idea

I had the idea to bring my drawings to life through soft sculpture. I sewed these gut looking things which I really like. I usually would create a whole soft sculpture piece but I want to challenge myself more this project to stay away from doing something I would usually do but making these guts were pretty challenging as I sewed them pretty organically. When sewing them with the machine I didn’t have a plan I just did squiggles and let the machine kinda do it’s thing. They turned out very good though. It would we cool if I were to use these in some way as part of my story my character has a operation. I will think some more about it.

I wanted to sculpt something that was a main part of my story which is the needle. It represents healing but the character thinks it is made to harm others. I sculpted this very large needle from clay and added yarn to the top. When I was photographing it it created very interesting shadows which I really liked. The needle looks like it is foreshadowing something bad that is going to happen like in my story. This could be interesting to create props or something for the film I want to make. I am unsure though as I am still to create the characters for the film.

[littlemisssquiggles]

LittleMissSquiggles’ Summary of Art 2022

Trying a different take than usual from my art summaries of previous years. While I'll definitely miss seeing my previous summaries on full display to compare against the new one, like I said, I'm up for something a lil different so consider this a new cycle in how I present my continuous development.

My, my, my, what a year 2022 was for this squiggle meister. 

The most I can say is that quite a few changes---mostly positive, for now--- happened for me this year, particularly in these last few months.

Some squiggly good accomplishments I achieved in 2022:

In my professional career, I got yet another job opportunity working in games---you could say an even bigger one following last year's first gig. Early this year, I was approached by a mobile game studio. At first, it was mainly remote freelance work to create some 3D assets and accessories for one of their game titles. However, several months and a few more assignments later and I'm still working with them as of now, going into next year. While it's still mostly freelance work, so far it's been a really positive experience working with this studio. I've learned so much from them---mainly from my cool art manager who I've been working closely with from the start. An overall awesome guy. Next year will mark almost a full year I've been working with them and I'm genuinely hoping to keep doing more work with them going forward.

Secondly, remember last year when I mentioned my 3D modelling gig as a Set Modeler for a prospective animated series produced by Animschool---the online training school where I learnt 3D modeling? Well the name of that series is Mech West and recently, Animschool (presently under Animschool Studios) released the trailer for the first pilot episode for this series. And guess what folks? In the trailer, eye spied with my little squiggly eyes not one but both of the two character prop assets I worked on for the project. It's one thing to create a 3D model and another thing to see the final version of model fully textured, rigged and brought to life through the power of animation! The other artists who worked on the same characters and took over from me following the modeling process did a phenomenal job! And while I can't exactly say which characters I did (since I'm still technically under NDA and Animschool hasn't officially released their official artwork of my assigned characters as yet), I will say that my lil mech babies are definitely in the trailer. Wasn't expecting to see them, let alone both of them but there they were! Beyond that, I honestly cannot wait for when the full pilot of this series drops next year. If you're interested in checking out Mech West for yourself, you can watch the official trailer for the pilot right here on it's official Youtube Channel. And for more updates on the project, follow the series on its official Instagram page.

Other than that, I once again continued to hone my 3D art skills in my preferred style which continues to be stylized hand-painted. Despite starting off the year mighty strong, admittedly though, I did fall off working on personal 3D projects within recent months. You could say it's because I unintentionally burnt myself out on personal 3D projects and needed a recharge/break to assess the next direction I wished to take my craft. Apart from that, I also took a break to focus primarily on work-related projects. I used this period to dedicate more time to learning more about the process through my job while also saving up funds to invest in a new workstation. As much as I love my current laptop and have made lots of amazing pieces with it over the years that I'm still proud of til this day, the truth is... that I aspire to do MORE with my art! For the most part, ya'll have mostly seen me do stylized props in terms of my 3D work. And while I love creating props, I also really, really want to create stylized 3D environments too and I want to do it using Unreal Engine. Unfortunately, my current laptop setup isn't powerful enough to run UE. While it's decent enough for UE4, it's not a comfortable type of decent. Realistically, I need a system with a bit more fire power to handle UE. That's what I've been busting my butt these past couple of months to save up funds for. My plan is to gain a gaming PC that will allow me (hopefully) to work fully in UE4 specifically for environments. When I wasn't focused on freelance work, I also dedicated some time to experimenting with my art style and made significant strides for next phase of my work. With my new workstation, I wish to keep pushing my art in the hopes of achieving my goal of fully marrying my 3D art with my digital art style. You could say that's one of my artist goals for this coming year. So wish me luck on that. Will see how things go.

Overall, 2022 was an alright year; give or take. While it had its fair share of hurdles in between, it also brought me some good achievements which will definitely help me moving forward into the new year. Outside of that, I hope everyone else walked out of 2022 with some positives, more or less, as well. And like I say pretty much every year now, wishing you lot all the best for the upcoming 2023!

Each new year comes with a new chapter of possibilities and while we can't always tell what to expect, the least that can be done is take things in stride, one day at a time. At least that's how this squiggle meister plans on approaching it.

No matter what, let's all do our very best in our respective ventures and give 2023 our best efforts, 200% and beyond!

Happy New Year m'fam! Onward to 2023 we go-go at full throttle!

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♦  PREVIOUS ART SUMMARIES  ♦

2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021

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LittleMissSquiggles (2022)

[sc-squiggly3d]

🔨"HammerTime!" 🔨

Stop! Hammer Time!

Another one to add to my growing collection of 2D style game art and animations but made with 3D. Making 3D look 2D is my jam and this is great way of learning and continue to polish my 3D animation skills.

Sorry if this is starting to get a little repetitive of me.

But, what can I say? I’m having a lot of fun doing these and overall enjoying the experimental creative process.

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Tools Used: Valence3D (Ipad) | Maya 2024 | Adobe Substance 3D Painter | Marmoset Toolbag 4 | Photoshop CC 2019 ———————————————————————————————————

♦ SQUIGGLY ICONIMATIONS ♦ Reward Vault | BoomBoom! | Reward Pot

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SC (2025)

[sc-squiggly3d]

💎"Reward Pot" 💎

This is a companion piece to my Reward Vault. Meet its “younger sibling” --- Reward Pot.

Similar to the Reward Vault, the model was designed with Valence3D. Textured with Substance Painter. Rigged, animated and rendered with Autodesk Maya.

However, for this project, I tested a different approach to how I’ve been compiling and polishing up these squiggly iconimations I’ve been doing for fun. This rounds, I hopped over to my Ipad and worked with ToonSquid (and a bit of Artstudio Pro).

The main takeaway from this experiment for me was just how powerful ToonSquid for the Ipad was. I’ve lightly dabbled and played around with TS before.

I liked how straightforward and effortless ToonSquid was to learn. No time spent pulling teeth and hunting down tutorials just to get the basics. I was able to get the gist of ToonSquid’s very simple UI and figure out how to use it to suit my needs within a short minutes of poking around with the app. These are the types of apps that I tend to gravitate towards for my use.

I don’t care how powerful your app is or how many grand-spanking cool features you claim it has. If your app is too convoluted/confusing to use  and/or makes the learning experience too much of a chore; made worse by lack of resources to help you understand the sheer BASICS of using the app, then it’s not going to be a fun time.

Thankfully this was bit not my experience with ToonSquid. It was already a pretty neat app from the jump and the recent 2.0 update with even more insanely useful features just made it even better.

This was my first time really pushing it to see if I can use ToonSquid in my work and for what it’s worth, the short answer is yes.

I had fun putting together the Maya animations for  in TS and adding all the little effects you see in between. And I’m looking forward to testing it again for future projects.

Similar to Valence, ToonSquid has given me another incentive to fit it into my workflow and I’m looking forward to using it again going forward.

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Tools Used: Valence3D (Ipad) | Maya 2024 | Adobe Substance 3D Painter | Artstudio Pro (Ipad) | ToonSquid (Ipad)

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♦ SQUIGGLY ICONIMATIONS ♦ Reward Vault | HammerTime | BoomBoom

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SC (2025)

[sc-squiggly3d]

🧨"BOOMBOOM!" 🧨

Like I said before, this was a test run for something I hope to do in the long run.

For this, I wanted to play around with some mixed media techniques - mixing 3D art and animation with 2D animation to produce 2D animated art. I’ve only done it once before and I’ve been meaning to try it again. Still on the learning path with my 3D animation while my 2D animation skills are a quite rusty. Thankfully there are lots of animated VFX sprites sheets on the web that can be used for reference and I’m not afraid to admit that I definitely made use of one of them to help with the 2D explosion animation.

Overall, this is the start of something I hope to keep going and learning from. That being said, I’ve decided to turn these little experimental personal projects into a sort of mini series that I can share on my social media. The working title for them is “Squiggly Iconimations”.

There’s no overarching theme to these icon animations. I was heavily inspired by the cool animations you see of props in 2D or 3D style mobile games.

I’ve seen a couple examples of them while browsing Pinterest for inspirations and always wanted to challenge myself to try and make some of my own, purely for the sake of learning something new and fun.

I’ve definitely missed dedicating time to experiment with pushing my art and current skills so it’s nice to get back on track with that.

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Tools Used: Valence3D (Ipad) | Maya 2024 | Adobe Substance 3D Painter | Marmoset Toolbag 4 | Photoshop CC 2019 ———————————————————————————————————

♦ SQUIGGLY ICONIMATIONS ♦ Reward Vault | HammerTime | Reward Pot

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SC (2025)

[sc-squiggly3d]

“Sleeping Draught”

Yet another mini prop project derail but this time with a purpose. This prop project was based on an original design and concept illustration by 2D artist: Nastasia Makarova. To check out the original piece as well as the rest of Nastasia’s amazing portfolio, please follow her over on her Artstation:

For this mini project, I wanted to experiment with a new workflow----switching out my usual use of 3DCoat and Clip Studio Paint as my go-to combo for hand-painting and replacing both programs with none other than good ole Photoshop; if you can believe it.

Now I know what you might be thinking:  

Squiggles, m’dear squiggle meister, using Photoshop for painting isn’t that big of a deal.

And you may be correct.

As a budding stylized 3D artist, I’ve more or less always known that Photoshop is a favourite among 3D hand-painters but what I’ve never realized was that you could actually paint directly on 3D models right inside of Photoshop.

For years, I’ve watched 3D hand-painters only paint their models using the flat 2D texture maps. But it wasn’t until I discovered this fantastic tutorial by fellow 3D artist: Jason Wang that I learnt that you could ALSO paint on your 3D models exactly like one would do in 3D texturing software such as Blender or 3DCoat all inside of Photoshop.

And you know what else? It actually works. IT ACTUALLY WORKS PRETTY FREAKING WELL! BETTER THAN EXPECTED! I mean…sure, Photoshop may not be as powerful as Blender or 3DCoat as a 3D texturing program but for hand-painting especially painting directly on 3D models with all the greatness that Photoshop has to offer (such as painting in Layers and using PS brushes, Text and Smudge Tool), I think it does exceptionally well and I am willing to vouch for it here as someone who used it successfully for this project here.

In case anyone is curious, I used Photoshop CC 2021 for this project. I created my base texture in Substance Painter (like I always do) before importing it to Photoshop along with the .obj file of my 3D model.

And I gotta say, I am absolutely in love with how this turned out. This is the most hand-painted any of my works has looked. Even better than the ones I made using 3DCoat. And for that; I am beyond satisfied since this is what I was going for. I want that graphical and painterly appeal that I use to capture in my digital art in my 3D work as well.

I definitely knew when I chose the design for this piece that I wanted to capture that same aesthetic that Nastasia so masterfully portrayed in her concept. And for what it’s worth, I think I nailed it! I mean…it’s not a one to one exact replica. But in terms of style and overall feel, I believe I achieved what I wanted to achieve from this small assignment. And for that, I’m most pleased.

Needless to say, I will most definitely be experimenting more with Photoshop for future 3D projects moving forward.

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Tools Used: Maya 2020.4 |  Substance Painter 2021 | Photoshop CC 2021 | Marmoset Toolbag 4

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~SC (2022)

[littlemisssquiggles]

LittleMissSquiggles’ Summary of Art 2019 

Another year of art drawn to a close. This is not your typical art summary from yours trule.  It's more of an art collage of some kind, if you can even call it that XD A definite art summary would imply that I actually did art for every month of this year and that is not what happened at all, fam. 

As a matter of fact, it’s a miracle I even have anything to show since admittedly, 2019 was not a very creative year for me. I mean, I did create things but not as much as I would’ve liked. 

Instead I spent most of the year focused on my studies at Animschool while juggling any small work-related projects I managed to score. And even when I did have some free time to work on my own stuff, I still didn’t have the drive to do all that I wanted to do which was a bummer.

Nevertheless, I’m still proud of what I was able to accomplish for this year no matter how small. Something is better than nothing, am I right? 

Some squiggly good accomplishments I achieved for 2019:

I worked as a storyboard artist for two potential animated web series with the prospect of it being a recurring gig (we’ll see what happens in the new year with that).

I got the opportunity to work as a background colourist and tackled one of my biggest creative banes---background and environment design. I learnt quite a lot from this experience and it certainly inspired me to develop and improve on that aspect of my art. Still have ways to go with it but the drive to go for it is definitely there now and I have this small gig to thank for that inspiration.

Thanks to Animschool, I learnt how to use Zbrush and use it in the creation of characters and environments.

I created my first full 3D character model this year based off art from an artist whose work I’ve admired since my Deviantart days---Meago. I even showed the model to Meago and not only did she like my model, but she also gave me the okay to model any of her other characters from her Dollicious series which made me feel proud.

Apart learning Zbrush, I also learnt how take sculpted characters and props designed in Zbrush and retopologize them into production quality models for rigging and animation. I even learnt a bit of UVing---though I need to work on my UV Mapping skills more for the New Year.

My work was featured three times on the Animschool Instagram page where the school only shares the best work so that was fun little surprise each time it happened XD

 I  also successfully scored a feature in Animschool's Model/Rig Student Showreel 2018-2019.

I got to visit Tobago again for the first time since 2012 and I got to travel by plane for the first time ever. Turns out plane rides aren’t as nerve-wracking as I thought they’d be (even if it was a small 30 minute flight). 

I got the chance to participate in the first-ever RWBY Rosegarden Charity Fanzine hosted by @darleenas-art​ with the zine proceedings donated to the Child Mind Institute.  

I discovered my newfound passion for hand painted 3D models and successfully created my first hand-painted model despite being a complete noob to the craft.

So yeah, overall 2019 didn’t go too bad for the squiggle meister. Hard to believe that we're at the end of another year and with 2020 around the corner, it's hard to believe that we are at the end of a freaking decade too. 10 Years of Squiggling! 

This is why I make it a habit to post all of my past art summaries. It’s a great way to compare how my artistic growth over the years and looking back at how my art looked way back in 2010 and seeing where it is now, it’s honestly insane! If you saw some of my old digital art back then, you wouldn’t believe it was drawn by the same person. 

While I didn't get to do all that I wanted to do for this year, it doesn't change the fact that I did learn a lot. This year also helped me to realize a bit more of what I want to do with my craft and where I would love to take my art. 

I have some ideas for projects I'd love to do for 2020 going forward. Not sure if I'll get to accomplish any of them. But like with any creative year, I'm excited to go into it and see what I am able to achieve. 

Wish me luck for the New Year folks and the same goes to all the amazing peeps, old and new, who have supported me throughout the years including this one. Words and a mere thanks are never enough to express my eternal gratitude to all of you for your continuous support of my content.

That being said, I pray that 2019 turned out to be a good year for you guys as well and wishing you just as much luck in your respective endeavours for the 2020 too!

On a final note, I'd like to close off this summary with my tradition of sharing my personal best/favourite piece of this year. 

The inspiration for this piece actually took me by surprise because it wasn't exactly planned. I think you guys already know which piece this is. Can’t say much else other than it turned out to be a quite the beautiful bouquet! 

My Bouquet of Roses character design set remains to be my personal favourite piece of this year because it’s a unexpected project that made me gain more confidence in my style of drawing/designing characters. Before I admittedly didn’t have a lot of appreciation for the way I drew characters. I always did the thing where I compared myself too much to other artists whose worked I loved and felt my way was inferior.

But from doing this one project--- having to draw so many characters in my style and seeing how it all turned out and how much folks turned out to like...was fun. I hope I get to continue this project for next year since...I’m not exactly done with it yet and I’d honestly like to do more with it. Hopefully. 

Still can't believe this all started with a small headcanon post which sparked the creation of a character that spawned more characters, an AU, one illustration project followed by several more projects and AUs---a hella lot more like hot damn!

But above all else, this one idea also sparked a small circle of friends whose interactions and conversations have definitely made this squiggle meister's year a lot brighter. 

I may not be the most vocal person in the world but I still wanted to say thanks for the laughs and happy fun storytimes to @lookyeekiti​, @che1sea-xiao-long​, @miki-13​, @nykamito-x​, @cloudburst-paint-water​ @beaver-sen​, @keyenuta​ and @ezroar​! 

Hears to the New Year folks!  See you in 2020!

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♦ PREVIOUS ART SUMMARIES ♦

2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 

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~ LittleMissSquiggles (2019)