Freelance work...

I guess you could call it that, I'm not really sure to be honest what this goes under.

I've been having a pretty crap week, so in the process of keeping myself distracted I decided I should update the blog. Tis the season...or becoming the season. Not that I'm looking forward to it, but I was asked to do a Christmas card from my sisters company in Scotland. Scottish and Wintery were the basic themes and while i did play around with the thought of an acrylic painting of a robin on a tartan scarf, I decided it probably wouldn't translate well as it was going to be an E-Card, and acrylic is hard to scan/photograph well. Plus getting the actual painting to my sister would've taken a while. So time wise and practicality wise a digital card worked out best.

So this is it, done rather quickly I might add. Contains the Scottish element - Edinburgh Castle. The Winter element - Snow, and I gave it an old classical look by giving it a sepia tone, and an old photo edge. The original photo was a lot longer so that was chopped down, and then there wasn't enough sky so I expanded that.
Simple text added in on top. and presto, instant card. Simple, but effective, least I like to think so =)

My Sister said she also likes the real old timey look too, so she was very happy with it!

College Work #3

This time it's digital....

That was terrible, I apologize. I'm writing this update at 3am because I cant sleep. I don't update nearly enough, and Alex has issued a complaint, so Alex this update is for you...

Now onto business. This was technically our second digital module for our course. But unlike our last module, instead of 3 hours every Monday morning, and lots of time to forget stuff while working on other projects in between, we were in the computer room from 10am-5pm (but allowed to stay later)  from Monday to Thursday.  So it was much MUCH easier to focus on what we were doing. I have to say I really wasn't looking forward to this module because digital is not my strong point.

Aim: In previous years this digital project entailed going to the local toyshop, and buying something to model. How complicated you made it depended on what you felt your skill level was. Often they added a bit of an animation into the end of it so it required some moving parts. For our year however, we were to model a replica of one of the Blaschka glass models that are kept in a restricted area of the Natural History Museum in Dublin. They're very delicate, and so intricately detailed!

Materials: 3ds Max, Mudbox, Photoshop, lots a lots of reference photos, wacom tablet, hard drive.

Skills learnt: Transferring objects from 3ds Max to Mudbox and back again. Painting the model in Mudbox but editing the paint layers in Photoshop. Proper UV unwrapping. Animating a basic "turnaround". Using a tablet properly.

Project Highlights: We started with a basic frame in 3ds Max, shaping it around a front, side and top reference images. When I'd completed the body and tentacles of my chosen anemone (Sorry I cant post a photo of the original model, but I signed a rather strict form while in the museum), I unwrapped the UV maps for the model. It's like skinning for those of you who aren't familiar with the process, but you've to lay the skin perfectly even and flat before moving it to another program. I was doing it by hand for ages (and my lecturer saw this) before I was told the proper way to make all my lines straight. Least I'll never forget that again!!

Before finding out how to properly straighten all my lines...

After I'd unwrapped the maps, I moved the object to Mudbox. Which does exactly what it says on the tin. The model looks like it's made out of a type of clay that you can sculpt and manipulate how you wish.

Working through the many many dots in Mudbox.

Unfortunately for me the body of my anemone had thoooosands of sculpted dots all over it that I had to do individually. I did check to see there was a better way to be doing it, but my lecturer said it looked more natural the way I was doing it, and to just keep going.

When I was done sculpting the body I began to paint it. Because of trouble with my UV unwraps my tentacles painted the same colour (in simple terms they overlapped the body despite being unwrapped separately). I exported and deleted my body so I could work on the tentacles. I exported them to and posed them in 3ds Max together.

Oh, forgot to mention I also sculpted the rock that it was to sit on in the same way and added that to 3ds Max. Because 3ds Max was being used for the render, they were set up in there with lighting and a camera rig (for the turn around). I took a few stills, and then finally did a turn around which i'm now going to attempt to embed.



Awesome it worked! -- or maybe not. It did work temporarily...but apparently the HTML is wrong now. Here's a link anyway - Digital Blaschka Turnaround

[EDIT] Found my hard drive so I can add in some still shots of the model too!

Front View

Top Perspective View

Top View - Really happy with the lighting on this, looks like the reall thing.

This to me is a little Dali esque - I tried adding in daylight, but it washed my colours right out!

Then when i removed the daylight everything went a little wierd...but kinda funky, so i kept it =)

Notes: Well, I'm not too reluctant to do digital now. Once you have a constant enough flow, I found it easier to work on the model. I got a B- for this (woo! continuing the B streak). I was happy with this because I expected a C. It's quite difficult to teach a digital module, and get around to everyone - I think this really came across, because most of us had only fiddled with these programs before and if a problem came up, we'd cry for help. With only one lecturer in the room it can be tough to get around to everyone.

College Work #2

Back to college now, and while I'll keep you updated with the digital module, I thought I'd talk about previous work again. This time it's the first module from last year, which was our Stop Motion Project. I was looking forward to this a a lot and did have a good laugh too.

Aim: To produce a character and prop for a stop motion film. Animate the character interacting with the prop in a "Americas Got Talent" style clip. Edit and add sound to the film too.

Materials: Wire, K+S Tubing, Miliput, Latex, Silicone, Resin, Model Magic, Fabric, Magnets, Rostrum room within the college containing 2 camera set ups and green screens, Video editing software, Sound effects catalog on college computers.

Skills Learnt: Character design, Storyboarding, Armatures, Slosh mould, Latex dipping and how painstakingly slow it is, Miniature clothes sewing, Stop motion animation, the usefulness of magnets.

Project Highlights: I was really looking forward to this module, and I was lucky that my Character "Busty St Clair" came about so quickly. Her story was she was going to break a glass with her voice (as she was a large opera singer) but the glass refuses to break, she then smashes the glass herself and shuffles off stage. The first problem with that is you require multiple heads or mouths. I went for heads, that were attached to her neck via magnets. Her Wig, made of model magic came off easily and fitted onto all heads.

The 3 heads made in Sculpey (later cast in resin cos of weight)

One of the heads being used to model Busty's Wig

A lot of time was spent latex dipping her limbs after the armature was completed. I had a nice little clothes line drip dry process going on. While limps were drying I was either sculpting and moulding the 3 heads, or making a miniature dress for her to wear. There were going to be gloves, but that was going a bit far.

Busty's legs after a few dips on the thighs.

Busty's Chest, and arms. Theres a magnet behind her necklace for her heads
and the wig covers she shoulder joints. 

Head #1 in place, but wobbly but the wig helps steady it.
That roll of fruit pastilles is sitting in one of her head molds behind her.

I added magnets to her legs to help her stand....sadly that didn't work as well as planned. Given her thin legs, she would've been better with a support but that wasn't an option. I was also Told the base of the green screen was going to be magnetic. That didn't exactly happen, or rather a sheet of metal under the wooden screen didn't exactly work, so she had to be placed on a raw sheet of metal.

My favourite part was animating the wobbling of the stool (her prob) and the smashing of the glass. I had 2 glasses, one whole, and one semi smashed. I'm more proud of that than Busty herself. The Rostrum Room itself was fun, we went in pairs, and took a screen each, only one of the ancient cameras had onion skinning so god help you if you hit tapped off the camera. One person was set to capture the images, and the person who's model it was was set to animate their char and say it they were happy with a shot or not. Quite painless really, provided everything goes right.

Animating away! (my friend Ro was on Capture Duty!)

How did that last one look??

After that we'd use a hard drive to take the images from the computers in the Rostrum Room, to our own, on a separate college computer. Edit the images down, removing any mistaken images, hands, etc. and then add in sound if you wanted to. The plan was to have one of the lecturers change the green screen into a stage setting for us, but that never happened.

Sadly there was no opera lady singing sound effect, so I only have applause and the glass smashing....
Anyway, without further ado...

Busty St Clair

(not sure how to embed a vid yet!)

Notes: The project was great fun, and a good learning experience even if it got a little frustrating latex dipping a lot. I'd definitely try use another method next time, or get my character to wear more clothes. I'd like to try Claymation at some point, as we weren't allowed use plasticine.
I was really happy with how my heads worked out. The magnetics could've worked a little better, but for my first try I was very pleased. I did lose marks though, because there were two lecturers with us on this module, and I got conflicting ideas on what to do for the head, and for some reason that one wasn't a good one. Twas a bit confusing.

Mural Update!

Two posts in two days? Crazy!

This post is an update on the mural, which due to various personal commitments (job, college etc) its taking forever....which is annoying me a lot. I wish I could finish it faster, for my friends sake.

Anywho! I have updated pictures on how everything's going. The room is starting to look great with all the colour added in. So far I have Simba, Bambi, Thumper and Jiminey completed! I'm working on Iago now, but i was getting tired and he was starting to turn out badly...or maybe I was just starting to drain (I had been painting for over 5 hours) so I decided to stop, and go back to him when my friend comes back from her holidays. She's been helping out too, painting flowers and the butterfly you'll see bellow ^_^ she also painted most of the green and blue in the background.

This is Jiminey, I wasn't too happy with him to begin with...but warming up to him now. He was one of the hardest to find colour referance for. he ranges from a mossy-beige (no other way to describe it) to pea green, like he kinda is here. The greener of the two is the colour of the character in the disney parks, so I figured I'd stick with that....

Next up is thumper, lost in this rather large photo, Very happy with how he turned out, nice blue/pinky/grey coat on him. He still needs some green filled in around him.

And lastly we have Bambi and Simba (who's looking at one of the butterflies my friend painted). Bambi is my favourite by far. I was so happy with how he turned out! It was really scary starting him after the bad luck with Jiminey, but it's amazing what happens if you add a pair of eyes to the characters, they just come alive.

Simbas face is a little off, he looks a lot younger than he should, but it kinda suits the whole baby godson thing. could also be his pose, being crouched down so much...hmmm... still, my godson loved it, even if Simba is being called "TIGGY!!!".

Anywho, that's all for now!

QUACK!

Long break, but I'm back with stuff to show!

A friend of mine loves rubber ducks. She collects them. So I thought a great present for her would be her own custom duck! Official Title: The Paula Duckie.
Sadly, he's not made out of rubber. He'll prob float in water, but I wouldn't recommend regular tub usage. I'm pretty sure my friend keeps hers as ornamental ducks anywho.

This little duck was originally an occupant of my bathroom. He lived near the shower, and when the hot water was put on, he was placed on the landing to remind us to switch it off when we were done. Being the larger of 3 ducks, he was rarely used for that so he's now gotten a full make over!

Made from cheap plastic I sanded down any flash that was being rather unsightly and I started to model up from the plastic. Now, normally I'm a Sculpey person, but Sculpey, followed by oven usage would melt this duck in to a little yellow puddle. Not good. So instead I decided to use Milliput. (For the non Modelmakers out there Milliput is a 2 part epoxy putty, when kneaded together it starts to cure, and you can sculpt with it, leave it, and it sets solid. It's also used for fixing leaks and can set under water. Pretty awesome stuff.) The guy in my local model shop tried to sell me Revells Plasto (filler paste) as a substitute cos he had none in stock. He looked at me like I had 30 heads when I said I wanted it to sculpt up, not fill in model holes.

Anywho, I chose some distinguishing features from my friend, he hair, the fact she wears hoodies, and her new tattoo (the benzene rings of Vit B2 - She's a food scientist)
Here's some pictures I took while waiting for her to set.

It took about 2 coats of white paint for a solid base, then I painted the basic colours. I think next time I do something like this I'll have finer sandpaper, primer (I ran out) and use my airbrush instead. Here's a picture of the basic colours anyway...

Then I added in the detailed bits, shading bits on the hoodie, eyes, texture to the hair, a t-shirt, and the tattoo. I like the eyes, and was really pleased with how the hoodie turned out. The hardest part was the tattoo, done with a 0000 cotman brush which has about 10 hairs in it.

 oh and forgive the quality cos these were originally taken with no flash

you can see the tattoo in this one!

 This last one will be a little confusing, it's the underside of the duck. RJR stands for Rocha, John Rocha. Which is a particular label of clothing Paula used to like, and I hope still does like! I like the pockets the the hem, painted on flat, all the 3D is on the topside.

So that's the Paula Duckie. Really happy with how it turned out, can't wait to give it to her! I don't think she reads this blog so it's prob still a surprise!

College Work #1

Now that I've got the feel for this blog thing (and managed to mend and take photos of what i'm about to show you), it's time to start posting proper modelmakey stuff up here.

Tis the reason I got the blog in the first place. Here's a breakdown of the project...

Aim: To photograph a building in Madrid (we were on a class trip there) in detail and make a accurate scale replica of the facade of the building.

Materials: AutoCad, Foamex (plastic sheeting), styrene strips and tubing, clear plastic, flock, scalpel and a lot of blades, metal mesh, wire and model paint. Mould and resin used for rectangular flower pots.

Skills learnt: Replicating to scale, paint finishes, molding and casting, major attention to detail, basic AutoCad, textures, super glue would prefer to stick you to stuff rather than stuff to other stuff.

Project Highlights: In 1st year we went to Spain, and while there we were tasked with picking a 3-4 storey building, photographing it in detail and taking scale measurements. Both of which were a little tricky as I have no Spanish to explain what I'm doing, and the building I chose was in a narrow street behind the hostel we were staying in. A full shot was out of the question but I could see the upper balconies from our hostel room, so i took a few shots from there too.

Back in Ireland, after a mild panic of the airport scanner destroying my camera, I did a little Photoshop work in order to be able to make a AutoCAD outline from the photographs I took. After the AutoCAD was complete, and after figuring out how to actually use the college printers to print from AutoCAD, I was ready to begin construction.

Because it was only a facade I didn't need to build back into the building, I only needed to start at the wall and build out. So the AutoCAD served as a template for cutting out size and the holes for windows and doors.

After cleaning off the spray mount I started making everything else. Doors were tricky because they needed to be cut so thin. I also got to make my first every silicone mold for my plant pots. After I painted them, I used a little bit of glue to flock the top of them. The smaller circular pots were made out of styrene tubing, some styrene striping for the ride, and a small bit of frayed copper wire that was flocked. They're probably the smallest thing I've ever made. And I'm still so proud of em!



Ain't they cute?

Also in that photo is one of the balconies with the door and shutter out of focus behind it. That particular balcony on the really builting had those flower pots and then a wind breaker around it. My wind breaker is a small patch of dishcloth painted green!

The balconies themselves were all hand made from sections of styrene rods and styrene sheeting. They took the longest to do. While we were told we could buy balconies at the Dolls Hospital in Dublin, I was determined to do mine by hand. Gave me a good lesson in time management... I was also slow at making things in 1st yr, but this module helped me understand the materials so i can work faster now. There was a lot of trial and error and fingers stuck together.

Here's another shot of a balcony. This one had an air-conditioning unit, and a washing line with a pair of black trousers on it.



I think my favourite part of the whole project were the front doors on ground level. They were nice and detailed, and there was a fair bit of graffiti on the shutter and the main door to the apartments that was a lot of fun to paint.






Notice the little intercom by the green door? that was fun to make!

And here's a shot I took at the end of 1st yr of the completed building. Sorry about the poor quality, it was taken with someone else's camera.



Notes: I really enjoyed this module, and I got a B for it, which I was really happy with.

George The Fish.

George our goldfish, well, really my sisters goldfish but he was kinda seen as a family pet, passed away a few days ago.

He was 23 years old.

....

No that's not a typo. George was a grand age of 23 years. He outlived every other fish that was put in that tank (save for the weather loach we still have). A few years ago he turned a grey/silver, lost an eye, and his spine even twisted a lil. But he could still swim happily around his tank as if this was normal, and nothing bothered him.

His swim bladder actually went a day or two before holidays, but when i went to euthanasie him, he was OK again. It was while we were on holidays that the people taking care of the house found George dead.

See, in our house pets aren't flushed. They're given a spot in the back garden, and possibly a rock as a marker. My dad was actually the one who suggested making a lil box for George. I thought it was a great idea. Rather than just placing him in the ground, we'd have a small coffin. Let him go in style.

Here's the mini coffin I made. Only Balsa wood and some ink to stain it. I then covered it in a gloss varnish and stuck on the cross. (not sure what the cross is in the fish world. But it looked rather plain without it.)




Rest in Peace ole chap. Enjoy that great big fishbowl in the sky.