I spent many hours rotating shapes in space with 3D software this week, and this chain was the last piece I worked on.
This lighting is the same that I use when I’m drawing from my imagination, but it’s tricky to create in real life so it was good to absorb how different combinations of form looked in it. See the thin dark shadow around the edges of the links? That’s what makes this lighting so alluring. It simplifies shading!
I like the way these chain links interact with each other, and how those at the top of the chain break the plane upwards and the links at the bottom dip below it. And that brings up the question of why those plane lines are there at all.
This chain was created in a demo version of Cheetah 3D, and then captured with a screen shot because “save” was disabled. That’s why the plane lines are still there, but I love the plane lines! They say where the chain is in space, and they create a good rhythm as they say it too.
If I kept a reference file, I’d put this image in it.
