Garden video

I know I haven't updated with more vehicle modelling because I've been having to edit together a short version of a documentary project I was filming all last year, so that's been taking priority. Our church has a community garden that produces food for a local food bank, so I filmed over the course of a whole agricultural year, and now it's editing time. I probably won't be able to upload the video here, cause there's people in it that I don't yet have permission from to display on the world wide web. Anyway, I likely won't have time to finish my model the way I want, but I'll give it a shot over the weekend.

Later,
Stuart

Sandraker Blocking

Hey, I'm on a roll this week! Lotsa posting ;P

Blocked out the vehicle using primitives and rough geometry. Next I'll refine the shapes and make sure the main body has the right sort of topology. I tend to get a good ways into shaping things and realize I don't like where the edges are... so it'll be interesting to see how this goes. I'm pretty noobish at topology in general. But I'm looking forward to adding more detail on this one; I'm kinda liking where it's going so far.

Let me know what you like/don't like about the design so far. It's early enough to change.
Stuart

Vehicle sketch

Here's the photoshop sketch of my fast sand-vehicle:

I should be able to get going on the modelling tomorrow, so hopefully more updates in the next few days. February is a short month, so I need to get a move on. :)

In case you were curious how orthographic reference images get used in Maya to help with modelling, here's my image plane setup after breaking apart the top and side references, applying them to planes, and making them slightly transparent so I can see what the model looks like too. They're also on an unselectable layer, which I can hide easily too.

Stuart

Lightroom is awesome

Gotta say, in the two hours or so that I've actually been working with Lightroom, I really really like it. It's intuitive, whelming (i.e. not overwhelming), and has some really neat tricks. I frequently find myself criticizing or praising software on its ability to accommodate fast workflows with shortcuts, batch processing, fewer keystrokes, the ability to setup macros or presets so I don't have to do the same things over and over. This has all that. It's great. And I haven't even touched most of the program, so I'm looking forward to reading up on it more and exploring the different modules. Yeah, it's built modularly too, so that's another plus in my book.

So enough of the advertising, here's finally an Africa photo. Some sort of egret (cattle?) at Lake Naivasha in Kenya.

Click for the larger if you don't know the drill ;)

Later,
Stuart

PS I should have a concept sketch for the vehicle up in not too many days, but LR has been a lot of fun, so I may get sucked back into it for a while.

Lightroom and fast vehicles

Small (pictureless) update... I bought Lightroom 3 today, so I'm now trying to get a handle on a good workflow for organizing and processing photos. I was going to try to post an Africa photo, but I haven't gotten to the importing stage yet, let alone exporting with watermarks, resizing, and sharpening.

I've also started another challenge at SimplyMaya, the topic of which is Fast-looking vehicles. I've sketched out my concepts, and I'm trying to get a photoshop version sketched out so I can take orthographic drawings into Maya to model off.

I'll certainly have images next time I post, so stay tuned.

In other news, I haven't been reading much... I need to get a February book going.

Later,
Stuart

First Annual Solicitation Post!

Please watch this video and then realize how much you want to donate a PITTANCE to a very worthy cause. Next time you walk around outside, imagine walking around.... inside concrete. Sucks, right? Okay. Full disclosure, I didn't make this video. Wish I did.



Yep. That's all. Maybe next time I'll have a video with even CG!
Later,
Stuart

Demo Reel

I finally finished my demo reel!

Demo Reel on Vimeo

Let me know what you think :)

I'll put some Africa photos here as well soon.

Later,
Stuart

Stay tuned...

Yeah, it's been a while, but big things are in the works! Just working hard to get my portfolio together. Which means... demo reel "real" soon! And I'll for sure post some photos from my recent trip to Africa. Took over 1500, which means I need to do a lot of processing. But first I need to pick the best of the best for my aforementioned portfolio. So this is just to say don't lose interest in my blog cause I haven't been posting as frequently, I'll get back up there... promise. Just have a couple things that are really priority at the moment.

Hope you've had a Happy New Year so far. All caps.
Later,
Stuart

Portrait of a Boy

An acrylic painting I just finished at art lessons. It's an Indian boy from a portrait by Steve McCurry. Hope you like it.

Please click to view larger.

Later,
Stuart

The only hummers I ever want to see

Sorry about the lack of updates. I have been somewhat busy still. I completed a number of training kits and am working on drawing these days. And photography.

There's been a lot of activity at our hummingbird feeder the past few weeks as temperatures have dipped below the zero mark (that's Celsius, in case you're used to Foreign-height - *Oh snap!*). Crazy that these little critters can survive and flourish over the albeit generally mild winters here, when I typically think of them as almost tropical birds. So I decided to try to take some action photos. Standing on the balcony, I realized that there were at least 4 or 5 hummers that I could see or hear engaging in foraging, courting, nest scouting (?) and being territorial. It was quite the experience.

This first shot was entirely accidental. The shutter speed was obviously too high for the aperature to handle, and resulted in quite a nice sillhouette. The part I think I like best about it is that it's almost perfectly balanced in terms of sillhouette and environment (reflection in feeder balancing the bird). Again, it was a swivel and click moment, but I was pleasantly suprised for once.

The next one was a bit more carefully planned; I put up the flash (which I usually don't like, but I think it works alright) and managed to get him as he went for the sugary goodness. I also got a few pics of the birds on branches, but they were never close enough to get a good shot with my max length of 55mm. But... I got my new 50mm f/1.4 today! Gonna try it out now. (Yes, I realize that's not longer, that's not what I meant).

I'll try to post up a sketch or two in the next while. I figure December will be crazy, so if you don't see any updates for a while, hopefully you understand.

Later,
Stuart