36 DAYS OF TYPE
This is a challenge made by studio Treintayseis. The challenge is that you have to make every letter of the alphabet and all the numbers in 36 days. That means that you create one letter or number each day. I decided to do this in a 3D program called Magicavoxel. I was still very new to this program and thought this would be a fun challenge to work with it.
The idea behind it is quite simple. Every letter is based on a word (for example the A for alligator, the B for blossom, etc.). I wanted to give every letter or number its own color. I also used other complementing colors, but only as long as the main color of the scene is still visible. What I like about Magicavoxel, is that it's possible to make this miniature style, that I personally love.
I just started to work on the project and saw myself growing and learning in a program I barely worked with before. Overall it was a very fun challenge and definitely joining the challenge again next year.
I will show some details from certain letters/numbers, different perspectives and show you the process behind it. Check out my Instagram to see all the letters with their close-ups and stories.
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This program uses voxels, which basically means that you build something out of tiny cubes. There is a difference between making square or round objects. So certain materials work better on square objects and vice versa.
I used 6 different materials.
The C for city.
With the letter C, I used a lot of different materials to make the scene more vibrant. A city is very dynamic, so the different materials help to convey that. The focus should still always be on the letter or number. Here I used the SSS material with a light underneath it. To really put the focus on the C.
The H for harbor.
With the H, I mainly used the SSS material. This one was quite challenging because making a ship with voxels is more complex than I thought. I live next to the harbor of Amsterdam, so I got the inspiration from looking out of my window.
The O for Oasis.
I made almost all of the letters and numbers by 'hand'. The O is one of the few where I used a shader. I build a sandhill and what the sand shader does, it makes this sand-like texture on top of it. But I still did some parts by hand to refine it.
The R for robot.
This is probably one of my favorites. I made the R surrounded by tiny robots. I already wanted to make a scene with robots. 36 DOT was the perfect project to try this out.
The V for village.
Also one of my favorites, especially to make. Making this little scene was so much fun. All the little details (and some Easter eggs) were really interesting to come up with. I didn't really know if I would finish it in one day, but it worked and I'm very happy with the end result.
The W for waterfall.
Here I used a different way of working in Magicavoxel. I tried making a waterfall but it didn't look good in the way I usually do it. I tried different ways to make the water look like it's flowing. I eventually worked with a kind of code Magicavoxel uses and this came out of it. I love how it looks like.
The number 4.
With the numbers, I did something different. I just went with the first idea that came to my mind. Here I made a tiny airplane going over the four surrounded by fluffy clouds. I wanted to get this dreamy like feeling. I think the textures, light and composition worked perfectly for this.
The number 5.
The idea behind number 5 is that it's getting 'charged' by different light sources. It's made from SSS material with a light on the bottom. So it looks like the energy is coming from these light sources that are 'charging' the 5.
That's it for the 36 days of type challenge. If you like it, you can watch all the letters and numbers on my Instagram with the stories behind certain ideas and see different perspectives.
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