Hayley Jennings' Animation/Art

Designs for final presentation

2010-05-13T05:30:00.001-07:00

Queen of Hearts

Aspects of the Queen of Hearts looked at:
- powerful, loud, extravagant

Bottom image referenced from

The Hatter

Aspects of The Hatter looked at:
- nonsensicle, eccentric, formal yet scruffily absent-minded

Top image referenced from

Duey Learns Ballet & artefact work

2010-04-11T11:45:00.001-07:00

Kept forgetting to post over the past couple of weeks, but my client animation, Duey Learns Ballet, is on YouTube!

As for artefact work, here are some more finallised designs for Alice based off the feedback from the presentation.

And some designs for the Cheshire Cat.

Had a much tougher time with this. Trying to recreate the feeling of the Cheshire Cat while making him look as 'odd' as possible. I preferred the 'slinkier' look on the second set of designs, it makes him seem more sly like he can slip about here and here whenever he wants, which is what he does in the books. Whether this is agreed on remains to be seen.

Halfway through artefact 3

2010-03-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've changed the theme of my artefacts. For the rest of them I'm going to choose characters from Alice in Wonderland and redesign them while keeping the feel of the characters the same. I think I'm going to make them in a more modern setting, but when designing their face and body shapes I'm going to use a simple version of their original design.

So here are my designs for Alice so far, along with the shapes used.

I'm going to pick the designs that work and develop the other aspects of their design such as hair, clothes and body language, then colour comes afterwards. By the end of it, I should be able to draw conclusions about which shapes, colour and other such character aspects work best for each character.

I'm going to post comparison pics between other renditions of Alice soon so I can further my ideas.

Background 2 - the dance studio exterior

2010-03-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

Next up, the studio interior then the stage.

Backdrop 1 - the street

2010-03-05T08:31:00.001-08:00

Need to sort the lighting in the final render when I animate with it, but at least the 2D textures look a little 3D with some shading added.

Will post some PRP artefact work this weekend.

Duey mouth morphs

2010-03-04T09:07:00.000-08:00

Just a quick example of how his mouth moves. Will rig him and the ballerina later this week.

Artefact 3 - the Child revisited

2010-02-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

Quotes about the Jungian Child archetype:
"The mature personality of the Child archetype nurtures that part of us that yearns to be lighthearted and innocent, expecting the wonders of tomorrow, regardless of age." [source]

"Within each of us, the Innocent is the spontaneous, trusting child that, while a bit dependent, has the optimism to take the journey." [source]

The Designs
I'm branching off into two time periods from now on. Renaissance and modern day. So I'll start with the two designs I had based around those time periods.

(Click for larger versions)

The Question
Take a look at the two designs. Do these two characters look like how you would associate a Child archetype? If not, what would you suggest to alter their designs?
- colours?
- build?
- age?
- body language/expression?
- clothing?

Keep in mind that you can suggest anything you want for these designs. This way I can build up a variety of designs and with feedback and analysis, it will be much easier to figure out what works for these designs and why. Please bear in mind the general time periods when leaving feedback.

I thank everyone in advance for their feedback.

Monster and Ballerina models

2010-02-24T14:29:00.001-08:00

Both still need rigging, but Duey's (my monster got a name!) got his mouth movements sorted. The ballerina went strange while I tried to sot her hair out, but I don't think I did too badly overall.

Ballerina model WIP

2010-02-12T06:02:00.000-08:00

Here's a front and side shot of her so far. All I need to do is add her hair and then rig and texture her.

Still need to tweak her nose and such, but considering my previous luck with modelling human characters, this is definately my best model.

Artefact 1 - The Hero

2010-02-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

Based from Jungian archetypes

"The hero, who pursues a great quest to realize his destiny" [source]

"The Savior is a hero who suffers for the benefit of his people. Oftentimes,
the archetypal hero makes a sacrifice for the betterment of theories. That
single quality will make him a savior." [source]

Design 1

The idea

a kind of generic seeming character who also looked strong
a cape to show travel and a journey for him to go on
royal colours

Feedback

'knight in shining armour'
seems like he's in a stand off
colours are too dark
he seems more like he's trying to atone for past mistakes, a hero who changes with the story

Design 2

The idea

all over armour, a knight
a red cape, associated with heroes such as Superman

Feedback

try removing some of the armour, full armour not always needed in a hero
give him a distant look, to his homeland or goal
give him a caring smile, he's there for the people
try a bigger build and let some of that build be visable through less armour
cleanshaven? even mythological heroes were

Design 3

Idea

add red tinge to armour to keep with the red cape
armour not all over, the shoulderplate on his swordweilding arm is larger for better protection
made some of the armour more practical
has a softer, more caring face, will do what it takes to protect people

Feedback

[added] chestplate seems bare, maybe add insignia of some kind?

Overall, most prefer the final design, but there are exceptions for design 2, as well.

Jungian archetypes in Lord of the Rings

2010-02-04T05:43:00.000-08:00

Found a fascinating video yesterday about how Jungian archetypes can be placed within different stories. Since I'm looking at these archetypes for my artefacts, it was more than helpful.

Mythological Structure in The Lord of the Rings from Chris Boulton on Vimeo.

For my artefacts, I'm going to pick 6 jungian examples and create 3 different characters for each one, varying in style and dividing them into variations of their archetype. This video helped me realise this much easier than reading about it.

Client project designs + storyboards

2010-01-21T03:12:00.000-08:00

First of all, the mindmap.

The first designs. I went with the scary and cute scenario. The little girl was from an earlier idea I had, but decided to leave it because I wasn't getting any solid ideas for it.

The top-most designs were my favourites here, and the idea of him in a tutu showed up, too.

Rough sketch of the ballerina I planned to add in my animation, along with one last monster design. I still preferred the other design though.
And the storyboards. I'll let these speak for themselves.

Hopefully this'll take up 2 minutes, I already know it'll be enough work for me to take up the amount of time we'll be working on the client project.

Creating an animation, one piece at a time

2010-01-06T17:13:00.000-08:00

The technique used to put all this together fascinated me, I never thought of putting Flash animation together in a video editor as such an effective method, but it works amazingly here. Definately gonna try it out when I get to create my first proper animation (which is in its planning stages, yay!)

Also, I've (very slowly) started work on revamping The Adventures of Sir Cuthbert Pencilton. Deadlines ultimately meant I didn't have time to put as much effort into it as I'd wanted to (specifically with lighting, sound effects and backdrops), so I plan on sorting that :)

Here's one backdrop I've revamped. It lacks the doodle look so much, but I still prefer it to the old one XD

Also, I'm a little confused with what's happening when we get back. Do we go straight into presentations, and should have done all our research during the holidays, or is it something else? I'm currently writing a questionnaire for my artifacts so I can at least say I've done something, I guess.

Maybe a change to the question

2009-12-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

As I'm getting further into the PRP, I think I need to change my question a bit, otherwise I think I'm gonna miss the goal completely. So, to be able to keep myself on the right topic, I want to change my question from

Have character archetypes affected the development of characters through various forms of media?

to

How are different character archetypes used throughout various forms of media?

I think with this question, I can more easily give the examples I was hoping to give in the first place while still being able to identify what archetypes are used more than others and expanding on how current archetypes can be used to create new experiences for readers/viewers/gamers.

Simulated client project feedback

2009-12-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

Bit late writing this, but this PRP is a pain in the neck. So, we showed our animation's to the class and got feedback. Mine was as follows:

- excellent character designs, nice and simple
- could draw people back to watch it again due it's oddness
- 2D and 3D worked very well together
- needed simpler messages so they could be read better (possibly voice over)
- speed up the animation

That's pretty much it, so I was really pleased ^^ I figured the pacing'd be a problem, along with the messages, so there wasn't anything said that I didn't already expect. I might go back and make those changes then reupload it to comparel later.

It is done!

2009-11-26T05:34:00.000-08:00

About 10-12 hours rendering time, and it's all done! :D Wish I could somehow put more emphasis on the computer, but ah well, people'll just have to watch it twice to see it properly :)

WIP shot of my animation

2009-11-24T13:57:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't been posting much, I've been busy trying to sort this animation out. Here's a pic of it in the meanwhile, while I try and get the second half of it sorted.

The tecture's not on the conveyer belt at this point, but the lighting's all sorted and I'm loving how soft and almost model-like it looks.

Pirate Model

2009-11-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Finished my pirate model, and I think I did a pretty good job of modelling him.

If I'm honest, this is about as good as I can model on my own without needing help or having strange problems pop up that I can't solve. So I think making it simple's worked to my advantage.

Kitten 3D model

2009-11-14T08:33:00.001-08:00

I finished the li'l guy a couple of days ago, and I'm really pleased with the result :)

It's got my username on it because it was posted to deviantART and it seems silly to resave it without my name. A lot of people like this so far, so hopefully that's a positive sign that the rest of the designs should go okay too.

Simulated Client Project Animatic

2009-11-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

Gotta tweak a couple of the sound effects, but I like the pacing and the number of loops :)

Anti-piracy warnings

2009-11-07T06:42:00.001-08:00

And now for a mass of videos, which for some reason I havent' got around to posting yet. Ah well.

I really hate this advert. It's put on all legally bought DVDs, punishing us for buying them through the proper methods, yet those who download and pirate it don't see them. Idiotic, much? It feels like it's trying too hard to sound 'trendy' with the music, but to me it just seems like more people laugh at it than listen to it.

As I posted before, this is my favourite opinion on it. Ed Byrne points out how black and white the advert acts over it.

Of course, searching for it found me more parodies than anything else. Not that this helps with the argument, but it just shows how some people don't listen to it when they're morally grey like people are generally supposed to be.

And I found this little cruel anti-piracy measure from bootlegged versions of Earthbound (a game unreleased in Europe, so it's understandable why people bootlegged it). It waits until you're at the final boss, then freezes the game and deletes your saves! So very, very cruel.

A bit better way around it, they point out how it affects you rather than just saying it's illegal. I think the potential glitches'd make me wanna buy the full game. Then again, I've had more than my fair share of glitches from the real versions! Although according to another video, it cuts the game part way through the final boss battle and erases everything you've collected (very much like Earthbound)

SO, there's some videos I've found, mainly about how piracy affects the person rather than the companies, because, to be honest, that's what I'm more interested in.

Encouraging file sharing

2009-11-07T06:22:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting piracy related story, very much backing my theory of encouraging people to file share then buying what they enjoy.

'Trials Dev Pirated Its Own Game to Drive Interest'. [Kotaku]

Giving a lesser version of the full game rather than a demo seems like a much better way to drive interest, and to get the full experience, you can buy it and support the developers. And if you don't buy it? Well, you keep the watered down copy. Seems fair to me.

Definately using this in my presentation, it's perfect!

Simluated client brief, designs and storyboards

2009-11-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

First of all, a copy of my proposal (I had issues with the dropbox, and I know this is late, sorry).

Download (password is 'uni', so people don't randomly download it)

So, for my project proposal, I've decided to focus on the more lenient (and hopefully more popular) message of saying that it's alright to file share and download as long as you support the artists you like. That way the file sharing is no different to hearing something on the radio and TV and the artists you want to support can keep going. This is hard to pull off in 20 seconds, so I had to simplify the message a lot.

Instead, I'm going to use the example of 'when you X, God kills a kitten' (with X being something bad/sinful/something a person wants someone else to see). However, I'm going to have a pirate squishing the kittens with a mallet with a squeaking sound from them, making it seem more comical. I've found the 'God kills a kitten' fad on the internet to have more of a sense of humour about it, so people hopefully won't think it's trying to see you as a criminal for whatever you do like most adverts.

Here are the charater designs:
Simplified to make it easier to model, texture and animate. Also simple because 20 seconds isn't long enough to justify a details character design when it will appear for such a short time.

The Storyboards:

Pretty self-explainatory, really. If you don't pay for music you like to support artists, kitten go squish, if you do, kitten gets petted, which means happy kitten ^^

Simulated client project

2009-10-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Mission: To create a 20 second animation about the consequences of file sharing and when it's illegal.

How I'll tackle it: First, by looking into cases of file sharing and think of an interesting way to create the animation.

At a glance, I think Ed Byrne sums the piracy warnings before DVDs up brillianty.

I found an editorial about American anime licensor FUNimation telling people to remove their dubbed content from the site.

While I agree that from an American standpoint, this argument makes sense, but from a UK standpoint, the legal content mentioned is unavailable and not released until at least half a year later. Those who wish to buy the titles when they're out can at least get a 'sneak peek' at what they will get eventually along with getting rid of the long delay.

So, my idea for the animation is something with little movement (as I've said before, 3D animation is NOT something I get along with) with split second imagery and effects that would hopefully mean the viewer would want to see the animation more than once. I find that videos where I've missed something and need to go and watch it again make it stick in my head a lot more.

Sketches will be posted later.

Slow down

2009-10-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

So I went to read the article we were asked to go through for next tutorial and I hit a bit of a stumbling block; fancy fonts + black text on white background = I can't read it properly. I spent about 5 minutes on one paragraph trying to understand it but it wasn't working. So now I have to get some coloured paper to print it on, since I end up working better with that.

First week wasn't too bad. Still a bit miffed that I can't create a 2D animation for my mock client project after they pretty much said 'we'd rather you create an inferior 3D project than anything 2D'. That put me in a sour mood. I might be able to make my idea work, but it'll be about 5x more tedious and not as good. Geez, thanks for letting me be creative in my own way.

Here's what I honestly want to do, animation-wise.

A fun colourful style based entirely in 2D. I know we're meant to expand what we can do for our portfolio, but I don't think I've even been given a fair chance to create a 2D animation while at uni.

I'm going to animate this idea in 2D when I've got my ideas together, and I can't wait :D

Character overhaul

2009-10-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

Remember Malletgirl from the first year interactive narrative project?

(Click here to see the actual flash)

I decided to give her a comic book style redo, so after referencing some Marvel and DC comic images (I'm not too big on comics, so I missed a lot of subtleties to the style), I got this as a result.
Definately an improvement on the first design, wouldn't you agree? I had a lot of fun with the shading, most of the colouring I've seen in comic books look like gradients more than anything, so I tried to recreate that without actually using gradients (I love smudge tool).

Messing about with styles again

2009-10-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

So the last few days I've really gotten into trying to draw more styles, and since I pretty much always use teenage girls as a style base to get the main idea down, it's mostly gonna be females in this post.

I really like the designs at the bottom, they seem so much more lively with more personality than the other sketches (although I do like most of those, too). I wanted to experiment more with proportions.

And I got this. Well, these. It's the same character but with different clothes. I'm VERY proud of how this turned out, and I'd love to try working with this style some more, maybe making a project of it sometime :)

In other news, I finally started a portfolio using deviantART's new system. Most of it's anime so far, but that's because I'm working on something good enough to post in the other sections.

You can view it here.

Just remember it's still in progress.

CGI-brows - they're the future

2009-09-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. Unless you love crazy eyebrows XD

CGI-brows from Andrew Gaynord on Vimeo.

Not much to say about it, I just thought it was a good short film about a very strange technique.

'Love is War' and 'Meltdown'

2009-09-18T03:12:00.000-07:00

I've become a bit obsessed with Vocaloid lately, and a couple of videos in particular keep my attention more than others (most of the songs are amazing, but I'm just after the visuals with the audio today).

First off is Love is War, a song by the most well-known Vocaloid, Miku Hatsune.

(subbed for your convenience ;P)

The fast paced shots, the constantly moving camera, the solid black shading. These are the 3 main things I love about this video. It matches the feel and the power of the song immensely, although with Miku's voice, song of the feeling is lost, as her voice is mainly designed for 'cutesy' songs and doesn't quite have the power for it (being a synthed voice doesn't help either).

This cover version I found, however (sung by a real person), adds power to the song that I think's needed to give the video its full effect.

The second video is Meltdown, sung by another Vocaloid, Rin Kagamine.

The constantly shifting overlays make it hard to feel that the still images are outstaying their welcome, as they always give you a sense that there's something more to look at the in the picture. Mixed with 3D graphics and amazing emotion-filled vocals (which like I said, for a synth voice its hard to do), and I think this is one of the best Vocaloid videos out there.

An odd game's (kind of) redesign

2009-09-17T16:04:00.001-07:00

Anyone here heard of Terramex? It's a game I've got on my old (and awesome) Acorn Archimedes, which I still love playing. Trouble is, not many people of heard of it. Truth be told, I like it that way, but it'd be nice to see it's weirdness get a little recognition in the odd obscure reference or picture.

So I decided to redesign and recreate in 3D certain aspects of the game. Y'know, as a little warm up for the final year. Here's what I've got so far.

Some characters/enemies (reference pics below).

Top left is Henri Beaucoup (in the middle), who I designed with his chin way too pointy ^^;
Middle right is Big John Caine (to the right of Henri in the pic), who's my first ever attempt at a jaw shape like that.
And in the background's a really creepy looking feint image of Prof Eyestrain (top right in my sketches)

Middle left's a really freaky monster that doesn't seem to do anything. It just had a really unnatural repeating movement and scared the hell out of me as a kid.
Bottom left's a dragon-pterodactyl type thing that flies in straight lines and kills you if you touch it. It can get kind of annoying when you get you're timing wrong on one part of it.

And finally, bottom right is the 'main baddy', if you will (well, I get the comet's that, but it doesn't do much in the long run). They randomly pop out of rocks and kill you. Timing means nothing to them, which is why they're a total wind up. This one's next to the first item you collect in the game; the vacuum cleaner. It flies. Awesome.

Right, now doodles and explainations are out of the way, here's a 3D model of the flying thing I started work on. I haven't got a clue how to UV unwrap it to texture it though :/

Not bad for a few hours work, if I do say so myself. And this coming from the person who had a challenge with Sir Cuthbert and his mad lot.

See the world in Tetris. Or the head, at least.

2009-09-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Some 3D art I found while on my daily roamabout on Kotaku.

Click the image to go to the website.

This is pretty much how I see things after I spend a little too long on Tetris, a close representation of the 'Tetris Effect', if you will.

I'm planning to try out a strange mini-project sometime this week, which'll involve sketches and 3D work, if all goes well. I'll write another post about that in a short while.

I found an amazing animation on YouTube called Draw With Me.

I'll admit, I cry easily, and this was no exception. The built up of the music and the expressions of the characters, along with the message really got to me. The end part's a little....strange, to say the least (once you realise what happened, it's even more amazing though), but I still love how effective it was in showing you what it wanted to show (despite seemingly following anime drawing cliches).

Manga Jiman is all done!

2009-09-06T05:28:00.000-07:00

So I spent the last nearly 3 weeks working on my manga Jiman contest entry and sent it off a couple of days ago. I then got a PSP and Dissidia: Final Fantasy, which accidently took up the last couple of days of my time.

There was a load of stuff I wanted to mention here, like different artists and stuff, but they've totally slipped me mind right now. From now on, I'm making a list of things I want to mention, that should help.

Planning to email about the client project this month, along with trying out more styles / 3D work so I can at least have a portfolio started. DeviantART has a portfolio service now, which I intend to use :)

Hmm..

2009-08-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

So not much happened that was worth posting about the last 10 days. Still gotta get my games work together (and nab some screen shots of the level) and all that. Suppose I'll just say what I've been up to lately.

Well, I'm gonna start work on the Manga Jiman contest (deadline's September 25th). Finally getting more of an idea what to do with that. I've started taking commissions to get used to working with different ideas and styles and stuff. Currently on my 3rd commission, and right now, even tho' I'm staying close to my anime style, I'm getting more confident in asking for critique and using it to improve what I'm working on. I've also taken up voice acting. Strange one, but if I can provide a voice or two to my own work and hopefully some others, then that'll be all the better ^^

Add that to trying to play my clarinet better and do some more work on 3DS Max and I don't think I'm doing too bad :) Well, by my standards, anyway. I'll find out a few practitioners to talk about for Tuesday, along with my elusive games work (which as I've said before, is highly not worth it, but really needs posting).

A Rare opportunity?

2009-08-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

Bad pun, I know, but throw stuff at me later (when you find out why it's so bad). This week's updates are Wednesday (today, whee), Friday and Sunday, 'cause go figure, I've got stuff on the days I planned up update this blog.

So, a news article on Kotaku reported that Rare is currently seeking designers to help with new games for Project Natal. The strange thing is that because this is a 'new' way of playing games, they're not showing any preference to previous work and design experience, which is a good opportunity for those who don't have much experience yet (okay, now throw stuff at me).

I also found this gallery of various boxart designs. I love seeing all the different ways you can design a cover to something, and often wonder how they manage to make each one so different. It's an essential design technique I still haven't got my head around.

Hopefully next update'll be something that's not on Kotaku, but it's such an easy place for this kinda thing (note to self: find something not games related for Friday)

Finding a 'new' style and a game about a fox

2009-08-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

I decided a long time ago I needed to break away from the usual anime style all the time (no way I'm giving it up completely though), but only recently did I decide to give it another crack. Trying to make my work look less anime, more 'my own' (long limbs are apparently my style), this was my first try at something new.

I've alway had issues drawing realistic human faces, even with life drawing to help me, so I kinda tries a compromise. With Japanese culture seeming to pop up a little more lately, I think I could get away with this style for something commercial, if the need calls for it. But we'll have to see. Had some positive feedback from people about it so far though. I'm planning on entering a manga contest this summer in this style to try and get some consistancy from it.

I spent the last couple of days playing a game on Newgrounds called William and Sly, although personally I don't see why the man's name is first, the fox does all the work. It's got beautifully designed graphics and a very smooth framerate, with a great level of exploration and secret areas to find. I'd recommend people take a look at it, I find it very calming. Well, except for when those creatures pop out of the ground at you.

Got to find out my game work and try to find a way to record a run through of my level. It's nothing worth looking at, but considering I don't play FPSs on account of them making me feel sick, I don't think I did too badly for a first try. Well, you'll see it when I can find screencapture software that doesn't make huge filesizes / bad quality.

...Wow

2009-07-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

Two months without posting, that a new low. Okay, no more messing around. From now on I'm gonna do my best to make sure I post on this blog at least three times a week! Same days as 8-Bit Theatre updates, most likely (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday). I've also gotta get around to posting my games paperwork. Haven't got a clue how I let that slip for so long!

Found this site linked in a Tweet from GameCity. Hoping it'll help me find some work experience over the summer (really not having an easy time with that), or at least give me an idea of what to do to make myself more likely to get hired for a multimedia job.

Mini visualisation project

2009-05-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

Had a load of texturing problems (like with anything else I work on) and I couldn't get parts of it modelled right, but it's the best I can do and it's finished ^^

I chose to recreate the old bandstand in the arboretum, 'cause I like its design, even if it can't be used anymore.

Here's the original photo I took.

And here's my version (looking way worse, but realistic recreation is something I've never been good at).
The colours are a little off (which is strange because I created textures from that photo) and I couldn't model the railings right, but I think I did pretty well considering I've never done anything like this before.

Will post the games design work soon.

Visualisation Designs

2009-05-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

Part two of my project work, so here's my visualisation designs.

I decided to recreate a piece of scenery I have seen in a dream, to try and improve my skills in properly representing what I have seen in my head so other people can see it.

My first idea was a dreamworld I used to visit a lot, but in all honestly, I found it too personal to me to try and recreate it for projectwork.

I decided one one of the scenic areas I had seen, one of which being two parts of a ruined castle on either side of a road, completely isolated from anything else.
Another idea I had was a large square in the middle of a village, with some kind of statue/monument in the center.
I wanted to go with the castle ruins, but I didn't think there was enough to it, so I tried mixing scenery from another dream with it. The valley would've been too difficult to recreate in 3DS Max and I was told I didn't need to make it overly complicated.

I did some more concept ideas for my castle ruins.

And some speedpaints, which is something I really needed to practise. I've never been too good creating an image quickly on a single layer.Here's the finished walkthrough.

Also, my visualisation side project isn't going to be posted as soon as I'd hoped, I'm having major texturing problems.

Animation Designs

2009-05-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

I've been sketching during the entire project, but I always prefer to upload everything in bulk for some reason ^^; So here's the first of three posts of designs for each of the projects.

Just some basic ideas and a couple of character design ideas. I love guinea pigs, so this was my first thought.

Posted this before, but I'm putting them all in one entry so I know where they are. I wanted to design something that I don't think anyone else would do, and since I love drawing, I wanted to try pencil designs.

Tried drawing some more weird designs to see if there was any I like. I thougt they looked too close to other anthropomorphic designs I've seen online, so I didn't go with any of them. A potential rival for my favourite pencil character found it's way onto this page, too.
Quick reference pics of the main character in my animation, along with a concept doodle of his sidekick.
Some more concept ideas. I tried to see if he looked good weaing Victorian clothes, but it looks like a top hat, monocle and moustache are the most you can put on a pencil XD I'd got his sidekick's design figured out by now.

And there's these I made with colour ideas and renders.

And now, here's the finished animation! Looking a fair bit better than the DV-AVI export, I gotta say o.o

Animation ups and downs

2009-05-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Same as with every project I've ever done, I've hit highs and lows pretty evenly, so naturally this set of projects are no exception.

So I got a new mic to record voices, and I got a load done, then it decides it doesn't wanna work anymore, so I've gotta go get it checked out to see what's up. That's the main problem that's bugged me, 'cause I need to finish off recording lines :/ Then there's been the usual rigging and texturing issues, but I think I'm over them now.

Been posted a lot of updates on my deviantART and a small forum, but I keep forgetting I'm meant to post here ^^; So here's some WIP pics I've got.

The main cast! From left to right, Sir Cuthbert Pencilton, Charlie Scribblesworth, Lady Eliza Illusta and Lord Augustus Sharpes.

Sir Cuthbert's main room. The backgrounds are going to be 2D and look like they've been drawn/painted. I was originally gonna make it look like they'd been coloured with crayons, but it didn't work out. Here's a pic of the original colouring technique I used.

The style wasn't working out with how I wanted it to look, it was way kiddier than what I wanted it to look like.

And just a couple of minutes ago, I exported a quick clip from my animation. I need to tweak something with Sir Cuthbert's arm, but that won't take a minute.

So it's going pretty good so far. I'll make posts about this, visualisation and games around next weekend, I think. If I survive this week XD

The obligatory female character

2009-04-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

Well, not obligatory, but I wanted to include one. Introducing Lady Eliza Illustra!

I'd asked for opinions from other people and they liked that colour scheme best. Before she looked like this.

It's a bit too obvious for a colour scheme, really. I'm glad they agreed that my brief first thought of making her wear green was better ^^

Another 3D model

2009-04-24T12:41:00.001-07:00

I finished the badguy for my animation project, Lord Sharpes, earlier, so here's what he looks like without textures of rigs.

Now onto Charlie. The chips from where he's been sharpened are gonna be tricky, but he's the last major character that needs to be modelled. There'll be one more minor one after this, then it's onto locations.

My character's a talking pencil

2009-04-16T13:32:00.001-07:00

Go me :D 'Cause I've hardly updated here, I don't think I've mentioned that my animation project would involve my anthropomorphic stationary designs. Particularly these two:

I just finished my basic model for Sir Cuthbert Pencilton, so here's some screens I got. I gotta rig and texture him next.

I still need to model Sir Cuthbert's sidekick and design and model his nemesis, too.

Could OnLive make PC upgrades a thing of the past?

2009-03-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

Just found this on Kotaku. It's a new service announced at GDC that allows any computer with a brouadband of faster internet connection to play high-spec PC games through a video streaming service.

Here is a 2 part interview about it.

So, there's a couple of thoughts that come to mind with this service. It sounds like it would be an amazing way for people with low-spec PCs to try out and play games, but would the excessive use of the internet to stream the video feed 'cause either the computers the games are running on or the connection itself to crash? There are bound to be setbacks with a service said to be so convenient, but this is the best innovation for gaming I've seen in ages.

Everyone wants to be someone else online

2009-03-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

And not in the creepy stalker way, either. I mean by taking on a different appearence and name, being more confident as your alter ego and all the other stuff we learnt last year during the identities project. I just found this from a webcomic I visit.

I love seeing all the different kinds of avatars for everyone, especially when they're all in different shapes, sizes and styles.

Character designs for animation

2009-02-25T08:10:00.000-08:00

Forgot to post here again. Anyway, my head's been all over the place the last couple of weeks, and ideas have been really few and far between, but here's what I've got for animation so far.

First of all, I tried the cute and simplistic type:
The one on the top right's not my design, it's from a game I like. The bottom right one's not so much cute as just following the simple design part. And the pencil sharpener's to do with one of my other design ideas, it just ended up on that page. I like the screep looking dog thing that's middle left. It's got such a blank expression that I keep getting drawn to it. I also like the penguiny thing that's middle right, 'cause I find it really cute.

The next idea I followed was a guinea pig character. I love guinea pigs and they're not used too often as characters, so I gave it a quick try:
The first one was Hamtaro based, the second one was based on a triangle shape, the third was an oval and the fourth was kind of more realistic. None of them really stood out at me, and the only one I could instantly recognise as a guinea pif was the more realistic style one.

Possibly my favourite train of thought was stationary. Sounds weird, but I can't really remember a franchise based off antropomorthic stationary. So I did some designs for a pencil character, since that's what I use more than anything else:
I like the Victorian era and superhero designs, since they're simple and can give a lot of character. I thought about it further and realised I could make the scenery drawn and coloured with crayons. It would add a far more cartoony style to it and they would be relevant to the theme. And yeah, that's why there was a sharpener in the earlier one. I needed to fill space on it. Rubbers may erase what a pencil's written, but it's the sharpener that cuts the pencil down, so it seemed logical to me.

Quick look at Tomb Raider: Underworld for PS2

2009-01-27T05:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I figured I should write about some games, considering a third of my pathway is games design. I don't actually play games like Tomb Raider (I prefer RPGs more than anything), but my mum's been playing Tomb Raider since about TR2's release and has finished them all except for Underworld, which was released a week or two ago on PS2, a couple of months after the current gen releases.

From what I've seen so far, it's really not looking that good. I thought the later release date would give them time to make sure it worked right with an older console, but I should've guessed that wouldn't be the case. One main thing I noticed is loading times. The loading screens (that are dressed as information screens) take up to 30 seconds to get to the game once you've been killed, but it's the ingame loading that's really weird. I got a couple of videos just to show the two ways scenery loads while playing the game.

The scenery doesn't load until about 10-15 seconds after you first see it, so you end up walking in midair. If you hadn't been there before, it'd really throw you off (and personally I really hate glitches where you go through/can see through scenery).

If the scenery doesn't load late, this happens. You get stuck for about 5 secs like the game's frozen.

And this isn't a nitpick, but I found this amusing.

She kinda floats down the stairs. I cut it 'cause there was a load if messing about between the two clips.

I can't really get a good video of the camera, but once again, it's always looking for Lara's 'best' side rather than going to any angle that'd actually help. She can scale walls at angles now, but that makes movements fidgety and a lot of the time it takes a few tries to get her heading in the right direction.

That's what I've seen so far. Probably seems like I'm nitpicking, but it's stuff like that that I'd expect to be at least nearly polished out when the game's released.

Just got feedback back for my games project

2009-01-20T11:34:00.001-08:00

Didn't go as well as I'd hoped, really. I didn't his 'very good' or 'excellent' for any of the areas. But I was told that it looks like a good game to pitch to an educational game company, so I started thinking about where I went wrong with it. I was nearly kicking myself when I realised one gameplay problem that could've been easily solved.

The major problem is that for someone who can't solve codes easily, the opponent will most likely give them a level 4 code to solve, and someone who could solve them easily would be given level 1 codes. This makes gameplay unfair. One thought I had would be to raise the code level the person solves the code correctly, and have it lower back down to level 1 when they get it wrong. This, however, would not allow for much player interaction and would also need more spaces for the players to move along, as combos could rack up very quickly.

One aspect that still escapes me is how to create interested player interaction to keep the players' interest. If I were to pitch it to a company, I would have to make it ultimately more interesting for the younger audience it would almsot certainly be intended for.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been watching Mike Mozart's live blogtv broadcasts, and more recently he's been discussing the subject of public domain music due to YouTube's increasingly strict policy on copywrited music by muting and removing videos, even ignoring fair use. His aim is to promote these public domain works so his viewers will use them in their videos, meaning that YouTube would have no rights to remove or mute them.

What I've been up to

2009-01-16T03:26:00.000-08:00

Just a little note first, I'm gonna be making a new background image for my blog, so it looks a little plain right now. And now for the main post X3

Since my second year began, I've tried to do different things. Don't think I've really succeeded, but here's hoping I get to over the rest of the year ^^; Anyway, here's what I've done in my spare time.

First of all, I've been trying to make fake anime screenshots, particularly of Dissidia: Final Fantasy, which I mentioned in my last journal. A single still frame from an anime actually have more detail than one of my pictures that I've spent a great amount of time on, so it's good practise.

I've also been working on my alternate style a bit more, trying to make it into something more unique, rather than it having the same feel to it with it's colouring with only the lineart that's changed.

Which led me to try and recreate this stlye in 3DS Max, which has gone okay, but I still have a lot of problems figuring it out.

I had started to alter the face shape around, but that particular file corrupted this morning (unexpected error caused 3DS Max to crash). Luckily I saved backups :3 Compared to previous attempts to make a character, I think this is turning out much better, although like I said, I'm still having a lot of problems with it.

I've been working on my manga a bit more, too, and it surprised me when I took an older page with my most recent page and compared them. There were so many things I could see had changed in the two years since I started it (going very slowly. Only on chapter 4), but it made me realise how much my style had improved and even how I can improve it further (all the subtle details that are in manga will take a while to figure out).

I'm going to enter this years NEO manga contest again (missing last year due to my operation and needing an extension), so here's hoping my skills have improved enough.

Finally, on a completely non-multimedia related note, I've been making plushies :3 So far I'm just on those ready to sew kits, and so far I've finished a guinea pig, a dolphin, a baby owl and most recently, a dragon (no pics for them yet). I've bought materials to start making my own designs soon enough, so it'll be a fun experiment for me and a chance to do something a little different. My first custom project is going to be Timcanpy from D.Gray-man (who I can't find reference pics for for some reason O.o).

Anyway, that's some of the stuff I've been up to. I could've done a lot more, like trying more animation, but I recently had my animation previews muted on YouTube and it's made me a little paranoid T.T

Oh yeah, before I forget, I never posted the photos I took of my finished board game :o

I just hope it was playable.

Around the net

2009-01-16T02:27:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it's the name of an Attack of the Show segment, but ah well :3 So here's a few things I've found on the net (well, what I remembered about, anyway)

I'm not normally into anything to do with Halo, but the scenario was just so unusual and the movements were really smooth and realistic that it caught my attention. Machinima's not the easiest thing to pull off, but the models are well rigged and animated.

Bad guys killing people, good animation and a Disney parody? Sounds good enough for me! It looks like it's jumped straight out of the original webcomic, with each frame looking like a fully detailed panel. Okay, so it gets gruesome, but it works so well :3

Dissidia: Final Fantasy was released on the 18th of December, but it's kept my attention since it was first announced in May '07. The main selling points of this game were that characters from other Final Fantasy games that we've become so used to were redesigned and recreated for the PSP engine, with the graphics coming close to that of the PS2. Also, the combat system was created from scratch, featuring a full 3D environment and camera system, with battles arenas spanning a huge area.

Just an example of gameplay from when the game was released. It also shows a ingame cutscene too. One thing to note is that no motion capture was used for either the full motion videos (intro) or any of the cutscenes and battles. They decided on this as it would give a more unrealistic feel, and they wanted characters to be able to do what people couldn't in real life.

When I find out more stuff, I'll be sure to post it and give my thoughts.

Animation Sketchbook

2009-01-13T08:20:00.000-08:00

And here's the pages from my animation work (I posted the finished animation a little while ago)

I'll find some of the stuff I've seen over this holiday and post my opinions on it, along with what I've been up to. I've gotta say, it's the first holiday I've had in a long time where I felt like I've done everything and nothing all at the same time.

Visualisation Sketchbook

2009-01-13T08:15:00.000-08:00

Oops, I did it again, didn't I? I've seen a load of stuff I could post on here, but it never really clicks to link it here.

First of all, here are the pages from my visualisation sketchbook

And here's my finished video

Animation Overview

2008-12-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I updated....again. I've been working in my sketchbooks loads and I took photos of all the pages before handin, so I plan on posting them soon. Anyway, now for the overview.

I went for a circus theme as the idea of using cannons firing at something stuck with me and the medieval theme was being done a fair bit by people in the group. As development went on, I learnt the things I could do and what I wasn't able to accomplish. I learnt that it' just easier to put each shot in a different file and render one while working on the other. I managed to create all of the models and, even though 3DS Max gave me more than it's fair share of problems, I managed to find ways around them. I think I'm overall better at modelling and animating simple models after this project, as well as I'm now better at texturing than with my last 3D project.

Here's the finished animation:

I'll post Flash sketchbooks for my visualisation and animation projects soon, I just gotta crop the images and put the whole thing together.

Journal Task - Development as a Practitioner

2008-11-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

I've haven't been posting much here mainly 'cause my laptop's been busted and the only one I could borrow freezes up a little too much. But I'm getting it back today and hopefully it'll work fine ^^

So, for this journal task we were asked to describe how we have developed as creative practitioners away from uni work. For me, that would mainly involve experimenting with different styles and drawing almost constantly, especially since I haven't had my laptop for nearly 3 weeks. However, when I had my laptop, I did short animation tests, 3D practise by trying to create different objects in it, and I also experiment with different colouring and artistic techniques on my digital painting programmes. Soon I'll be setting up commissions so I can use people's requests to further my abilities and try out new things, and I'll continue experimenting with what I can do to see if I can get better results. Afterall, if you wanna improve, practise is a given.

Also, over the next few months, I want to experiment with textiles and creating things using materials, since I think it's sometimes a good idea to create things in reality rather than just a computer. I also want to try musical arrangements and enter more competitions to hopefully get my work seen more. Since competitions tend to have limitations, I think it'll be a goog challenge for me to broaden my artistic horizons.

Looking at images

2008-11-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

Holding back the flood by `arcipello on deviant ART

The image I chose is by an artist called Daniel Conway. He digitally painted artwork for one of Fightstar's albums and is one of the most well-known member of deviantART.

The image I chose is designed to catch the eye of those interested in purchasing the particular album, as this was one of the commissioned pieces. However, it has managed to catch the eye of far more than just those who bought the album, as the popularity of his work has spread worldwide and many artists see it as an inspiration to further their skills.

The style is intended to be realistic, yet have an unreal quality to it in the obvious brushstrokes. Considering the genre of the album is 'rock', I think the untidy quality really makes it stand out as a more individual piece.

The vivid colours and traditional looking style along with the clearly definable brushstrokes make it eye-catching and interesting to look at for longer than a few seconds, as the viewer would need to take it all the finer details that have been added within the piece.

Creative opportunities

2008-10-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to write about a time where networking's given me a creative opportunity, but the main problem with that is I haven't actually had work opportunities yet, so I'm really gonna have to stretch the meaning in this.

Anyway, my example is that a friend of mine who went to a convention told me about a contest where the winners would get some awesome prizes and have their work displayed in an exhibition. Unfortunately, I found out a couple of days ago that I didn't make the top 10, but I still get some goodies for entering ^^ Doesn't really seem like an opportunity, but without being in contact with my friend, I wouldn't have had the chance to submit an entry for it. And I learnt more about making comics from it and I'm ready to take on the next contest head on!

The deadline for the next contest in question is next Friday, and it involves making a piece of art for Street Fighter IV. It's a hugely popular franchise and the submissions chosen get their work printed on the inside cover, so win it and hopefully you'll at least get someone noticing ya :D

Toy train render

2008-10-29T12:20:00.000-07:00

I finally finished recreating the toy train in 3DS Max, then we had the choice of either making a mini 3D envorinment for it or using a photo. I went for making it in 3D, 'cause I didn't want to use images off the net.

I chose to create a simple floor or a kid's room, where they've been playing with their toys, constantly having their attention drawn away to other things. They all end up piled together, but then the kid is called away, probably for dinner, leaving the toys lying on the floor.

Looking at objects

2008-10-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

I went around uni and other places for the past week, collecting images and quick videos of different objects. Here's info on some of the stuff I found.

Chair in our main lecture room
Feels soft, but the material is rough
Makes a muffled thudding sound when hit

Floor in uni
Hard and smooth
Sometimes squeaks when you skid on it

Telephone post
Covered in staples, making it very rough to touch
-Chipped away by countless posters and advertisements being stapled to it then ripped away, rain slowly began to rot away the outer parts of the post, making it splintered. However, it's thickness means it's still useable, so stays waiting for more posters to be once again stapled to it-

A fallen leaf
Light, easy to get blown away in the wind
Crunchy to step on when it's dry, also smooth

A metal pipe
Rough and rusty
Dull metallic noise when hit
-Maybe part of a structure that was no longer needed, it was taken apart and the scraps were taken by different people and it was just placed there randomly, never gaining any attention and just sitting among the leaves to rust, it's purpose gone-

It was a really long pipe, too. I got a video panning along it.

I'll take more photos and videos of objects when I see them. I've got a lor of scenery pics for reference that I might post too.

Ball bounce....or not

2008-10-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

Is it me or is it getting harder and harder to find somewhere to upload SWF files? :/ If anyone knows anywhere, let me know, 'cause swfup.com doesn't work anymore.

Also, the resizing document trick wouldn't work, so I put it in a movie clip, so naturally I can't even export it as anything else. Joy *rolls eyes* Wouldn't have looked too great anyway, 'cause Flash is having a go at me and keeps turning some of the frames red. Who knew programmes could have rebellious stages?

I didn't get around to making the hammer and ball loop, 'cause I spent most of my time this weekend recovering from 'first week back' syndome and working on a 3D train for next Thursday. It was a real struggle in class but I'm handling it pretty well now ^^

I'm going to a gamemaker workshop and hanging 'round the city square next Friday 'cause Game City's on again :D I missed the last one and regretted it, so here's hoping there's funness to be had.

Networking

2008-10-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

"The essential point of networking is human contact. Business has killed networking by making it something for the career orientated."

I don't think business has killed networking due to sites like FaceBook and MySpace. They're businesses specifically created for people to network, making it easier to come into contact with various different people. Even if you don't talk face to face on these sites, you're still communicating.

Coloured for Life

2008-10-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

My sister just showed me this. Not only is it beautifully animated, the message about broadening your horizons and using methods and colours you'd never have thought of can really create the most amazing results. To me, nothing's more inspiring than nature :3 I just wish there was somewhere I could go to where I could just site and draw what's around me.

NC: Drew Struzen Tribute

2008-10-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

I found this while checking the my fave websites this morning.

It's gotta be one of the most inpsiring things I've heard in a long time. The fact that one man can create such dynamic pieces of artwork that really made a movie worth seeing without action trailers is absolutely amazing. I had no idea it was the same man who painted them all, but it saddens me to think a lot of people don't want to use his work just 'cause it's easier and quicker to use PhotoShop. The trouble with that is it loses the soul of the movie in the process, in my opinion.

That last quote he said really moved me, and it's easy to tell how much he loves his craft by how he describes the feelings of painting. That's why his works are so dynamic and inspiring.

I'm definately looking up more of his work now, and it's definately made me think about how I present my art, and maybe because of it I'll try traditional techniques more than once in a while :3

Time for another year

2008-10-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Well, second year starts tomorrow and I barely feel like I've done anything this holiday, like practise on 3DS Max or work on varying styles. Whoops ^^;

I thought I'd list some of the stuff I have done this summer tho', just so it doesn't feel like I wasted it. Well, I've been working on my own manga, Tainted Souls, spent a month working on a contest entry for the UK/Japanese Embassy manga competition, I've posted various different artworks on my deviantART account, including one in my other style (finally).

Mah spoon is too big!

2008-10-06T04:23:00.000-07:00

When you draw or animate traditionally, it's easy to forget that the paper itself can be used for more than just drawing on. So when you see it used as an actual form of animation itself alongside the drawings, like at the end of this short film, you can't help but be impressed. The frame by frame and constantly moving lineart adds a lot of motion to an otherwise static scene and the simplicity and bizarreness make it worth watching.

Oops

2008-09-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted on here in about 3 months. Woopsie ^^; Anyway, I've been spending the last month working on a contest entry for the UK/Japanese embassy. For it, you have to make a 6-8 page manga with the number 150 in there somewhere. I'm almost finished outlining it, and I can't wait to get it out of the way ^^

I promised myself I'd do more scenery drawing this summer (it was something I was supposed to do, too). Whoops again. I'll do some after this entry's out of the way. I think I might have a go at drawing pre-existing scenery first so I don't screw up.

Anyway, looking around my usual gaming blogs, I found a couple of handy things. One is a video about pitching game ideas:

I found it a useful li'l insight in how to go about showing people your ideas and what developers and publishers really do.

Another thing I found is the making of Metal Gear Solid 4. I haven't read through much of it yet, but the art direction sections interested me most, since I'm much better at drawing than modelling characters.

Okay, I'm getting seriously annoyed now [EDIT]

2008-06-17T03:21:00.000-07:00

I've got rid of the post 'cause it's all been sorted and I forgot to change it ^^; I tend to like having a little moan when I'm not told what's going on, it's kinda like stress relief :3 So yeah, all my work's been sent in and everything's fine, sorry for getting so irritable ^^;

Hmm...

2008-05-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

I've applied for my extension, but I haven't heard anything back yet. I'm assuming it'll be a phone call, but my presentation's supposed to be on Monday, so I'm getting a bit nervous about that :/

That aside, I discovered a series thanks to The Escapist called Drawn by Pain, which I'm absolutely loving so far. I say so far 'cause all but the last part's been posted. I love how they incorperate live action and animation while making it an integral part of the storyline. The animation's also partly rotoscoped when it's based off an actual character and frame by frame with a sketchy feel to it.

I think what I love most of all about it is the fact it makes me a bit jealous. That sounds weird, but I've got a good reason for it. The guy who created the series completed his film making course, but no one in the industry would pay attention to him. Eventually, he spent a fair bit of money on decent equipment to make an idea he'd had in his head for 10 years become reality. I always both envy and admire anyone who can put so much time, money and soul into their work. It's not like with big companies that easily get to make what they can 'cause everyone pays attention to them. It's a small crew that worked hard to create a completely professional looking piece of work.

So that's my reasoning. It felt quite good to type all that, since I've never really explained my point of view on independant projects. They always inspire me to make something special of my ideas. They most likely won't be as popular, but I'll still do my best to make my ideas become reality.

Wow, it's been a while

2008-05-22T04:52:00.000-07:00

And boy have I had a lot going on!

First of all, I'm going to try and get an extension for my essay and presentation, but I'm hoping I won't need it. The reason being is that I've spent the last couple of days in hospital. For anyone who remembers me mentioning that my arm had an infection, well, it got worse. I went straight from a checkup on Tuesday morning to hospital where I had to stay the night, and now I've gotta have a load of medicine and have my dressings changed every day.

So, that's what's been happening to me lately, and that's why I haven't updated here lately, despite the fact I've had so much to post about that I've seen around the net. I'll get onto that when I'm feeling more up to it.

Oh yeah, Jools asked in my last journal post what I'd done to solve that problem. Turns out that in CS3, you have to swap around some of the wording in the gotoAndPlay command. I put gotoAndPlay("Scene 2",1), when in CS3 you're meant to put gotoAndPlay(1, "Scene 2). I found it kinda weird that they'd change something as trivial as that, but I figured it ^^

-IMPORTANT- (update)

2008-05-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

(Update)
I've figured it now (thankfully). It's going pretty well now ^^

I can't get my action scripting to work, and it's looking less and less likely that I'll be able to get my project done. I'm trying to use a gotoAndPlay command, but it's not doing anything.

So yeah, I'm hoping I can find someone to help tomorrow at uni, but right now I'm getting really stressed about it, 'cause nothing's working.

Okay, my bad

2008-05-05T04:58:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting to post details of my interactive identities project ^^; Really sorry about that.

So, to start things off, I collect trinket pots. A lot of them. About 5 shelves worth, actually. I thought it'd be a great idea to select 5 of my trinkets and make them say different things about me.

So, the five sections I've chosen to look at are info, art, what's special to me, music and animation. I was gonna use my own music for it, but I can't export it properly, so I might have to use something else. I hope that's allowed ^^; I might chose Melodies of Life from Final Fantasy IX, since it's one of my favourite songs :3

I've had to make a few changes to simplify it, since I'm not too good at coding. I hope it'll turn out okay.

Each trinket opens as you click on it and I used photos for reference.

Portfolio sites

2008-04-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

Looking at 3 different portfolio sites who fit under the 'virtual environment' catagory. I don't entirely get what contextual info means, so I won't write anything next to that.

Site 1: Heather Kelley
Impact: 1/5 - Nothing stood out for me. Bland colours and nothing to attract the eye.
Range of work: 2/5 - Slightly varied amount of work.
Navigation: 2/5 - The sub menus are practically unnoticable, which really confused me.
Contextual info: 3/5
All around: 1/5 - It didn't impress me in the slightest. Nothing really sold this person's work to me.

Total: 9/25

Site 2: hdhcg.com
Impact: 3/5 - Nice graphics and a simple animation drew my eye to the navigation, but moving text drew it away again.
Range of work: 3/5 - Some of it's a bit samey, but there's a nice solid selection of good work.
Navigation: 4/5 - Easy to work your way around. Each link opening with a popup window gets annoying tho'.
Contextual info: 3/5
All around: 4/5 - A neat website with a few distractions. Also has some worksteps for some of the images.

Total: 17/25

Site 3: TargeteArt
Impact: 3/5 - The first image you click on really stands out. The actual site is a usual blogger template, tho'.
Range of work: 4/5 - Mainly fantasy, but there's a nice range in techniques and styles.
Navigation: 5/5 - Easy to find what you're looking for. Not too many options to over-complicate things.
Contextual info: 3/5
All around: 4/5 - A bit somplictic in it's design, but a nice, mostly consistant site with lots of artwork.

Total: 19/25

Preview of my latest animation

2008-04-24T16:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's more like a 3 second clip, but this is the only bit I've finished so far. I'm not going too badly with it, tho' :3

Here's the link. I can't remember my SWFup password, so I can't embed it ^^; I'll post the final version when it's done, but that'll take a while with uni work and all.

SCGMDx3

2008-04-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

Quick look at the latest in the Super Crazy series, Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 3!

I loved SC2 when it was released, and this 3rd one, although a LOT harder, gives you that smug sense of satisfaction when you kick a really hard song's ass X3 Personally, I've got gold in all but 2 songs (in which case, I have a bronze and a silver), so I'm not too bad at it. It's like a free online alternative to Guitar Hero. If you take out the 3D graphics, the plastic guitar, and the fact that Yahtzee hasn't reviewed it ^^;

Anyway, if you wanna play it, I've posted a link. It's downloadable too, if you're connection's slow.

Painting 'Violet'

2008-04-20T04:04:00.001-07:00

Thought I'd share a quick speedpaint video I made yesterday with everyone ^^

All the info's in the video description and at the end of the video. And no, I can't sort that typo with my name at the end. I tried, but it won't work ._.

Looking at some other work

2008-04-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a little unsure about what we're supposed to do for tomorrow's lecture. Plan a discussion? How do you plan something that's spontaneous and involves two or more people O.o I can say what I like about a piece of work and stuff, but I'm a bit confused ^^;

Well, I'm deciding to go for virtual environments for my pathway. It includes character modelling, visualisation, animation, modelling, games and all that kinda stuff. Which is exactly what I wanted to do ^^ So I guess I got pretty lucky, not needing to chose between either games or animation.

Anyway, for the example of work I've chosen, I'll look at The YuYu by Adam Phillips. There's no embeddable version on YouTube, so I'll just link to the newgrounds page.

Adam Phillips uses a style of flash animation I've never seen anywhere else. His style is so incredibly detailed that it practically throws the low quality flash stereotype out of the window. It looks just like an official animation you'd release as a movie. I would've said TV, but it's much higher quality than most of the TV animations you find nowadays ;P Amazing frame by frame animation with full shading and beautiful scenery, coupled with timing to the music and a great pace, it's hard not to like this ^^

Also, while I'm at it...

This is footage of him animating. I wish I could so confidently use layers on the main file. Instead, I keep using movie clips, which has it's disadvantages. I also noticed how he puts the guide and the actual finished character on the same layer, and also how it looks like he uses the smooth option once he's finished drawing the character. Those are definately a couple of useful techniques, especially the same layer one, since the amount of layers is my main problem when animating, anyway ^^;

Wanna get your creative brain in gear?

2008-04-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Then check out this new weekly challenge for game design concepts!

I found it just now and, although it's already half way through it's first week, if anyone wants to submit something before the 16th, then there's still time ^^ All the info's on the page, and there are questions being asked in the forum, too.

I'm not sure whether you can use drawings to illustrate your point, but I hope you can, 'cause that'd rock X3

So yeah, it's every week, so give it a go if you're interested in games design, or just wanna give your mind something to think about ^^

...Wow, that could NOT have sounded more like an advertisement even if I tried! ^^;

Trying out something different

2008-04-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

For the past few days, I've been working on a pic in an attempt to make my work more realistic, just as another style on the side. So far, the only person who's commented on it is my sister, and even then, I'm not sure what to make of what she's said ^^; So, here's the pic, just 'cause I wanna post it here ;P

People probably haven't commented on it 'cause it's not very good, but I don't think I did too badly. I'm trying to make noses look realistic (or as close as I can get), and I'm trying not to use outlines all the time.

So yeah, here's hoping I get a bit better at the whole realism thing. Might be fun, as song as I don't make them looking like super smooth porcelain dolls like some artists >.>

UPDATE: I just uploaded the process of my pic, for those who are interested :3

Looking at websites - Assassin's Creed

2008-04-09T07:59:00.001-07:00

There are such things as websites that try too hard. I catagorise the Assassin's Creed website as one of these. It almost gets away with it, too, apart from the constant buffering screens during peak internet time due to the high quality video.

Once the video's given itself a bit of a head start with buffering (speed depends on the time of day and type of connection), and it starts playing a fully rendered video which I assume is from the game. Either that, or they really went all out to create a unique website experience.

Your first bit of interaction is signing your name on a piece of paper, a contract or something like that. To be honest, I was too busy taking in all the detail in the video to pay attention to what was being said. I'm assuming it's something to do with being an assassin, since that's the main point of the actual game.

The video keeps playing, showing footage of Altair as he dives across rooftops and other parts of a scenery. The only thing you can actually do is press certain arrow keys that appear every now and again within the time limit it gives you to unlock hidden goodies.

The only actual bit of choice comes here, where Altair has to decide whether to leave the guards or attack them. I always pick the attacking option, 'cause they were mean to you, so why just walk away? He fights them in a well animated fight scene, but a bit of interaction would've been nice. Maybe something that shows something of the combat gameplay. Instead, I'm just sat there watching, occassionally looking away to unlock more extras.

Now, at the end of the experience, you get to reap your rewards, which are only only wallpapers, really. It gives you the option to start again, but after pressing all the keys and still not unlocking everything, I got bored at the idea of sitting through it all again. I'm wondering if the walking away option was the best choice, afterall...

Overall, I think this site. The graphics are taken straight from the game, which is naturally going to make it consistantly reassuring when trying to decide whether to buy the game or not, but it could've done with the bit more choice. Sure it would've killed my internet connection, but it wouldn't of made me feel like a lemon as I sat watching him kill people. I know the graphics are great, but it doesn't give me a sense of gameplay, and that's one hell of an important aspect of a game.

So yeah, the whole interactive video sounds like a great idea. Might be something I try out over the summer. But for now, it's a bit too much considering how long we have 'til the deadline.

Looking at websites - Dubois meets Fugger

2008-04-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

I was gonna post the rest yesterday, but certain issues came up, so I'm posting them now ^^

So, site number 2's a really fun little site that promoting a design company. It uses simple colours and shapes that make it easy to tell what kind of environment you're in, and I think it shows the company's creativity brilliantly.

You start off on the main page, a blue world with buildings. A fish in the sky tells you that there are hidden secrets around the site, which makes the experience more interesting as you explore. Personally, I love easter eggs, and I think there should be more on DVDs/websites :3

When you click on the link to go to another section, an animation will take you across the transition to a different area. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these transitions are unique. If you travel from 'work' to 'contacts', you'll get one animation, and if you head back from 'contacts' to 'work', you'll get a totally different animation. Such variety means it's hard to get bored as you watch your character travel from place to place.
Going back to the topic of secrets, there are downloadable wallpapers an screensavers available, they're bright and simplistic, just like the site.

Okay, so some people might find this kind of site 'kiddy', but I love things like this, which is why it's one of my fave sites. There are no games, no real updates, but there's so much to look at I can't help but keeping coming back to it, even with it's simple graphics. If they'd made them detailed, I think half of a charm would be gone. Not to mention it'd take a lot longer to make and a lot longer to load.

Looking at websites - Goo-ology

2008-04-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

I'll post these separately, 'cause it's easier to find stuff that way.

So, first of all, I looked at the Cadbury's Creme Egg site, now studying goo-ology, or how the eggs wanna get smashed apart to reveal their creamy insides. Gotta admire their enthusiasm, I guess.

It starts with the entrance of the instidute, where clicking on the door knocker will activate the opening animation, where a creme egg goes under the knocker and gets squashed. The first time I went on the site, I wasn't sure what to do, and that the animation'd load itself, but I'm always looking around the easter eggs and stuff in websites, so I found out I needed to click.

Once you're in the building, it has a simple room with some clickable options. The navigation is found by clicking on the pull-down chart in the top right hand corner. It shows the outline of an egg with it divided into different sections, like charts with different areas of the brain. Also, in the background, there are repeated animations of eggs in different accidents. Most likely there to keep the viewer entertained while they're looking around for options. I found them amusing, anyway.Here's a picture of the chart. The section changes to purple when you rollover it.

It's got an image gallery of more eggs being squashed, or cut into pieces, or other stuff like that. Since Cadbury's and other big companies choose different marketing campaigns for their products, it let's the site really emphasise the current theme, unlike with general sites.

All the adverts are available on the site on an old style TV. You can also play a couple of games to stop eggs from getting mashed up (in the above picture) and a personality test to see what kind of egg you are. There's only 3 questions, and it only asks about how you'd get squished if you were a creme egg, so it's not a soul serching quiz ;P

As for how it could be used for an interactive showcase? Well, it proably wouldn't work too well, unless you found a way to have the different rooms accessible from one main room. I really like the idea of a background animation, but I dunno how I could incorperate anything like that into my showcase.

Website 2's coming up later today :3

More stopmotion tests

2008-04-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

This is about the time where I start posting everything I've been doing. I dunno why, I just find it easier that way ^^; Probably 'cause I'm getting myself back in gear for uni again or something Anyway, to kick things off, here's some stopmotion tests I've been doing. It's not much, but considering I've only got a webcam, a simplistic camera and very few objects to tinker around with, I think I did pretty well ^^

I wanted to make the lamp grab a piece of paper off me last time I was messing around with animation, so I tried it out this time.

It was actually totally by accident, but the lamp's kinda like the Pixar ident, where it moves around, acting like the lightbulb's one big eye. I always found it cute and amusing that they could put so much personality into an inanimate object, yet most people can't put personality into an actual human character XD

I was gonna post a video of it, but I can't find one anywhere, so here's a picture ;P

I can't remember where the superhero transformation like I used with the teddy appeared. Can anyone remember? I know I've seen it in a few places, but I'm at a loss where right now ^^;

Coming over the next couple of days are progress of my identity navigation (I forgot what it's called) and looking at examples of interactive websites and different forms of presentation/anything that looks interesting ;P

Presentation reflections

2008-03-17T09:37:00.000-07:00

So, it's been about a week since my presentation, and I've still been thinking loads about it (especially all the mistakes I made XD). So yeah, here's my thoughts on it.

I think I could've done a lot better. I had everything set up perfectly, but as soon as I got questioned about something in my presentation, it completely threw me off and I couldn't focus properly. But apparently some people do a lot worse, so I guess I should be okay as long as I really focus hard on what I'm doing. Not that I wasn't before, it's just that a problem with incompatible files messed up my thoughts a bit ^^;

As for what was said to me. Apparently I'm the opposite of a lot of students in the sense that I know exactly what I like, but I need to find out why. So in the next few days I'm going to look up different styles, artists and series and explain why I like them and why I don't, because, like any style of art, there are different styles within it, making personal takes more unique.

I'm also going to be looking around different interactive websites to see if I can get any inspiration for the interactive part of my identities project.

Finished avatar animation

2008-03-10T14:24:00.001-07:00

I know it's not too great, but apart from the lighting being weird and it lacking a bit in actual animation, I really like it ^^

What's that in the sky?

2008-03-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

...And I'm gonna stop that quote there before it becomes cliched XD

Here's my finished bed model. No textures 'cause, well, I added them, but they're not showing up in my render O.o

All I need to do is add my teddy and make it fly a little. I hope 3DS Max won't mess around with me like it usually does >.>

Hark! It's a flying bed!

2008-03-02T02:42:00.000-08:00

I never once said I made sense, and this proves it XD

Apparently just using a bed wasn't 'probing' enough into my personality, so I stuck wings on it ;P I'm probably gonna find some fantastical fantasy backdrop to use to make it look like it's flying, too. I've gotta add the cushion and quilt, then stick my Hayleybear on it :3

My bed does sorta look like that, except mine's got two matresses stacked on top of each other and it's more detailed X3

Now for other business. I'm kinda confused right now. My sister says in her tutorial next week she's gotta give a 5 minute presentation on what pathway she's chosen. I didn't have a tutorial last week, so I haven't heard anything else about it. Trouble is, they haven't really gone into that much detail with all the pathways, so I'm not sure what I want. I'm thinking of doing games, but I get a bad feeling that it'd end up being like '3D games or nothing'. If anyone can help me out with this, I'd appreciate it.

Teddy with wings!!

2008-02-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

Yup, I'm finally caught up with what I lost, and I'm now officially further than when the file corrupted! (along with 3 different save files being used so I don't have to start over again).

Now I've gotta add the hair, then textures, and then it's onto my environment! I'm not doing too badly ^^;

Adventures in MMOland part 6

2008-02-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is gonna be my last post in the actual uni schedule, but I might post more, 'cause they're fun :3

So, since this is the last time I post before the deadline, I decided to go on an explore-athon. Once I got to level 26, first stop was Zaid, which I found out is always snowing, and wasn't just 'cause I went there around Christmas.

There's not much to do there, since there's no monsters on the outskirts and I didn't fancy going through a load of warps just to see what was around me.

There's two sets of stairs that lead to...well, they didn't seem to lead anywhere, really. I got a nice view of the town, tho'. Well, I can't really call it a town. It's more of a village, really.

Then I went to Madelain; the jester town. I was hesitant to go there at first, 'cause I've had bad run-ins with jesters taking my items >.>

It's certainly a bright place. Clowns creep me a bit, and I was expecting something to jump out in front of me O_O

And there's the main attraction, I'd assume. I gotta say, there weren't many people around. I guess everyone had the same idea I did when it came to circuses XD

And there's the obligotory closeup backshot of Kiya looking at it. I wanna tinker with this and make it look like a painting sometime X3

Next I headed to 'upstream on Glasis River'. I'd already been there once with Leanne, but this was my first time alone. I fought a few Wood Golems, who are quite easy to beat, and they don't try to attack you when you're dozing off to regain health.

Then I fought some Nixies. They's stronger than Wood Golems, but give some good experience. A couple of potions sorted me right out after fighting a few of them :3

Then I decided to head back to Madelain. It was night by then, and the lights were on, which I thought looked really pretty. I have an obsession with lights in the dark for some reason.

Then, once I returned to the Madelain through the warp, it was off to sleep for Kiya, until I decide to wander around Shiltz again.

Oh dang it!

2008-02-21T10:42:00.000-08:00

My file on 3DS Max corrupted, so I've gotta start my teddy from scratch!! DX I was hoping to get one more MMO entry written, but chances of that have gone down - -;;; I might be able to go on tomorrow and work all weekend, but I also wanna try out my new Letraset markers, too.

So yeah. Dang it >.>

My teddy has arms and a weird texture!

2008-02-18T13:25:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I need to work on that texture, but it's a start. I applied it before I created the legs 'cause I got curious ^^; Oh well. After that, I need to add wings and probably the hair if I've got time.

Moodboard

2008-02-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to making one of these. Most of the image are googles, but some are drawn my me, too :3 I googled a load of things I enjoy, so I hope you'll get an idea for what I'm into. I'll make another one later, 'cause there's other stuff I forgot to add in ^^;

It's basically a screenshot of my desktop with all the images stuck on top. Seemed most appropriate ^^

Avatar update

2008-02-17T06:23:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I haven't really been saying what I've been up to on here so far. Oops ^^; Anyway, here's some design sketches and a WIP of my model so far :3

My first design was the Hayleybear. I liked the teddybear idea 'cause I like to hug people and I'm always sat on my bed X3 It's also got angel wings 'cause of my internet username, AngelBless, and the hair's how I draw my own hair.

I also drew this design, which is a little version (chibi) of me as a White Mage from Final Fantasy. White Mage is one of my favourite character classes, 'cause I love the cloak design and they get to heal people :3

But, in the end, I went with the Hayleybear, 'cause that summed me up pretty well. Although that WM design sure is cute. I'll have to colour that X3

So I tried to design an environment. I chose my bed, 'cause I'm always working on it; drawing, going on my laptop, sleeping, reading. It's a pretty popular place with me.

Apparently tho' this wasn't 'identifying' enough, so I need to develop it. i'm thinking of turning it into a fantasy airship with wings or something. Yeah, bet you've never seen a bed look like that before ;P And if you have? Good for you!

Here's a pic of the Hayleybear so far.

I need to make the head a little more circular and sort the body out, then it's onto the arms and legs. It's going pretty well so far. I just gotta get it done so I can start work on the bed. Hope I get it done in time ^^;

Trying out a new blog design

2008-02-14T14:05:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm tinkering with it right now, so it'll change a bit over the next few days. I'm really happy with the background image tho' ^^ I CGed that in Painter IX.5 and PhotoShop 7 yesterday ^^

Adventures in MMOland part 5

2008-02-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

So, I went on SealOnline to meet up with Donna. First thing I noticed was how annoyingly overcrowded Elim was with all the merchants. It managed to slow my computer down, and I've got 2gb of RAM! O_o

I finally met up with her and friended her (I had to switch servers first). And we talked for a bit on private chat, fighting some Rascal Rabbits.
That's pretty much all I did on there today. Fighting rabbit after rabbit after rabbit. Wasn't too bad, really. It's not like their experience is terrible, and it gave me something to do. I got some more items that I sold for some cegel, too :3
Anyway, there's this warp in the area that I was fighting that said not to enter unless you were a really high level. My hand slipped and I hit 'yes' instead of 'no', so I got taken there. Not for long, tho'. Two seconds after deciding to take a quick look at the place, I was something move...
I immediately ran back to the bridge entrance and look a better look. Their names were in bright red, so I knew I didn't stand a chance. After getting this screen, I headed straight back through the warp.
And finally, a random shot of Kiya looking out over the waters. The area beyond is at least partially 3D rendered, but she would never get there. Kinda deep in a 'what the hell are talking about' sorta way.

Connected

2008-02-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

Sadly, I couldn't make it to last Tuesday's lecture, but apparently it was about staying connected, and the task was writing about it. I'm not gonna write much, since I wasn't at the lecture (I looked over the presentation tho'), but I know about how important it is the stay in the middle of things.

Being connected is all about your contacts. You can stay a step ahead of everyone else by hearing what's going on in design, and you can also get noticed through the amount of people you know. Like with many internet crazes, it starts with one person sending it to the people they know, then they send it to others, and so on, until it's all over the place. Even tho' the people weren't directly connected, their connection through others means that ideas can see seen by many more people than they would in the past.

Future technology predictions

2008-02-06T12:28:00.000-08:00

Yeah, in the lecture last Thursday (left this a while. Yikes) we were shown videos of possible future technology and what they could do. One video involves a guy drawing shapes onto a screen and them interacting. I immediately though of this:

It's a playable game called Crayon Physics where you have to draw the shapes to solve puzzles.

As for predictions on other possible technology, I think if game companies played their cards right, they could create holographic experiences that interact with reallife objects (like Eye of Judgement for the PS3, I guess), or use motion sensors to make ceation games, where a person could wear sensor gloves and sculpt things on the screen. I think they might have something like that already in development, but I haven't heard of it for a while ;P

oh well...

2008-02-05T02:24:00.000-08:00

An update on my cheek, for those who don't like gicky stuff.

So, I'm missing a day of uni for the first time. I didn't want to, I just...really can't risk going in today ^^; My cheek's not as swollen as it was a couple of days ago, but it's...kinda left a bit of a whole there, so...yeah O_o It'd probably get infected in an instant walking around Nottingham with so many cars and stuff around.

So today, I'm gonna play with 3DS Max and do some more drawing ideas of what I want my 3D avatar to look like. I've got a couple of ideas, so I'll post them here as a start.

If I could be any fantasy class, it'd have to be a dragoon. They can soar into the air with their amazing jumping abilities and use spears as their main weapon.

The only other way I see myself is, well, as myself. I've never tried to be anything I'm not, so I think my avatar should definately sum that up. Notice that even in my dragoon design, apart from the armour, I still look like how I usually draw myself. Also note that here, I have a spear, which again is the weapon of the dragoon. I always like to keep consistant with my likes and dislikes, so I'm overall an easier person to understand (even tho' that's not the case XD)

I also haven't been writing much about what I've been up to in seminars and tutorials lately, so I'll sum them up when I get the chance.

Adventures in MMOland part 4

2008-02-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

-This first bit's mostly for the lecturers, so don't read it if you don't want to-

First of all...sorry about the lack of anything the last few days. I've had a few...problems that's kinda taken over my time. And for those who wanna know, I've got a boil on my cheek and it's made me ill. I might have to miss at least Tuesday 'cause I've gotta go to the doctors again then (already went today). My cheek is all swollen, and it hurts loads - -;;;

-Okay, now for the actual post-

The winter event's over on SealOnline, so everything's gone back to normal. The giant Christmas tree in the main square's been replaced by the more usual fountain.

Of course, since I arrived in Elim during the winter event, it wasn't a usual sight for me ^^; It's very pretty tho'. Too bad you can't paddle in it XD

I also loved being able to see the actual water effect. The snow on the ground hit is a fair bit, so I spent ages watching it flow by X3;;;

I started fighting some Beanies and Piyo's again so I could get some healing items (I have a bad habit of using them way too often). At least that way nothing'd attack me when I used the sleep command to heal, so it's win-win! :D

The grass is a weird texture. Looks more like paving stones O.o Oh well, it makes a nice effect in the distance. Also, my sister Leanna (Ayana in the game) traded me a new shiny sword ^^ And it's part purple, too, so it's even more awesome! X3

Next time I'll look arounf the other areas now they're not wintery. I love comparing stuff :3

"Second Skin" Trailer

2008-01-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

I found this embedded on MyExtraLife and thought it was pretty appropriate to our identities work. It's about seven gamers and how online gaming's changed their lives through addiction, love and all that other stuff that makes us who we are ;P

Also, I haven't heard anything about our tutorial session tomorrow. I'm sure we should've got an email by now :/

Light and Colour

2008-01-26T08:59:00.000-08:00

So, we were asked to take a photo of something that screamed light and colour. I was tempted to draw a pic of a guy screaming 'light and colour', but that seemed a bit too literal.

Anyway, to me, nothing screams light and colour like using my phone to take a photo of Nottingham at night when everyone's leaving.

My phone over emphasises any light it finds, so the effect looks amazing! I love how it's shining warm colours compared to everything else being so dark and desaturated around it. It looks like an explosion of light to me, which is why I took so many pics like this XD This one was the best tho'.

Squiddy Pics

2008-01-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

In seminar, we were given a tutorial for creating a very dubious, but with huge cute potential, squid to swim around and stuff.

Here's my squiddy in all his purply-green glory :3

We then made him suck in water ready to move. He went down as he did this, for added effect ;P

He then shot into the air (literally shot, it happened in two frames O.o)

...And he flew off the screen. I guess that shows movement for ya ^^;

I got a copy of 3DS Max 9 today. Sure, it's not 10, but it'll give me some well needed practise on a 3D program. That, and when I get 10, I wanna add googly eyes to my squiddy X3