Ants at War

My final stamp takes a look into the theory of survival and how biodiversity is all the same. All species in the world are trying to survive the challenges life brings to them. Species will literally fight for this survival. This scene represents the fight is everywhere and humans are not exclusive to this struggle. The ants in the picture are showing us their determination to survive and that their purpose in life is the same as ours.

Human Extinction

Here is my finished stamp design for the project. The idea behind the design is mainly about human kind and that we are a big part of the biodiversity picture, not only do we need to protect and conserve others we need to do the same for are selves are our children. The picture depicts life after humans with the great symbol of human life the 'Statue of Liberty' lying at the bottom of the sea. It is trying to make us more aware to the seriousness of global warming not just to the species of the world but to us too. The dolphins in the scene represent the idea that life will go on even without us. We will be forgotten like many other spices who have preceded us and if we don't act on these issues now, we will end up existent.

Flower of Life

This is my final stamp design the idea behind this piece is that there is very human element to the paving slabs in the picture they represent the amount of building we are doing in the world and sometimes without a thought for the biodiversity and the amount of organisms that are being damaged because of this. The flower represents the beauty of biodiversity and what world is missing by building over it. The flower also shows that even through difficult times and environments it will attempt to live and keep its spices in existence.

Final Stage - Ant

Keeping with my dark atmospheric theme and going back to the idea of silhouettes i decided to put the other ants on the horizon.

I then saved the design as a PNG files which gave the image a white background which worked perfectly with the silhouettes of the ants.

Stage 3 - Ant

I have decided to go back and finish my original 3D ant I started weeks ago I have gained a few more skills since then so I might be able to do something with him. Originally I had the idea of covering him with a camouflage texture so I'm going to stick with that idea.

I started by searching the Internet for a nice camouflage texture, once I found this I added it to the Ant along with a bump map called 'skin' to give it a more natural a rough look. It was now a case of putting the ant into a scene and I started by recreating the floor from stamp 2 but I didn't add any Environment effects. I also changed the texture to 'GRYDIRT' which suited the scene perfectly. I also thought about putting more than one ant on the scene because I wanted it the give the impression of an army not just a single ant.


I wasn't happy with the way the ants looked in the scene so I changed the angle and put a spot light on it. This looked much better but I lost view of the other ants.

Final Stage - Stamp 2

Here I merged my three elements together, the Ocean Floor, the Dolphin and the Statue. I decided to put a couple of spot lights out to give the main two objects a bit more light.

Creating the Torch & Adding the Hand

1. I created a plane and placed a picture of the Statue of liberty's torch and hand over the top. I then used the line tool to draw around half of the image. Then by adding the Lathe Modifier my torch object was made. I gave the torch a Turbo smooth but unchecked the smooth result to give the torch a harder edged structural look.

2. It wasn't to important to get all the small details of the torch in because the torch is meant to look like its been at the bottom of the sea for years.

3. Connecting the hand to the torch was very tricky indeed and it took ages to get it right. Each finger had to be rotated and lowered to look as if it was gripping the torch.

4. Finally I added some textures to the Statue. Firstly I added a map called 'Redrust' to the Diffuser color then I added the same map as the bump map. This made the object look old rusty and decaying.

Creating the Hand

I'm going to try and recreate the hand and torch from the Statue of Liberty USA for my underwater scene.

1. First I created a box and made it 7 segments for the width and 3 segments for the length and 1 for the height. I then shaped one end inwards for the wrist and one in outwards for the fingers.

2. Next I selected 4 polygons at end of the box and used the 'extrude' to bring the fingers out making sure I stopped at the each put of the knuckle to add new segments to the fingers.

3. At this point I needed a reference to copy round so I found a picture of a hand and added it to plane and placed it directly behind the object.

4.Once the fingers wee complete I concentrated on the thumb which I extruded from the side of the hand and shaped it the best I could around the Reference map.

5.Finally I added some knuckles to the hand this was done selecting the Polygons where the knuckles should be and exuding and then scaling them to a realistic size. I have decided not to add finger nails as this much detail is not needed for my final picture.

Final Stage - Dolphin

The head tom me didn't look right so began to reshape it which became very frustrating because it never seemed to look right I should of used a reference picture from the start to trace. I finally stuck with the final shape. The final thing to do was to add a texture called 'Skin' to the bump map and my dolphin was complete.

Stage 3 - Dolphin

Here are some different views of my dolphin I am quite happy with the way it looks symmetrical but I'm sill not happy with the shape of the head I might have ago at reshaping it.

Stage 2 - Dolphin

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In Picture 1 I have added the Turbo smooth modifier to see a more detailed view of the dolphin. Next in Picture 2 I have used the slice tool to add extra vertices's to the tail so I could shape the fin.

The next stage was to add the eyes this was done by using the Bevel tool to create the eye sockets. To finish the eyes I then added a black colour to the poly's in the center of the sockets. This was easily done to using the Material editor.