Reindeer Run Cycles

Due to being phenomenally unhappy with my reindeer zoetrope, I'm redoing the run cycle on a flat surface, namely my computer screen, with hopefully more accuracy to actual ungulate motion.


Above is my zoetrope, with its floatiness and awkward leg action.

And here's my second attempt, minus ears, antlers and tail which will come later once everything's fixed up and tidied. The near front leg is still a bit floaty and not moving as fast as I'd like it, the head grows and shrinks a bit, and the shoulder blade doesn't seem to quite know what it's doing, but other than that I'm actually pretty happy with this. Eventually it'll be all cleaned up and neatly lined and everything. Eventually.

CGAA Speedpaint Challenge - Day 9

'The Ice-Castle of the Yeti King'

25 minutes

I'm speeding up! This was pretty fun; came about a bit saturated, but at least it reads as blisteringly cold. Wanted more of a fortress feel than a castle, with a small village populated by serfs providing labour in exchange for safety within the walls.

Weeks 13-20 – Traditional Painting & CG 'Carceri' Mission Statement

What with the whole 'already done the Storytelling unit with relatively few emotional hangups' thing, I shan't be participating in it this time around. Instead, I'll be focusing on the personal artistic growth that should have happened over the summer but mysteriously didn't. I'll have two projects on the go, so I can procrastinate on one by working on the other.

The first is a lot of studying of traditional painting techniques; making studies from the masters and suchlike. Alan recommended the book 'Colour and Light' by James Gurney, so I'll be learning about the mechanics of painting as well as the technique. The areas of my skillset I'll be focusing particularly on are a) speed, b) value, c) colour theory, d) composition and e) markmaking, and that's mostly what I'll be 'assessing' myself on when this is over.

The second is a full CG environment of at least one of Giovanni Piranesi's Carceri d'Invenzione, or, Imaginary Prisons. I discovered them when researching prisons for my abortive Environment project, and immediately thought 'holy crud I have to build one of these'. The Carceri have already been built in CG, by one Gregoire Dupond, but his depiction of them is to perfectly recreate the etchings so that the environment itself appears to be etched. On the other hand, I intend to build a mostly realistic interpretation with minimal stylisation.


Dupond's continuous panorama tempts me to stitch several of the plates together to form a larger environment, but the final decision on that one will be made once I've more carefully considered my time. I shall endeavour to avoid referencing Dupond, however, as I want this to be a personal interpretation of Piranesi (that, and Dupond's camera work and sound design make me want to weep). This project is going to rely heavily on my ability to make highly accurate orthographs, and given that I've never made any before I'm going to have to learn very quickly indeed. As the Environment project did not reach fruition, I want this project to be the unifying of everything I've learnt over my time on the course, and to prepare me as much as possible for the commission in week 21.

CGAA Speedpaint Challenge - Day 7

'Exclusive! Santa's System for Simultaneous Present Delivery Revealed!'

25 minutes

I dunno, man. It started out with the elf reading the paper and went on from there. As you can see, value is still not my strong point.

CGAA Speedpaint Challenge - Day 3

The Gingerbread Palace in the City of Sweets

1 hour-ish

I told myself that I wouldn't take longer than half an hour on this one - see how well that worked. I'm not happy with the final result, courtesy of spending most of the time working on it fighting the values until I decided 'stuff it'. Should've started in black and white. Ah well, live and learn.

CGAA Speedpaint Challenge - Day 1

'A Christmas Tree Jungle'

40 minutes

Okay, so it's more a forest than a jungle, but I am an absolute sucker for those old-timey Christmas cards with their scenes of Victorian-ish winter life. Besides, this is hardly the first time I've taken liberties with a brief.

Photo Paintings

 This week Phil had us working from photo scraps to make colour schemes and find shapes and compositions. Fun times!

'La Forête de Mille Coleurs', because everything sounds more artistic in French.

'Monstrous Pachyderm' - nice colour, but seriously unrefined. That gets fixed.

'A Misplaced Boat' - this one was fun with colour, but for some reason I lost interest once the forms were all blocked in.

And finally, 'The Elephant Queen, or, The Indian Elephant as Imagined by Howard Phillips Lovecraft'. This was far too much fun.

Modelling Progress

Making some headway with the modelling.

These little bottles are going to be everywhere.

 The good thing about boxes is you can pretend they're full of things without actually showing any of it.

No, it's not a toothpick, it's actually a very simple fertility charm from, I believe, Neolithic Turkey. Don't quote me on that, though.

A slightly Art Deco coffee table, perhaps from a cafe in a distant land.

 A writing desk, the simplicity of which implies that it's military issue.

A dog collar; I imagine it belonged to a dog he befriended, now long dead.

This is actually a Russian orthodox Easter egg, or an equivalent in whatever alternate universe in which the soldier lives.

One roundhead helmet, almost certainly stolen.

This is an inkwell, but it can double as one half of a cruet set.

Yes, it's supposed to have those ridged. I think it looks neat.

Shelves, because books need homes too.

There will be a cloth over this to make it look a bit comfier.

In honour of Chrissie, this teapot shall be blue. Also dear god I need to fix that handle.

 Those legs are almost certainly not military issue.

 I will probably 'fill' this with planes with bump maps attached to cut down on modelling (and render) time.

 Because vases are easy to build.

 And the beginning of the actual lair itself.

Rhymes With Nantucket

I have two weeks left, a bunch of stuff to do, and absolutely zero patience left with this painting. I can read it, I'm not being graded on it and I have stopped giving any tosses at all about it. I'll figure out the surveillance room on the fly. Let the building begin.

Professionalism!