Cupcakes!

[NixeKnox]

This is what I’ve been working on for a little while. Something is wrong and I can’t quite put my finger on it, I was wondering if anybody could help?

One of the things that are bugging my eye is the icing. I’d like it to be the fancy wavy kind, but the edge crease and bezier curve methods I tried didn’t look right. Anyone have any ideas how I can get it right?

The other thing is the stand. I want it to look silver, but aside from putting the anisotropic shader up I haven’t found a convincing texture for it. Any idea for a way to add scratches on top of the anisotropic shader? That would give the ideal texture that I’m looking for.

Does anything stand out to you? Please let me know, I’d like to enter this in the Blender Guru Christmas Contest.

[Zii]

Great work!!! It looks really good! As for textures… I can’t really recommend any node structures that’ll give you a “silver” look, though I can recommend: www.poliigon.com and www.textures.com as great sites that may have the texture you’ve been looking for! Polligon even gives you a free 50 credit trial when you sign up, and they offer everything you need to make a bump-map with their textures! Textures.com is also good! Much cheaper and you can one time buy credits for your needs! Those two are my main go-to’s.

When it comes to what sticks out, my eye was drawn to the bottom of the candles where that weird looping shading is, did you bevel them? Did you smooth the mesh? The top of them don’t seem to have that shadow.

As for the icing on the cupcakes, you said you tried Bezier curve, but did you play around with the “Set Handle Type” of the curve? In edit mode, select a point on the curve and hit “v” to get the “set handle type” menu, “Vector” gives you sharp jagged curves and maybe a combination of that plus “free align” would give you that wavy feel.

Sorry if I’m repeating things you already tried just the first thing that came to mind to accomplish you icing problem! Either way, wavy or not wavy they look great! I can almost taste them :3 and that’s a good sign .

[NixeKnox]

I tried poliigon first when I went looking for silver texture and was surprised to find they had none but I see textures.com might have what I’m looking for. Thanks I forgot about them!

The candles are smooth shading with the subdivision surface modifier. I guess my loop cuts aren’t close enough together, thanks for pointing it out.

I’ll play around with the curve some more and see how it comes out. Thanks for the great suggestions!

[Morgaine_Christensen]

I think what you have done looks very nice. You might try playing around with a Glossy and Diffuse nodes hooked into a Mix Shader for some shiny silver. You wouldn’t even need a texture just experiment with the gray scale.

[Zii]

This thread got me searching for metal node set-ups and found this maybe it’ll help!

https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?322941-Realistic-Silver-Material-in-Cycles

Edit: I noticed a lot of these people use a simple silver color but use “scratch” textures to add realism!

[Morgaine_Christensen]

Thanks for posting that link! Should be able to do it with gold as well.

[Zii]

No problemo , I noticed some people used the same set-up for the metal barrels of guns! So it should definitely work with gold! Both are probably slightly less shiny though.

[NixeKnox]

@Morgaine_Christensen Thanks, but the above picture is with the glossy and diffuse nodes I went up and down the grey scale on, and it just doesn’t get to what I’m looking for.

@Zii That thread is perfect! I guess my keywords weren’t the right ones when I went searching. The handle type was what I was missing in the curve, thanks for pointing it out, now I’m on my way to the look that I want.

[NixeKnox]

Got the render ready, thanks for the help! It looks exactly how I want it to now.

It’s been submitted to the contest and while I doubt it will win anything I’m very happy with the result.
Happy Holidays everyone!

[Zii]

It looks perfect

but now I’m hungry :C

[NixeKnox]

I’m sorry! I promise not to post any more food. (Hides picture of donuts)

[NixeKnox]

I’d like to create the least amount of threads possible so instead of making a new one I thought it would be nice to use this one as my showcase thread.

I made a soup can while I was creating assets for a future project.

While I was looking for references I came across Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans. Though I’ve always thought Warhol had to have been an interesting man, I’ve never read about him. I decided to change that. When I was through, I set out to make a recreation of the Campbell’s Soup Cans collection.

It was not easy to get all those labels. Warhol viewed art as a business and liked to use methods that took as little time possible. The original Campbell’s Soup Cans were created with printmaking. I think if he had lived, Warhol would have loved 3D modeling.

EDIT: It would appear that I cannot edit the title of this thread anymore. Oh well, it’s not like the promise of cupcakes goes unfulfilled.