3D I – Object for Assignment II

When visiting the museum the object that I decided to go with was a not entirely complete baptismal font from the 12th century. It was crafted by stonemasons working in what was called Byzantios craft, which was a particular style that the local craftsmen used (quite evidently a reference to the Byzanthine Empire, which appears to have been a main influence even though the style originated in northern Europe), and appears to have been a part of Linde church.

Part of the font’s relief. Could hopefully be cleaned up and work as a diffuse map.

The main reason that I chose the baptismal font was simply that it appealed to me. I am a bit of a sucker for ruins and worn carved stone, so this immediately struck a chord in me.
Also while looking at it, it was rather clear that it probably wouldn’t be all too difficult to model, allowing me to focus more on the textures. And despite being a stone baptismal font, there were some rather nice textures on it. Foremost of course the reliefs on the side, but also a lot of chisel marks on the inside and edges.
Also, if it turned out that the font was too easy to model and texture, I could always add to it. It wasn’t entirely complete in its current state after all.

Chisel marks on the inside of a font

The visual style that I am going for is something rather realistic, similar to what is used in games like Uncharted, that shows the objects current, broken form. If there is anything that I would like to emphasize it is this broken nature, so perhaps I will model additional, smaller objects that can be placed next to the font, as though pieces of it had fallen of over the ages.

And as for stereotyping, since I am going for a rather realistic style and am modeling a 12th century baptismal font, I’m not really sure what stereotypes could come into play.
I suppose since it is a catholic object, negative religious stereotypes could be an issue. But the object itself appears rather harmless when it comes to this, and would most likely only become an issue if it was implemented in a very inappropriate manner.
Or perhaps on a more positive side, the fonts reliefs are very nicely carved, which could give rise to the stereotype that everyone a thousand years ago could carve amazing things into rock.
Otherwise it would be if the reliefs on the sides of the font contain something that I am missing that could cause this.

When it comes to the risks of this assignment, I’d say that they are rather low. I could most likely have picked a more advanced object to model, but I was really hoping to get the hang of texturing with this one. And with the various seams that the UV wrapping will create in combination with the wear and chisel marks in the font, that will most likely be tricky as it is.
But model-wise, I should be able to make this without too great difficulty. As you can see on the edgeflow plans, most is pretty straight forward.

Edgeflow plans of the font.