The Skeletal Mushroom

Afternoon, everyone! It's been super hot lately, so that means it's almost SUMMER VACATION! I can't wait! You know what else I can't wait for?! OUR FINISHED MUSHROOM! It's gonna look so cute, I swear. Last time, I talked about creating the mushroom itself. For this post, we'll talk about the mushroom's skeleton! That's right, my mushroom has bones. Awesome, isn't it?

1. What is texture?
- Texture is like the evolved form of material. With texture, you can add certain features to a 3D object so it seems like you can actually touch and feel it. You could make a flat plane look rough, or make a pokeball look smooth. Usually, texture goes on top of material (which, I believe is mainly used for clothing and such)

2. Why do you have to save the image before saving the Blender file?
- So after painting my mushroom for an hour or so (with the eyes, mouth, spots, and body) I saved JUST my file and closed Blender. The next day during Digital Arts, I opened the file and... ALL MY HARD WORK WAS LOST. I had to repaint the whole thing, which was horrible :( Thankfully, the eyes looked extra adorable. Lesson learned, folks, if you don't save the image before anything else, you'll have to repaint the whoooole thing.

3. What is armature and rigging?
- To put it simply, armature is the skeleton itself. It's the bone in your future mushroom. Rigging is the process of putting in the skeleton. See, wasn't that easy?

4. Name 3 new tools you used for this week's activity.

Mushroom: So hot on this island, my skin
melted off. 

- Texture paint: This had the whole art shebang! It allows the user to use different sized brushes (you could adjust it to your liking) to paint an object. There are several brush types and of course, different colors to choose from. I used this to paint my mushroom TWICE.

- Armature: This added a skeleton or "single bone" to my mushroom. I extruded the original armature to create a longer bone for my mushroom cap. It looked pretty weird, but I hope it turns out great. To select armature hold down Shift + A, scroll down to find armature, and select single bone.

- Wireframe: This is another way to view an object. It only outlines the lines of the object, so it's easier to select. For this week's activity, we ended with this.