Himalayan Treasures: Buddhist Rice Offering Bowl - Dagmawi Tsegaye

dagm_tsegaye

Name: Dagmawi Tsegaye
Country: Ethiopia
I have read the terms and conditions and participating for fun/ if possible, for prizes.

dagm_tsegaye

Ritual background

The offering of rice is a common ritual in Buddhism. This signifies the value the people have for the priests and Buddha. Offerings are used to purify the ritual venue and participants, as well as to make symbolic gestures of reverence and devotion to deities.
The priests have a larger offering bowl to collect these offerings and the people use Mandalas to bring their offering.

What I'll be creating

There are many types of bowls used by monks. I'll be using the "Lotus Rice Bowl" as the bowl used by the monks.

And for the Mandala, I'll be creating my own that will use Buddhist themes associated with offerings and that visually will work work with the Lotus Bowl. I'll be using different ritual items as a reference for the patterns and details around the Mandala.

I'll also be creating a chest/box the Lotus Bowl will be put in when the monks are not using it. This, just like the mandala, will be fictional design I'll be working on. This will also use symbols and patterns that help contextualize the items details.
Symbols
These will help me keep my creations religiously and traditionally accurate. I'll be making this by trying to put my self in the point of view of someone who crafts these. I believe this will challenge me even more.

Triratna-Is a Buddhist symbol, thought to visually represent the Three Jewels of Buddhism (the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha). This can be seen on top of the Lotus bowl. It can also appear on the other props I'll be working on.
-Pair of fishes -A pair of fishes (Sanskrit: matsyayugma) represent happiness and spontaneity as well as fertility and abundance.
The Vase- The umbrella can shield a human from rain and harsh sun. Metaphorically, the parasol protects humans from suffering and life’s vagaries. authority and influence over society.
The eternal knot- known as the infinity knot, symbolises the eternal relevance of Buddha's teachings and sermons
. This, also, can be seen on the lotus bowl.
-Flower- purity, impermanence, and the cycles of life that rise and eventually fade away.
Chattra- is an auspicious symbol, representing royalty and protection.

dagm_tsegaye

Patterns

dagm_tsegaye

Block Out

Lotus Rice Bowl
This will be modeled based on the reference.The symbols will be modeled as modular pieces so I can reuse them on the other assets. So I haven't yet included them in the blockout, but it's the first thing I'll start working on when I start modeling this prop.

Mandala
Here I tested how I can create the patterns procedurally and scatter around the props. Figuring this out should help out on most of the patterns that will be modeled. The smaller ones that won't contribute to the silhouette of the asset will be made using textures either made in substance Designer or Painter. I've also decided on what details will be present on the mandala besides the symbols by collecting the relevant references to help me focus.
Chest
A very rough block out to determine the overall shape, scale and design of the chest. This should fit the Lotus Bowl in it, therefore it's scaled to fit them.

My next move is to start modeling the Lotus Bowl. The symbols on it will be involved on detailing most of the props, so by the time I'm done with it, I'll pretty much hit 2 targets with one shot.

dagm_tsegaye

Offering Bowl

I've continued creating the patterns. Each of these, that I've pointed out, will be a single piece that will later be scultped on and later distributed around the prop.

I believe blocking out phase is very very important so I'll be doing this for this prop half this week.

dagm_tsegaye

Blockout Update
Very very small update.
Reduced the bottom detail blockout count, blocked out the symbols and tested out a way to create the paterns on the lid of the bowl. The patterns by them self at the moment lack some detail, but I'll pop those details while creating the high resolution version.
Next, I will be creating the high resolution version of this prop.

dagm_tsegaye

High resolution update:
Started modeling the symbols; 2 left. I'll be using these and the other 2 as modular kits on the other props.

dagm_tsegaye

High Resolution Update
Created poly groups for ID map baking. Isolating patterns ( to save some time and energy) that can be duplicated across the prop.
Sculpted Triratna symbol on top of the Bowl and the repeating pattern around the lid.
Small progress, but I believe I've made it convenient for later processes, through careful planning.
Additional details to these parts will come once I'm done with the whole bowl.

dagm_tsegaye

High Poly Update
I didn't like the result I got from substance designers splines. So I quickly modeled the wave patterns, grabbed a height map in zbrush and just put them at the bottom of the bowl handle and the lid.

I will proceed to smaller detailing on the symbols and some parts and further polishes to rough parts.

dagm_tsegaye

Rice Bowl Chest Box

Gathering and organizing references
This is what I'll be working on next. This box as mentioned at the beginning, will store the lotus rice bowl for when the monks are not using it. I'll be designing this myself and I'll be basing it on a lot of references for a more accurate representation it's purpose. The symbols I'll mainly use are the Knot, Two fishes, and Flower.
These symbols represenent life's continuity, abondance, and beauty and it's end.
Knot - seen on the bowl, it makes sense to repeat it on the chest as well, as to nourish the monks and help them spread the knowledge and relevance of Buddha.
Flower- Purity, and reminder as that all will fade away even though the hunger persists through the spiritual journey.
Pair of Fishes- Happiness, fertility and abundance of the offering.

dagm_tsegaye

Began chest box blockout
Blocking out chest box based on the crappy draw-over I made.

dagm_tsegaye

Blockout Update
I think I'm done blocking out the chest. I'll be moving on to detailing it.
Besides the paint and the details seen above, the chest is made up of wood. And since it's old, I've gathered decent references of damaged wooden chests.

dagm_tsegaye

Chest Box Blockout Update
Changed some details blockout around the box before I proceeded to high poly.
This was done by friday.
Chest Box Highpoly modeling

I started out by splitting parts that will look the same.
I have duplicated the remaining parts for the sake of presentation. I also still have the chest box base body to model and detail.

There are some parts that will require polishing, which I'll do along with the base part of the chest box.
I used substance designer's new tool to create the ivy alpha.

I'm extremely happy how this is panning out, especially because I really struggle getting my ideas to fully flesh out in 3D. And this is one of the few that turned out well. The part I often struggle with is, saying "this enough references", before I overwhelm myself with the infinite possibilities. But you know the saying "Fail a lot to learn a lot."

dagm_tsegaye

High poly continued
Added cushioning and wooden splits to the base chest box.

Next I'll proceed to the mandala plates.
Just like the Lotus Bowl, there are few parts that will require a bit more polishing, but I'll have to wrap up all props and see how much time I'm left with to do this.

dagm_tsegaye

Mandala Offering

Blockout

Just like the chest box I'll be combining mandala designs to visually work with the other props I've made.
Ofcourse, the details won't all be used. It's a pool of references I'll inspire the mandala design with. Same goes to the parts, their count will be the same but the details in the rings from the reference won't make it to the final design.
This is just to help me focus. And for the spoons, I'll pick one or merge details to design one of my own.

dagm_tsegaye

Design Blockout for the offering mandala and spoon.

I'll be creating a hybrid of different mandala and himalayan props. I also got inspired by the bowl for the details. I think it'll bring coherence between the bowl and manadala.
Some are already modeled but some are new. I'll proceed to detailing by exporting only one version of the patterns and details to save some time and energy.

dagm_tsegaye

Highpoly Spoon

On to the offering mandala.

dagm_tsegaye

Mandala Highpoly Modeling Update

This was very tough especially on the mandala pieces. Creating and applying those patterns was challenging since I had to keep the subdivision count a bit high to accommodate the detailing without low poly artifacts. Array was a bit finicky so I had to do a lot manually.
You can see that none of my models have detail noises applied to them on their respective high poly model. I feel like that could be added during texturing. It's much more flexible that way. And since most of these are not organic detail noises are not really required as much during this phase.
Next steps
Go back to the other props one by one and start polishing some rough spots and start re-topologizing and unwrapping.