Background 2 - the dance studio exterior

Next up, the studio interior then the stage.

Backdrop 1 - the street

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

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

Monster and Ballerina models

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

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.

It is done!

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

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

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

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.

'Love is War' and 'Meltdown'

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

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.

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).