Delgo...wtf

After reading an article in 3d world i thought i would check out "Delgo" by Fathom studios. well the trailer anyway and i can definatly say this would be one movie i will be missing.
The plot seemes to be another 'boy meets girl, they fall in love and causes the end of the world' secranio.
The trailer in HD looks very pretty but i cant say much for the character design.
Im not quite sure what it is about the 'people' they have created but something doesn't look right. its almost as if they have spent most of the budget of the background and lighting which looks amazing.


the so called 'people'


a georgious tree sceen...with some people

Sketching

Ive been doing some sketching and i finaly got my scanner today so i can show you yay!


this is baced on Edger Alen Poe's the "Bridal balled" its about a woman who is set to marry someome but the man she wanted to marry died so her heart is torn.


Dr Horrible is you havnt seen Dr horrible's sing along blog WATCH IT NOW!


me :)

Personal contact...not the filthy kind

We where given the task to write about our own personal experiences to describe how personal contact can give you inspiration of a creative opportunity for you.

I have quite a few experiences of being personally meeting artists. One such person was Tobias Fouracre who works for Tandem Films, the company may not be a house hold name but he worked of such wonders at “the corpse bride” by Tim Burton. I was also lucky enough to meet Chris Randall who works for Second Home Productions. Second Home Production isn’t such a big name as Tandem as them manly do work for art theatres.
I managed the meet these people at a talk called DigiToons in Birmingham, but they all mentioned the same thing, Drawing. They said Life drawing was the most important skill you have is the creative industry.

At the same talk but different location I managed to meet The Brothers McLeod who work for Cbbc among other things.
The Brothers McLeod had a comply different attitude then the people in suits mentioned above. Although they where around 35 years old there attitude was much more down to earth, I felt this created a much more creative atmosphere and I couldn’t help but doodle during there talk.

All of the people above all started with basic life drawing skills, and through out there talks life drawing was mentioned several times. I thus believe personal contact is important to create inspiration for personal ideas.

networking...not just people makeing nets

We where given the task of arguing for or against the following statement:
'The essential point of networking is human contact; business has killed networking by making it something for the career orientated person.'

When I was first given this statement I wasn’t sure what to think, True I did believe that networking was an important part of business, for instance my sister and I went on a company picnic with our dad, the first thing she did when she turned up was to mentioned networking. When I asked her why she said networking is the key to changing jobs and climb the career ladder.

So my first thought was yes, business has killed social networking. It did seem that I over looked one major website that 50 million people have profiles for*.
One word Facebook, The fun social network site, just mention the name and virtually anyone will give you there contact name.
Not only Facebook but there are other websites that provided social networks if only on a more basic scale, for instance WAUN (initials for: where are you now) which is a website offering social networking with the edition of travel guides made by users.

How can a websites with that many users not prove the above statement wrong?

I believe that the statement above is wrong.
To many peoples minds the word networking does scream business, but people create social networks without even thinking.
So I ask in turn if you continue to create social networks without consciously thinking about it.
How could business kill off an unconscious habit?


*as of November 2007 found on WikiAnswers at: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_have_a_facebook

DigiToons

Im not sure how many people who live in the west midlands would of heard about DigiToons because it wasnt until my sister told me about it that i heard of it!

DigiToons is a serease of talks throught the west midlands with people from the indistry talking about how they got started and so forth.

Yesterdays talk was from the people at Tandem, who makes adverts such as the ancer advert and also created the Corpes Bride film written by Tim Burton.
when i first saw Corpes bride i though "wow i live the cg in this movie!" but i found out yesterday it was all physicaly created using puppets and stop go animation.
and they said that each day they would make around 2 to 4 seconds of filming.

i will post again about tonights talk.

Wall-e the cutest eco warrior

ok if noone has seen Wall-e should be shot. or they should go see it...

playing god

I saw a webcomic for a game comeing out in september called Spore, the idea is you are a 'God' or creator in this case.
then you take controle of a planet and with the creatures you have created you can get your own evolution eco-system.

The makers of this game is Maxis, who also created the computing hit "the Sims" the lead designer Will Wright said it was refresshing to create something entirly diffrent to The Sims which first started in 1997.

fighting for the greens

I saw this website for greenpeace, now i know what you are thinking brain washing young people like myself into never driving unless we use "green" petrol and having our houses walmed by manure.
I have to say i was very plesently suprised!
Apart from a few hickups of not being able to play the game right away because i didnt have enough "cards" what ever that means?!?!
anyhow you are an online actavists in the shape of these cute little caracter.
no chaneing your self you iron railings in this game, no you have to "avoid" disasters by your little caracter doing something (which really looks like its eating the skull and cross bones sign? i dont know who came up with that idea)

This is the opening page with the "cute" little actavist

here they tri and explain the rules

again with the rules

and again

and again

you would think if they wanted you to save the world they would of made it easyer

and yay you have won...well not in my case

here are the little caracters you can choose from to become your very own green peace keeper

and this is an in game shot where lets face it lost and the world became a big horrible mess, oh well i could alwase try again.

Big Bucks for the Bunny

There has been a new rellece from the faboulice people from the peach open movie team (I’m not sure if they are related to the orange open movie team who made elephants dream?) to promote the software blender.
After watching the short film on you-tube have to say I loved it!
The story opens out on a scenic little forest where you meet Big Buck (the huge rabbit) he wakes up and see's a butterfly but three nasty little forest critters a flying squirrel, a little brown/gray thingy and a odd little squirrel

this is the first shot you see of bunny buck

bunnys mad!

behold the triangles

i found and awsome website!
is for doreteos (spelling?) as they have launched a new flavor but they have added a suprise where you have to guess the flavor and the first person to go throuse all the challengers you win a cash sum and become a product taist tester.
any how its an awsome site check it out at : http://doritosthequest.com/

This was the first loading page, as my internet is so slow i managed to get a few slideds of this, but nothing really changes as the triangle just goes red.

this is where you where supposed to type in the "secret" flavior, as the crisps are only found in America i had to guess till i got it right. i have put the answer at the bottom of the page as not to spoil the suprise!

when you type in the correct answer the case opens and this peice of paper opens up (very da vinchi code!) explaining the "quest"

This is yet another loading screen (damn my slow internet!) where you begin a serease of puzzles.

One of the puzzles i know it looks confusing but they are really simple except the last one! im stuck on that one :(





(the answer is mountain dew if anyone wants to test it out for themselfs)

Some tomb's arn't ment to stay closed

Ok maby alittle off topic but here are some screen shots from the new lara croft game Tomb Raider Aniversery, and it got me thinking about how games have come on over the last few yeart, this first image is from the first Tomb Raider releaced 1996 ok concidering that the newest one was released 2007 there is alittle bit of a gap.

Tomb Raider 1 where lara could just jump on the enamy the spear them, you know what im talking about!!

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Anniversary the much sleaker and sexyer Lara still willing to pack a punch dispite her slender look!

If she was a real person she would of had so many nip tucks! But poor lara still hasnt finished with the 3d Scaple as a new version is being releaced december 2008.
below is a series of screen shots of lara through out her games includeing one from the up and comeing Tomb Raider: Underworld wooo! (click on the image to enlarge)

in order of apperence:
Tomb Raider I
Tomb Raider II
Tomb Raider III
Tomb Raider The Last Revelation
Tomb Raider Cronicals
Tomb Raider The Angel Of Darkness
Tomb Raider Legend
Tomb Raider Aniversary
Tomb Raider Underworld

I have also in included the logos for Tomb Raider as they have changed aswell

this was the old old logo, it wasnt too bad at the time. honest!

the current logo not too bad

The new prototype! looking sexy if i do say so myself!

back to back

ive been doing some self taught life drawing, what do you think?



i think the back is alittle too fat oups oh well


here are some other colourd sketches i have done.


this was based on an old Avatar from gaia online.
the story behind this was that i had an email from the site saying that i had a
failed password log in when i hadnt been on the site since secondry school. so i went online and checked it out.



this was a card i drew for my sister when she said she had a bad day at work, hense the pissed off expresion.

Drawing out....

A group of five (troy, steve, ed, jacqui and myself) volentered to help with the Exebition Drawing out.
For this we where given a white board and where asked to do a whiteboard animation.
we wanted to include others with the animation and asked others to join in. unfortunatly not many people volenteared. so many of us did the work ourselfs.

(sorry about bad spelling at the moment i shall correct it at a later date)

Halos arn't just for angels

I recently redescoved the website for Halo 3 the action packed cult game from Microsoft. i would have to say this is the best website i have seen in a long time!
The main site is made from a 3d model made entilely from hand. I have read around and it turns out that even the smoke from the cannons was made by hand (cotten wool sound
crap but looks amasing!)
They have made the website interactive by allowing the vister to pan through the screen and take screenshots for your very own custom background!
The loading page i found very intresting because before you can enter the site you have to choose from a drop down menu and before you can even do that you have to enter your age, If you dont meet the minimum age limmit it will lock out out of the site so you cannot go any further, (good for any consurned parent!)
The sweeps though the screens look very detailed, and sometimes you fine a small blue square and if you click on it you can get shown a vidow or a personal from the "goodie" side or a personal from the "baddy" side.

All in all its a very cool website and i would really recommend looking it up, please be weary though if you are under 16 you will get locked out of the site, as i stupidly wanted to test out :( and now i cannot get back online even by refreshing.


this was to check your age all you did was put in the day,month and year you where born

the main loading screen

the main loading screen again (my internet is slow)

This was the first screen you saw when you first went on the site, you then had a pop-up of instructions to move through the site.

this was one of the personals from the "goodie" side this picture was of a first person account of what happend to him.

the AWSOME cotten wool tank smoke!!!





All images taken from the offical halo3 website: http://halo3.com/believe/shell.html

Recent movies and my honest thoughs...if you want to read them

10,000BC: after reading the revew in 3D world raveing about its special effects, i desided not to pass up on a copy from a friend,
after about 10mins into the story line i just felt alittle sick, it was boring! and i havnt even go to the amasing affects!
it turned into some kind of weard caveman love story.
i would have to say the running mammoths where really odd looking, you know you get that feeling when something just doesnt look right? now im not saying i have a huge understanding on wooly elaphants but something about them just didnt look right.

on its good points though the saber toothed tigers where AWSOME! and really detailed ill give them that!
anyway enough ranting it had a weak storyline but from the same director as "the day after tomorrow" i didnt really expect more.
in short bad plot good special effects!

Alvin and the chipmunks: as embarast as i am to say it i really liked this movie!
I was one of the many thousands of people who cringed everytime they heard the "crazy frog",so having a whole movie of small rodents who sound like they have inhailed an entire heilem factory would grait on my nears.
suprisingly though i seemed to get ove the high pitched voises and loved the singing!
I loved the interaction the Jason Lee (also played Earl in "my name is Earl") had with the fluffy little critters, they seem to of masterd the carater interation and even though i know that they are petting or touching nothing except maby a prop if looked very real!

Sweeny Todd, the deamon barbor of fleet street: Ok i know this isnt a 3D movie but this revew is only to the starting credits, which i loved! (and no there wasnt any sceans on Jhonny Depp in the part im talking about!)its more to the sweep through london landing onto the Barbers shop, I also found intresting the part the Mr. Todd had just got off the boat and is walking along through the dark streets of london,you are taking on a sweeping shot through the streets passing homeless people and drunkerds though Fleet street (i.e. the rough end)
all in all AWSOME FILM even though Jhonny shouldnt really should stick to just acting.

Flight of the Conchords

if i had thought more about doing the first idear for the project i just found a vid showing what i wanted to do with the photographs, unfortunatly i cant rember how to show a live link so ive just posted it below :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqbB8aPD1UU

The little match seller

it occored to me that noone mite actuly know the story of the little match girl seller by Hans Christian Anderson so i desided to post it here:

IT was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.

Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory smell of roast goose, for it was New-year’s eve—yes, she remembered that. In a corner, between two houses, one of which projected beyond the other, she sank down and huddled herself together. She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money. Her father would certainly beat her; besides, it was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand.

She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.

She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmas-tree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out.

The Christmas lights rose higher and higher, till they looked to her like the stars in the sky. Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.

She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.

In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year’s sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year’s day.

A short about Roger Allers

Roger Allers is a Animation director and Storyboard Artist of Disney animated films. Away from the Disney studio, he directed the animated movie, Open Season for Sony.

He directed the Academy Award winning movie The Lion King, with Rob Minkoff. He was also nominated for a Tony for writing the book of the hit Broadway musical version of "The Lion King". He was a Story Artist on Oliver & Company and The Little Mermaid. And he supervised the story of Beauty and the Beast.

In 2007, Allers received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Short Film for his interpretation of the classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Little Match Girl, a short originally intended for Fantasia 2006.

taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Allers

life doesnt alwase have a Disney ending.

ok this sounds sad but i just watched "the little mermaid" it was a 2 disk edition, By accident i found a short animation called "The little match girl" it was based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson and it has to be the sadest story i have ever seen though animation (ok to mind i'v probberly seen worse!)
"The little match girl" is based in Russia and was directed by Roger Allers who was also the director for "the little mermaid"

"The little match girl" is about a small girl who is trying to sell matches. Of coarse no-one is intrested and one man is shown with a lighter.
you are then taken to another sceen of when she is sitting on the snow all alone and cold. She looks down at the matches and decided to light one. you are then taken to a part of her imagination of an open fire untill the match blows out and you are taken back to cold reality.
evently she lights the last of her matches and is taken to a fantesy of an older women hugging the little girl and when you matches blow out she is sitting on the snow and looks to be asleep.
The woman from the little girls fantsey picks up the little girl and walks off but in the picture below it was just the girls spirit and in fact the girl had died.

The enigma gets solved

As i said before i had a plan for the second project. After thinking it through i decided to go in the other direction.
Rereading the bref i changed my plan long ago.
I choose to use my room as a photo montarge with items that are interactive.
also there is a small supprise behind the door well three supprises to be exsact but im not telling you about them you will have to found them out on your own!

The enigma of project two

I found the ideas for project two rather difffrent than before.

So far i had an idea about an alterd history. I have a fasination in the Cathos Theroy and so the idea of history being alterd from alittle igsonifacant problem.
For this idea i chose to go down the polatics road, my start off point was John Smith not dieing of a heart attack.
From that small point i then go on further to the twin trade towers bomming not happerning because the Usa and the Uk become friends with Irac and go to war with Iran.
This then goes onto a nuclear war devastating the world.

I understand that this is a rather pesamamistic view of what could of happend but in the newspapers you dont hear much happyer news.

from paper to life

i finaly got everything finished and my internet is working long enough for me to up load so finished screen shots...want to see them
Of chorse you do!

Concept to life

ive been doing alot of concept drawings for this avatar project. Below is just one of the sketches im happy with.
For my avatar i have chosen to combine a Werewolf with a Minotaur, two fantasy creatures that used to scare me as a child.
I believe this shows that when i came to uni it was a very scary time for me, but now im not as scared as i used to be. When i first moved to Nottingham i was scared as a child would be but now looking back it's never as scary as you once thought.
For me this was an important point to make as i feel i have grown mentaly if not physicaly.

shading for a cell

i have recently been experimenting with cell shading, cell shading is when a block of colour is used to eather darken or lighten an image rather than blending.
Before now i have found this hard to do as it is my natral instint to blend.
below is an image of "Link" from Zelda who is coloured in the style of cell shadeing.


Below is an image that i coloured in this cell shading style. You may recognise the drawing that is shown before.



Link image taken from www.gamersmark.com