The secord of a series of studies on iconic art related elements.

Pitchforks were broadly used in everyday activities back when most of the society population lived in tiny farm related villages. Thus, it was an object loaded with character and symbolic meaning. Grant Wood, not only placed her real sister as one of American Gothic (https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/american-gothic-grant-wood-american-1891-1942/5QEPm0jCc183Aw) main elements, but also a preponderant role to this third member of the family; the most iconic pitchfork ever and one of Americana’s most simple and memorable asset.

By going through articles about it, catalogs of the time and similar in “antique” pitchforks, this is a very accurate mimic of the one present in the paint, as in the time with it was placed in this composition. We are talking wood and metals wear down, roughness differences due to contact, lacquer loss, dirt, etc; but also size and shape specifics found in this particular one.

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KEY ASPECT

The model is optimized with high-res normals, and enough texel density and PBR detailed textures to work on close-ups. 120ppu across all UVs, with only one original style.

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TECHNICAL ELEMENTS

• Textures are PBR; two 4K textures for the unique Pitchfork shader. There are no “redundant” textures, as each one of them is used in more than once in the shading options workflow.

• Model is real size, the measures are 168.3 x 18.94 x 4.16cm from handler bottom to tine tip.

• No nSided faces, no triangles. 1882 faces/1884 verts.

• No object is rigged.

Included elements:

1. Maya scene

2. Textures

3. .fbx files (low and high)

4. .ass reference

5. Sample renders

6. Free license HDRiHeaven.com light texture

7. Thorough walktrhough the scene remaks as .txt file

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The model is meant to be used with no displacement (normal with height combined). It has height information that reaches the UV seams, and thou it might work with eventual displacement, due to the object’s visual characteristics it wasn’t designed to make use of this shading tool._

Hope you find it of use, and of course any questions are welcomed.

Till next time, Manuel.

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