The starting point: 3D Studio Max

3D Studio Max - Scanline render - some after effects

This voyage in my memories starts in the second year of my university studies. I was a sophomore in the faculty of Architecture and I had already persuaded my dad of the necessity of a PC for my line of studies. The fact that I was more thrilled with Starcraft and Lara Croft was only a side note I carefully omitted to mention!

In any case, me being me, I started dabbling in 3D modeling software, and the way to go at that time (it was 1997) was 3D Studio Max, version 3. That program seemed overwhelming, I didn't take any lesson, but read a bunch of tutorials on line, and then started modeling the visions I had in my head. My first experiments were all fantasy related, because I was really fond of Dungeons and Dragons, and I wanted my go at creating fantastic settings.

I soon found out it was much harder than I thought, but never the less I went on and on, musing myself I was doing great. 

I wasn't, and my early attempts at organic modeling produced a very funny looking female elf.

3D Studio Max - Scanline render - hmm.. purple eyebrows?

No Wonder she looks pissed...

If creating this character taught me one thing, it was that I sucked at organic modeling, I was really, really bad. With this knowledge in mind, my new experiments went in the direction of my studies: I started to learn quite a bit about box modeling and the like, but I still tried to apply what I was learning to comic related scenes. Some of them, I am still proud of today, even if they are very simple, others are just experiments, and must be seen as that.

It may help to understand the low quality of these scenes, explaining that at that time I had still to understand how units worked, in the program, and I didn't know a thing about UVW mapping because I thought it was too difficult for me. UVW unwrapping was pure science fiction!