Future

It’s occurring to me that I should probably put into place a manner of a plan for the future. Beyond the walls of whitespace and the halls of honours. Whatever they are.

2 things strike me clear in the face. I need a CV, and I need a showreel/portfolio of work. Now. Oh and Business cards, seem like the essential thing to obtain for myself these days.

Began modelling the interior of the Seating Compartment aboard the train. I’m fortunate that this environment is particularly modular, and thus can be instanced where appropriate.

I feel that the design is lacking something in the area directly behind the seating, I’m not sure yet though it could be some manner of Greebles. (I recommend anyone to read Gurney’s blog, artist or otherwise.)

I’ve still to work in the REVELANTERNS which will occupy the space between every seating arrangement. For now I feel the model is remaining close to the original design, which may not necessarily be a good thing, it would be nice to invest some fresh creativity into this.

I have to apologise for this – I really do, but I couldn’t help myself – a re-evaluation of an existing mascot known as Rumbel, found over at Rumbel Subs. It’s a little sketchy, but on second viewing, i should probably give him more of a torso of some kind - ‘weird’ limb ridden kitten head is freaking people out.

To the point Will compared it to this MECH mixed with Fox McCloud.

I’ll be continuing to work on the train interior, I hope to have the environment completed and lit by the end of this week.

So today I…

Behold the fortune of Abertay -

I happened to be sitting in Lab 1546, ground floor whitespace Maya lab when Gregor White strolls in gregorly, and announces there will be a lecture at 3 in the not-so-big, big lecture room.

I bide my time and eventually make my way there. I arrive to find someone giving away ice cream. Yes, ice cream. The guys in the row behind me, pictured above all departed in unison and returned with this bountiful arrangement.

So even though the lecture was about to begin, the lighting was crap, and my hands were shaky – I took this picture of the beautiful moment. (Sorry for the crappy quality, but flash would have drawn too much attention.)

~

During the lecture I drawed some Obligator concepts – my scanner is broken somewhat so I’m having to capture these with my camera for now.

 

Think I’ll edit these in photoshop so they’re not as greyed out and obscure.

Using these as a reference, I set about modelling the Obligator(s) which will symbolise the real threat of harm upon the train. They’re deliberately convoluted machinations of Fear, trundling the carriage ways at nigh break neck speeds!

Quite enjoying this 3D puzzle, just trying to sculpt something that I’m not familiar of doing before. – still in the early stages. I’ll probably be working on my Hatavar texture again tonight, so I’ll post that up some time tomorrow.

Oh and I’ll also be attending the First Thurstday event being held here in Dundee at the DCA. It’ll be an early start, but hopefully worth it so I’ll be taking my sketchbook along for kicks.

Remember kids - ‘Just turn up.’ ~ Woody Allen

I also had Pitch, oh-wasn’t-that-exciting-news.

Week 4 Progress

Agenda:

• Review the Animatic once more and get feedback on the new ideas.
• Show Hatavar 3D Progress
• Ask for suggestions on the Rig Set-up for the Hat Brim

 

Progress:

• Spent last week preparing a showreel for Rare.
• Spent the weekend modelling and tweaking the Hatavar model preparing it to be UV Unwrapped.
• Unwrapped the model in UVLayout.
• Began hand painting textures in Photoshop.
• Applied to model to test.
• Preliminary Rig Tests for new model with Setup Machine.
• Working on the sense and flow of the animatic, drawn a number of new panels based upon suggestions from others.

 

Action Points:

• 1. Questions to be sorted into categories.
• 2. Find out the main reaction of Windbag at the end of his quest (to find the Hatavar.

Progress

Friday:

I spent most of the day sitting in whitespace constructively procrastinating. I did this by 3D modelling the Hatavar each time I got bored with the task at hand of writing my CV.

This went on for a good 6 hours or so before I finally headed up the hill home.

I then spent the night collating a small showreel in Flash which you can view here at:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/546641/michaeldoig_showreel.swf

I then watched the film ‘Wanted’ which was surprisingly interesting. Included curving bullets, which was a cool concept in itself.

The whole film was worth watching to finally hear Morgan Freeman exclaim, ‘Kill this motherf--ker.’'

Saturday:

My aim for today was to UV unwrap and begin texturing the Hatavar – it’s about time I had something to animate with. I’ve gotta push on, if I’m to keep on track.

I’m debating on whether to take this into zbrush in order to create normal maps in Zmapper

. It all depends on the final look of the environment and style I’m aiming for.

Technorati Tags: hatavar,art,textures,zbrush,normal,maps,maya,model,photoshop

Patience