Next Dimension: Post Mill

With someone apparently turning the temperature up to ‘inferno’ over the past couple of days, my practice tweaked accordingly, veering toward something that hopefully would be a bit more picturesque than a fairground ride or Dale’s inflatable banana. It’s National Mills Weekend coming up too, so there’s further pertinence for you!

Though, actually, I’d long been trying to put a post mill together, to go with my earlier tower mill, and in turn build my own counterpart to Jack and Jill, the Clayton windmills. The post mill comes with its own unique charm, to the extent at which I’m not sure which structure makes the better subject. In my earlier attempts, I struggled with the shapes and curves required for the main body – both at the top for the cap and at the bottom for rotating smoothly upon the roundhouse. Buoyed by momentum from my last 3D excursion, I decided to have another go.

Incidentally, I mostly used shots of Suffolk’s Stanton Mill for reference while building the model. How very pretty it is, and indeed pleasing to hear that the mill still works, even continuing to produce flour.

The tricks learnt from the teacups came in very handy. I’d, for some reason, been reluctant to use Cinema 4D’s splines, instead pining for importing Illustrator artwork, but now I realise how much easier it can be with a bit more patience than I presumably had when trying it the first time. The rest of the structure was a rather similar exercise to the tower mill, but with hopefully a touch more polish to the finished item.

I then started playing with hair – Hair in Cinema, of course, could be used to make trees and shrubs! This is something I’ve not tried before – it was simple to implement but a terror to refine. I dropped hair onto some splines, and realised it was a bit of a terror on my processor aswell. After a more than thirty minute render, the featured image shows how well that went. Hmm! I don’t know what species they are, but they’re fun. I should say the willow trees were taken from the content browser – which I typically found lurking after all this. With render times only going up for their planting and impatience setting in, I ran with what I had and took to Photoshop to make just a few modifications. They look a bit rickety in places, but it does good to see the mill as part of a scene, rather than just plonked on a surface.

I’d certainly move in! Well, provided Weybourne isn’t for sale.

• 3d
• Art
• cinema 4d
• corn mill
• countryside
• model
• post mill
• windmill