Brown Man With A Ruck Sack

the most amazing thing sinced sliced milk!

2009-05-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

internet shopping has gone bananas!

http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-Gallon-128/dp/B00032G1S0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1242772930&sr=8-1

Just read some of the reviews for this product, they are trully barmy!

Music to motivate!

2009-05-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

Before I start working today I decided to make a really important playlsit of songs to work to...

Thanks to Joe Espostio for this kick me up the arse number....

GO Balboa!

clench your fists....and your ears too!

SpongeBob powerballad pants!
Spongebob: Sweet Victory

What did this song ever have anything to do with Raccoons?

And the for an encore lets turn to John-thePermFromOuterSpace-Parr

John Parr - Man In Motion (St. Elmo's Fire)
by jpdc11

Weird Science...this week I be mostly making females

2009-04-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I posted so here's a little update on things that gwan in my life.

1. The Wire has officially become my favourite pass time, as things stand at the moment, its my heroine, and that's no joke, I just got through 4 seasons of the show, and the last 2 I went through in about a week. I am not ashamed to admit that season 4 had me so hooked, that a whole weekend was devoted to staying in bed and claiming all 12 episodes in the space of 48 hours! Its also very sad to say that I been watching that show so much, my brain now thinks in ghetto talk...just lasst week I found myself in pub sying 'no doubt' in a very ghetto gansts kind of way.

2. I been mostly making females! I know as sad as it sounds I've been meaning to get around to modelling a 3d female, in digression from my usual style of cartoony creatures from space. The pic above is still a work in progress and the whole process has hit a bit of rut in the last week. Firstly I was never quite happy with the shape of the face, and though I scheduled to have this complete about a week ago, I now sense it may well be another week before I feel I have got to stage that I might be happy with this model.

One of the major stumbling blocks has been the hair, cg hair has not been something I've ever really held in my repertoire, but then, a female chacter of this style was never somthing I envisioned myself being capable a few years back, but working as a cg artist amongst vastly talented individuals in the last year has certainly helped me devlop my own eye for artistic appeal.

How has my workflow improved? Well the key is that in any artist endevour I really believe that my work is only as good as the references I use, so reseasrch and planning has helped considrebly. With this particular project, I started by gathering a few pictures of Natalie Portman, althoght this modeles features now have slightly digressed from that plan, nevertheless, that inntial research process just seemed vital.

The innitial concept of this charater was a cross between the V-for Vendetta portman and the CG Star Wars Amidala. The only thing that really remains in this model now is the simmilarity of forms in terms of the body shape and proportions. The head and facial features have very much digressed. I was never really looking to create create a complete replica of her I just needed a sense of direction and somewhere to look for some sense of inspiration.

I started with a few drawings, of the pics I collected, none of which I'm overly proud of, I've never been great when It comes to my drawing skills and usually I end up making notes all over the place but it all helps when it comes to sitting down at the computer, becuse by that point I have a clear sense of the shapes and forms i need to create, I also make some clear obsevations on proportions. I guess proportion and shapes are one of the fundamental aspects of figure drawing, its the subtle distinctions that define the figures purpose.

anywhoo, I have hit a more considerable rut in recent days and that has been the hair, cg hair is very hard to get right, and since I am such a novice, It's had me pulling my hair out very literally for the past few days, I also have such an ocd about working I very often forget to take a break and o end up working myself into a days worth of wasted of work Trial and terror, that what I call it. try somthing, doens't work, try something else...DAMMIT, still not working, try somthing else.....*@!@!@!@@££"£"£"£"£*****!!!!.........a few expletives later, lets watch the wire and start again tomorrow!

Thats where I'm at today, its been 3 days of no progress and feeling like I've been going around in circles, so what hvae I done about it, a long afternoon at the pool helped, that then was followed by a back to basics approach.....step one, get some new reference......and here it is....

Its a cg craicature of Tom Yorke of Radioturd fame, its the hair style I'm a fan of, its rough and simple but still has a really nice organic feel to it, and that is the hardest part to get right. The wireframe breakdown is also really great, its a bit of a behind the scenes look at how someone else has gone about the process of modelling cg hair, and I've been googling now for some time and its taken me alot of trawling to find this gem.

Quote of the day

2009-02-12T03:55:00.000-08:00

"I'm too busy, I haven't got time to die"
Sir John Mortimer

I've been tagged!

2009-02-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

Okay so I have been officially tagged into reeling off 10 interesting and honest facts about me, and since I only have a grand audience of one, I don't want to let her down.

1 - I was once famous for five minutes as a contestant on eighties TV show, Mallets Mallet. Not my proudest moment...in my defence, I was only 8.

2 - I am a master of procrastinating, it is my most effective (Super!)power. If this something has to be got done, I will take the most roundabout way of doing it. I can never go straight from A-B, I will alomst certainly go past z, x and y first.

3 - I have a serious addiction to....McVities Chocolate Digestives, the dark chocolate type. I am starting to think if I don't bring it under control, I'm going to have to quit forever, 3 packs a week can't be that bad! If there's any saving grace, the McVities factory is just up the road from me, and I sometimes justify it by the fact that I'm merely supporting the financial needs of the local town bakery!

4 - I haven't finished reading a book in almost a year, the last book I finished was the Black Tulip sometime back in late 2007, and it were well good innit. Okay this is not to say I don't read, I just tend not to read fiction, infact I spent most of xmas reading a book about computer programming...that's reading and it was well good too.

5 - Like my tagger, lucy I too went to an anti-war march but unlike the real hardcore protestors, I turned up half way through the day because Liverpool were playing Arsenal in the FA cup, turned out that I wasn't alone, I met a few more latecomers on the march, who'd also turned up after the game. I then went for a Waggamammas...and Iraq got invaded.

6 - I have been to Glastonbury 2wice, having both times climbed the fence to get in. I hung around with right crowd in my youth, the kind of crowd that make sure you dont pay silly money to sit in mud for three days.

7 - I have a serious OCD about my Animtion work, the only thing that drags me away is the need to eat. I recently bought a playstation, so that I might be able to replace one nerdy habit with another...it hasn't helped.

8 - I used to live in Saudi Arabia, right behind Jeddeh airports main runway. As a 5 year old I was in heaven, because what 5 year old wouldn't want to watch planes talking off all day from his back garden.

9 - In additon, while living in the Saudi, Pakistan's most famous export, Imran Khan was not our neighbour...his sister was!

10 - I am very selfish when it comes to food....I cook only comfort food, for myself! My favourite pleasure is my very own recepei for garlic and chilly chicken. It's my mums actually but I've adapted it to satisfy my own tastebuds, strong on the garlic, and stong on the chilly. and great when sandwiched into a toasted onion bagel. To top it off, chips on the side with my very own garlic mayo dip.....mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

thats me done, who's next? Lucy, i'll leave it to you to tag a new victim.

The Genius of Penguins

2009-01-18T14:26:00.000-08:00

Firemen Fashion

2009-01-17T04:17:00.000-08:00

I really don't know what to make of this!

My bands of the moment!

2009-01-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

russian cirlces - Harper Lewis

Sun Kill Moon - Glen Tipton

Fleet Foxes -White Winter Hymnal

Ghosts and Vodka- It's All About Right Then

This will Destroy You - 3 legged horse

Pele - Safe Dolphin

Planning in animation

2008-10-29T05:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a video a saw today that just reminded me of how much I take animation for granted. Working with computers you always have the option to change somthing like the timing of the lip sync, or the position of the character.

In the old school days animators had to plan every action, to the frame. There's no going back with stop frame, you plan the shot, then you go for it. Lip sync in stop fraame is probably the most important aspect of the planning process, animators have to know exactly where each sound falls before they even start the animation process. There's no chance you can guess where the sounds are going to fall, you have to be meticulous.

In recent weeks I've been brushing up on my own 3d animation skills, taking part in a competion known as the 11 second club, its always a good opportunity for me to tighten up my rusty animation skills. Here's my current Wip...

It still needs a lot of work, But that's just one advantage that comes from using computers; I can do my planning on the fly, thats not to say I don't think through a shot until I sit down at the computer. I do still go through the dialogue and work out the key intonations of the voices, I think about how my characters are feeling and what they are thinking and how they are likey to express these feeling through their body language.

I probabaly don't have to be as as meticulous as a stop frame or 2d animator has to be, I do have the luxury of just getting stright into a shot, but I usually find that always end up making mistakes and having to back track, unless I actually plan out the shot through thumbnail images.

As a cg animator, my planning process differs slightly from the process of the old school pre-computer methods. I never plan out my lip sync to a great degree, I do think before hand what shapes my character has to hit by drwaing them out, I do think about the rhythym of the dialogue by drwing arrows around the text to indicate the flow of the staatements. I don't go thorugh the dialogue frame by frame to work out where every sound hits, I feel i can do this better once I have blocked out my key body poses.

It does helps heaps if I work out my compositons on paper. I work through the dialogue and draw out my key poses, my drawing skills aren't great, but that doesn't matter too much, and is exactly why I work as a 3d animator rather than a 2d animator. All that is important is that I have worked out where my characters are placed and how they are positioned, through thumbnailing. The thumbnail process is vital because it is a quick way of working out how the compsition of my shot is going to work. I save myself a lot more work in the long run, if i don't like something I can scribble over and start again, its a lot quicker than spending ten minutes posing a character in a 3d scene.

The planning process never stops once I start working at the computer, when I hit a rut, it helps to take a break, then look back at the shot and make list of what changes I think the shot needs, then it's just a case of going at it and implementing those changes.

more blogging soon, I have animating to be doing.

Doom and Gloom

2008-10-15T05:34:00.001-07:00

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_n0PLuPxHClE/SPUH1JRle6I/AAAAAAAAAKw/ILKfEvBGRJY/s1600-h/2008-10-12.gif

Genius cricket game

2008-10-08T05:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.foddy.net/Cricket.html

The Advantage

2008-10-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

This is the Advantage, they cover old Nintendo game songs.

This ones actually a great song on its own, its taken from the NES goonies game, though the song is orginally nothing to do with the Goonies film, its an old Cindy Lauper song which the goonies game makers decided to use in the game's soundtrack.

Cider with Roadies

2008-01-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

best title for a book ever....

....Though other contenders include the Bruce Campbell biography, If chins could kill and the Rik mayall classic, Bigger than Hitler, better than Christ.

forgotton password!

2007-08-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

A forgoton password and the wrong e-mail information in my log-in field has led to me being unable to sign into blogger account for about 3 months! I feel so stoopid!

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Hola, and Easy Now!

2007-07-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome all to the rants and raves of the worlds greatest procrastinator!

Things that amused me this week:

1. Rasta man doing keepy-ups while crossing Harlesden Hight street during rush-hour traffic. Who gives a shit if there are angry motorists weilding cars and trucks as Mass weapons of Rasta man destruction. Rasta-man could not give too-hoots who or what was in his way.

As I made my early morning stroll to Willesden Junction Station, I cross the road in a safe and green cross code infused manner, I look up the road to see why car horns are honking and notice that traffic has been halted by the crazy green eyed rasta man who often wonders through Harlesden looking ever so slightly on edge but altogether he's pretty harmless. Evidently he also has better ball techniqe than most of the English National Footbal team. I couldn't see Gary Neville surviving a training session of keeping the ball in the air and crossing a busy main road during the moring rush hour!

I'm also not sure who was more enraged by the whole ordeal: the drivers for having 20 seconds added on to their journey as some insane Harlesdenite decides to show off his deft ball skills at 8 in the morning, or the green eyed Harlesdenite himself for insanely believing that roads are no place for traffic while he has to practice for that vital match, that will most likely take place in his head between him and a set of traffic cones!

2. Iz it 'cause I iz Brown?

This week also marked that week that Mr G Brown slipped into the slithery pants of Mr T Blair and took over as leader of the Labour party. To mark this event I hear he met the queen, it's a shame some others chose not not mark this occasion with such civil methods!

Friday night some loonytune decides to blow up some people in the centre of London and luckily fails miserably! But that's never where it ends because the knock on effects are pretty seismic especially for the average ruck sack weilding brown man like me. This contemporary terrrorist steroytype has it's advantages, I often find I can step onto the tube during rush hour and get a whole carriage to myself (in the wise words of Cartman, "Sssweet!")

However on a more serious note, I feel very self concious during these times and getting onto any form of public transport makes me feel very uncomforable. I'm an aspiring animator and I spend a lot of my day-to-day life doodling or sitting in front of a computer and fidgeting with various geeky programmes in the hope that one day someone might appreciate the troubles and toils that go into my passion for cartoon making. The reason I tell you this is that in doing all this animating I rarley spend time shaving, hence when I step out of my front door into the outside world, suddenly, to the strangers around me, I become the sterotypical rucksack weilding bearded brown man who answers to the mystic wizard named Al' (qaeda). Maybe it's all in my head but I'm sure it's not. I feel highly offended by such negative impressions that the everyday commuter has of me. I must say that I am one amoungst many who have suffered negative steroytypical attitudes during times such as these, the media does not help with it's fear-mongering and though this is a sad state of affairs, one must look on the bright side....when one can find it!