Easy as 1, 2. Bee

Using the image on the planes for guidance, I modelled the head, body and tail of the bee. I used seperate objects for each one to represent the individual sections of a bee. The head and tail were both made from spheres whereas the body section was modelled from a cylinder.

Busy Bee

The bee was started in the same way as the fish, in that I created some drawings from a reference picture and applied these as material to planes in 3DS.

Swim fishy swim

Using the edit poly modifier the cube was shaped to create the body and tail shape, leaving the fins to do next.

Another fishy story

Screen shot in 3DS showing placement of planes with fish drawings. Modeling of fish was started by placing a cube into the scene, changing the properties to transparent, resizing and centering the cube to be in line with the drawings.

A fishy story

Using a reference image of a clownfish, I drew different viewpoints of the fish using Photoshop. These drawings were then placed onto planes in 3DS and arranged to give a basic outline of the fish shape.

finally getting somewhere.....

Material on petals still showing white marks even though original and opacity images line up, so this was altered in the co-ordinates view of the material editor.

Sphere was squashed and material added to simulate flower centre.

Bend modifier and material added to cylinder to create stem.

View of scene was adjusted to give a better angle of flower.

No lights added to scene yet. Attempts to add lights to scene have so far been unsuccessful, either creating a fully lit or a dark flower with no shadows from petals....oh well, back to the drawingboard...

Stem has been added using a cylinder, but no material yet.

The array was repeated 2 times and each section rotated around the centre, where a basic sphere was placed to emulate the middle of the flower and help line up the petals.

The material was also re-done to clear up the white marks on the previous image

start of 1st stamp - wip

I decided to use the 2nd idea to start with, but to make it less complex by only including one flower and a bee.

Using a reference image of a yellow gerbera flower I selected one of the petals to use as a material, which was placed onto a plane.

The plane was then placed off centre and the array tool used with the following settings: incremental z axis: 12.0; 1D count: 30; making a total of 3600 around the z axis.

3rd stamp idea

For the 3rd concept I decided to go for something more abstract.

The aim being to try and show the delicate balance of the world.

SWOT analysis

Strengths: ability to visualise end result of what I am aiming for, however -
Weaknesses: the inability to portray across my ideas using the 3D software.
Opportunities: the chance to learn to use the 3D software effectively.
Threats: time constraints and complicated user interface of the 3D software.

Royal mail stamp themes

Action for species: capturing the beauty of the 10 most endangered plants.

Images of some of Britains rarest birds; some of which are on the brink of distinction.

The definitive stamp: also known as Machins, after Arnold Machin the sculptor of the Queen's Head, which has appeared on stamps since 1967.