Furniture challenge

So... due to an unfortunate series of events I haven't been able to do much on my computer, including concept art, so I'm going to have to just post my bro's entry and give him the win this time :)
Seriously, he did a pretty nice job, and I couldn't really figure out how I was going to visually convey the concept I was thinking about... ah well, I'm going to spend some time tonight working on my Maya again, hopefully get back to Delgo, who I haven't worked on in a long time.
Anyway, here's my brother's futuristic furniture:

I'll get back to you once I get somewhere with my Delgo animation.
Stuart

Challenge 1-Alien

So here's my final concept art alien submission pic thing:

I'm moderately satisfied with how it turned out... learned a bit about photoshop and brushes, layers, workflow, lighting and all that sort of thing. I'll be doing lots more painting in photoshop to practice lighting and color schemes and stuff.

Erick produced a decent effort, but neither of us spent a ton of time on the pics, so the first challenge resulted in a draw. (haha, get it)

Next challenge: Due Saturday evening, a piece of futuristic furniture...

Concept art challenges

So my brother just got a Wacom Bamboo tablet and he's wanting to do some practicing, as am I. Therefore, we're starting periodical drawing/art challenges of some theme/topic that must be completed within a few days.
Our first challenge is this:
Create a hominoid alien with lots of character in full color with a simple background/setting by Saturday evening.

Should be fun, I'll post my final image (and his too if he lets me, and then you can judge them :) )
Later,
Stuart

PS A "short animated live-action film" ("Huh?" I hear you say?) should be coming soon as well... stay tuned.

PPS I know... I haven't been doing as much computer animation lately, but it'll happen, I promise.

The Fish (Or, The Flight of the Bumblebee)

Daryl and I made this short film (short film) on Saturday in a new format I like to call MMA (mixed media animation). It combines Stop Motion, Digital Compositing, and Rotoscoping to make a little piece worthy of Cannes (or at least cans).
Hope you enjoy.
Stuart

DIY iPod Touch Case

If you've got an iPod Touch and want a very cheap way to cover it up and protect it from all those scratches and bumps, look no further. Here's an excellent do-it-yourself iPod case for the very affordable price of one or two bucks... as a bonus, you get 12 pieces of minty fresh chewing gum!

Notice how the size is perfect; in addition, there's a handy semi-circular opening for easy access to the all-important home button. If you've got your tunes in your pocket and are worried about proximity to keys and other dangerous items, this handy case will alleviate all concern. To use the touch screen, just slide the case off the top to view the screen for any touching necessary.

Hope this has been an informative and handy do-it-yourself post for all the ipod-owning-skinflints in the world.

Finished character

Yay, so I finished the little character guy thing. Didn't come out great, but the point was to learn some tools and workflow, which I did. Here he is.


Not sure what's up with the aliasing... that's definitely something I'll have to work on for the next project. It seems to have something to do with depth-map shadows, but that's just a guess. So that's one thing off my list. I guess I'll get back to Delgo next and do some animation. I'll upload a vid once I get that done... should be fun.
Until later,
Stuart

PS Hmm... on looking at the final image, the aliasing doesn't seem to be a problem. I wonder why it looked bad on my render output in Maya... ah well. Always something to figure out.

Cartoon Dude

So I think the first or second thing on my list was to finish up a tutorial I was working on. Not quite done, about 3/4 done actually, but I thought I'd post a WIP so you could see how it was getting on. If you remember, I modeled Delgo from a poly cube (actually, I didn't post much at the beginning, but that is what I started with); however, this tutorial starts out by blocking out the shape with NURBs, which I think might be more common. I suspect that it takes a bit longer, but it gives better topology in the early stages. Then I converted to polys, and connected everything up, which was time-consuming and a bit frustrating to maintain quads and still have good topology. I think that just takes a lot of practice. I still haven't decided whether I'll be doing a lot of this sort of modelling in my career (I suspect not) but I'm sure it's a useful skill to have and the principles apply to everything (even shopping).
I do hope my rambling style of writing isn't off-putting. I'll try to be more concise in future. So, without further ado, the picture:

Drawing Skills

So I've decided for a variety of reasons to leave the super villain challenge, one of which is that my character got scooped (sorta) by a ten year old... ah well.
Another reason is that I want to spend some time learning the basics of drawing, form, color, line, composition, perspective, etc. You know, the boring stuff...
But really, to become a good modeller/animator, I need to have a good eye (and a good hand to capture what my eye is looking for) and this is the simplest way to develop it I think.

So all that to say there's no 3d stuff right now and I need to push myself to keep working at the simple things before I get too ambitious.
So I think I'll create a...

To Do List:
-Finish cartoon human figure tutorial
-Do project 4 in my Maya Foundation book
-Do several sketches to practice and become competent with my Wacom Tablet
-Learn some color theory and produce some colorful digital canvases

Well, I think that's a good start of things to do for now... keep pestering me if I don't produce anything in the next while. It'll keep me moving, which is what I need to do at this early stage in learning and practicing and learning how to practice.

Talk to you soon,
(hopefully with some sort of image next time)
Stuart

Dr. Mel Ishis sketches

Here's some little sketches I did this evening for Dr. Mel Ishis. I haven't really used my tablet in a long time, so it was kinda fun to play around with sketching. I'm not really a very good artist, so apologies for the not really very good sketches, but it's at least a start to the project.
C & C welcome of course.

Updates to the character as I drew some stuff:
Dr. Ishis cut off his hands (one by one) and replaced them with robotic mechanisms for the increased precision and strength necessary to build a weapon of mass destruction (the style for the hand was kind of inspired by the Coraline super villain mom lady).
Through years of neglect, the evil doctor's lab coat has become torn, stained, patched, and burnt by sharp objects, chemicals, sewing machines, and bunsen burners, respectively.

New Simply Maya Challenge - Super Villains

Well, I'm back in Victoria finally and looking forward to getting back into Maya.
There's a new challenge over at simply maya which I have entered. I'm going to be just starting some concept sketches for an evil scientist type.
Here's the little back-story I made up for him:

Having been mocked about his stature for years by his taller coworkers, the diminutive but brilliant Dr. Mel Ishis PhD. has finally turned on the Institute for Scientific Discoveries and Academic Thought for the Origins of Kinetics (I.S.D.A.T.O.K.) and its population of narrow-minded and petty scientists along with the whole planet by extension (and further pettiness). Using his background in kinetics, Dr. Mel Ishis has drawn up plans for an intelligent weapon with the capacity to destroy life as we know it (leaving, incidentally, the millions of uncharacterized organisms on earth virtually unscathed). Unbeknownst to all, in his aboveground lair, the evil doctor tinkers away with tungsten, neon, stainless steel, animal tissue, and used television sets. Finally, he steps back in awe (and so that he can see more than just the bottom of it). He has done it at last. Dr. Mel Ishis has determined the fate of our race; he has created...

...well I'm not sure exactly what yet, so I'll leave you hanging there. It'll be sort of cartoony, and I'll definitely post some WIP pics as I go.
Later,
Stuart