Toby Tonks - 3D Environment & Prop Artist

Daniels Mill & Bakery

Inspired by Daniels Mill, Shropshire, I created this scene for my final year project at university. Modelled in Maya and fully handpainted (base colour only) in 3DCoat & Photoshop, I wanted to challenge myself to design a playful, stylised environment based on a real life reference.

In the early stages I wanted this to be more faithful to my reference, but as I iterated and started pushing the shapes more, it became more stylised and chunky. I think this helped add character, and along with the vibrant textures, established a cosy, inviting atmosphere.

1910's Candlestick Telephone

A candlestick telephone prop inspired by the show Peaky Blinders. Modelled in Maya, textured in Substance Painter, baked & rendered in Marmoset Toolbag. I started this as my entry into The Rookies' Peaky Blinders contest, but unfortunately didn't finish it before the deadline. Whilst it took longer than I'd hoped, I'm still very happy with the result, and learnt a great deal about UV mapping and baking in the process.

The main aspect of this project that helped me the most was my references. Before starting, I created this reference board comprised of photos of real antiques, as well as  screenshots of telephones from Peaky Blinders. This preparation really aided me in the modelling and texturing stages, and stopped me from making my own assumptions about how my model should look.

Wooden Cart

Another task for university, this cart was sculpted in ZBrush, modelled & UV mapped in Maya, textured in Substance Painter, and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag. Most of my time spent making this model was spent sculpting the wood in ZBrush, which I think definitely paid off as it helped make the end result look old and well used.

 One of the biggest struggles of this project was to keep it under the 2000 triangle limit, as I had to decide which areas needed more triangles, and which kept their form with a lower amount. After a lot of tweaking, I managed to keep it under the limit, without sacrificing too much of the detail.