Been a while.....

and here's a quick shotty video I took while in Hawaii.

A Brave Little Turtle from bschulz on Vimeo.

All CG

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

this is amazing. I can't believe it's all CG. Have to share.

Xray Anaylsis of Speech

It's pretty interesting to see what's going on inside your mouth when you talk. At least it is if your me, though I bet some of you might like this as well. ;)

http://hundertmarkblog.de/christine-ericsdotter-x-ray-analyses-of-speech/

It's a quick 2 min time waster of the day but extremely facinating.

Inspiration

I've found mine for the day. Some great blending of Stop motion animation and CGI animation from a company called Meindbender.



Really inspiring stuff. Check it out.

Cool Animated Ad

I know i don't post often...but this is really nice and clean. I enjoyed it a lot. Thought i'd pass it on.

30 Rock

Watch it!

That's all. It's brilliant. Great writing, hillarious performances, awesome.

Marshmallow Test....

PS. If you've never seen this. It's awesome. There is some AMAZING reference in here for a 'pantomime waiting assignment'

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

AM

Just got word that I'll be teaching again this coming semester. Class 2, Psychology of Body Mechanics. I'm def. looking forward to it as this is the one class at AM i haven't taught yet, should be a lot of fun!



Yay!

Once again

I'm a slacker. Things get hectic at work and I don't blog. Doing a bunch of research on the wedding front. Playing a lot of fun XBLA games. Somehow I don't feel bad paying 1200 MS points for a small game that supports new developers / companies, what have you. Haven't spent much time on my figures or paintings, though I will, i still sketch little doodles / ideas out for them in my down time which WILL get used.

PS. things I've played or seen recently that I really enjoyed.

1. District 9 (movie)
2. JCVD (netflix rental)
3. Shadow Complex (xbox 360 game)
4. Braid (xbox 360 game)
5. Street Fighter 4 (xbox 360 game)
6. The Wire - (HBO series on DVD) - soooo sad this is over.

K, back to work!

Simon's Cat

Random Nugget from Cartoon Brew

Sorry

Got real busy these last 2 weeks. Doesn't look like it's gonna let up much but hopefully this weekend i'll be able to mess around some more with this stuff. In the meantime I sorta experimented with some paints, resurfaced and primed the mini MAD'L head cuz i didn't like the face anymore. The nose started looking like a mouth, which i didn't want any confusion on. So I resurfaced it. Anyways, still have lots and lots of testing to do because i'm not sure this is the type of paint i'm looking for. Also the tape i used bleed a little, or maybe i painted too thick in that area, either way I gotta get THAT under control a little, you can see it mostly on the edges of the arms. The paint actually even looks much better than in the pics but whatever, not exactly what i'm looking for anyways. Here's a few little pics.

Oh and to make up for some lack of Toy updates...i did some 20 min. paintings for fun. No where near done, more of like work in progress' You can tell how lazy i got, i didn't even worry about definition anywhere, or attempted to hint much at shadows and layers. Just something to start with for kicks. Here's one regardless...

Testing some paint

I messed around for an hour or so last night with some paint, brushes, pens, pencils...all on the vinyl to see what kinda 'feelings' i got from all this. Meaning, how the paint, pen, pencil, etc felt on the figures. I plan to do more testing and whatnot this weekend when there's some light outside so i can test spray paints, as well as maybe walk over to some shops and grab some other types of paint. I realized that the stuff i had at home (mostly for work on canvas and wood) wasn't thinning enough and was leaving brush strokes on the figure which i in the end don't want. So I got a little more researching to do. Can't wait for the weekend!!

New Toy

Got one of my DIY vinyls in the mail today!



Should have a 10" MAD'L on it's way as well!
OH and i beat F.E.A.R. 2 last night. Was easy, even on the hardest setting. Ending kinda sucked too. I'll rant about it more when i have some time. Lots of work to do!

Trial and Error

So this weekend I took the MAD'L i originally had painted and figured I'd try and get the head off. Well since I originally F'd up the process from the start by sanding down the original surface, then spray painted the figure with white paint (not primer like i should've) all WITH the head still on...I think i sprayed inside the head / neck joint area so when i tried to pull off the head (also without heating the area - bah) i broke the head right off. haha. I figure I'll chalk this one up to experience and use the surface to test paints and things like that since it was messed up to begin with. I then decided to draw on it with a sharpie (which i wont' do with the others I don't think). I just wanted to see how it felt to mess around on such a small surface and made it into a little emo sad boy since his head broke off. I might try and use some acrylics and paint over that design now actually, test some spray paints on the body (not dig'n those pants I drew anyways) and then super glue the head on when it's all said and done. Proly head over to the store tomorrow to check on some paint markers and other crap. Fun fun.

50% Done on my MAD'L Decision

I'm doing a custom MAD'L. I thought i really liked those Castle Crashers characters...and I still do, but i think i'd have more fun creating something somewhat more unique and personal. I told my fiance last night that I splurged a bit on these DIY figures (bought a 10" blank MAD'L, and 4 - 4" Blank Skullys) and to my surprise she was excited about it! Yay for spending money, heh. The other awesome thing was, she wanted to do one as well, so that'll be fun to see how our styles differenciate...wait, is that how you spell that? Anyways, I plan on getting all my supplies, or at least most of them this weekend and hopefully I'll have read enough forums to feel comfortable with diving into the process.

Might see Star Trek tonight too! FINALLY! ug.
OH, and started playing Fear 2 on my xbox last night - that game is def. creepy.

Custom MAD'L

So here's one of my 10 zillion projects I have going but have yet to finish. I mentioned it yesterday. My custom Mad'L figure. For those of you who know me, you know I LOVE the MAD'L vinyl figures. Here's a visual a blank one.




Mine looks pretty much exactly the same, they make DIY figures now that are 10" but mine was a duplicate copy of an older MAD'L from back in the day WAY BEFORE they started making DIY figures. I slaved and slaved over it, sanding it down and primering mine with white paint until it looked almost exactly like that DIY version above. It's also only 5" tall instead of the big dog DIY 10" guy. Oh and since i've already destroyed that other figure, I've come to find out that that particular figure is in high demand now and has doubled in value, but lets not think about that. Anyways, I'm still undecided on what to do with this guy. I've been playing a game called castle crashers on xbox360 and though i'd re-create one of those characters.



but i dunno. I sorta also want to just make my own unique character. I did some sketches that i haven't uploaded to the computer yet but I'll keep y'all posted. Here's a few similar examples.





Anyways. I hope i can make something half as decent as those two examples. I did also have another thought to re-create all the pixar characters...but that'll have to come in due time. Gotta get my methods down n' stuff.

Happy Holidays Everyone

Just wanted to wish everyone safe and Happy Holidays!

Last Class - 4 hour painting

I think my headless woman is still my favorite painting - just because of the abstract'ness / loose'ness of it...but i feel i accomplished some decent rendering / value in this one. I didn't worry that she's floating, I wanted to spend my time on the pose and colors, and figured i could paint in a box for her to sit on later. All in all I loved taking the class and I'll keep painting at home (got my supplies and smaller / medium canvas's all ready for free time).

My teacher taught me something i felt was super useful the last 20 min. of class that i thought I'd share. He said. Take 2 hours, paint some simple still life and get it as rendered and polished as you can. Then do the same painting in 45 min, see how it compairs. Then do the same painting again in 20 min, and then 10 min. It will help with figuring out brush strokes, and technic / processes / simplifying color. I thought that would be really fun to do and might be a good learning exercise.

Anyways, enough rambling. Here's the last 4 hour painting - wish I went a little loose'r but whatever. It was a good learning exp.

Painting 4

Tried to focus on a larger portion last week...turned out 'ok' ...but still not really to my liking. I might try to paint broader next week - we have a 4 hour sitting, so i might try and stay away from the 'details' for as long as i can...I wish we just started out with black and white paints so i could really figure out how to deal with value.



meh...

paintings also not THAT red - the iphone does some weird stuff when it takes pics.

Painting 3

I need to

A. Paint bigger (given the time we have to paint)
B. Use bigger brushes (see A.)
C. Get a better range of color
D. Paint bigger!!

one pic with the flash - one without. I never know what's the best way to get these onto the computer with the actual globs of paint i sometimes have in my paintings. Maybe I just need a bigger scanner, rather than using a camera. Plus side I think this ones better than my last 2, even though it has problems of it's own...i like it the best so far.