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July 22nd, 2008

12:14 am - Isle of Lewis Chessman Scanned six of these a while back, but thought it might be fun to attempt a sculpt of one....this one is the bishop/cleric type dude. It's not too bad for a couple of hours work. Current Mood: calm Current Music: Magnum - Vigilante Tags: bishop, chessman, isle of lewis, sculpture, uig, zbrush

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July 20th, 2008

11:23 pm - Sculptured Head Just to assist getting my eye in on ZBrush..... Very much WIP of a sculptured head in ZBrush. This is from the left-hand of the doorway of the Glasgow Climbing Centre (it's a converted church, for the curious). Still to do....finish the face at full resolution and sort out the cowl around his head which looks perilously like Barry Gibb's hair at the moment. Current Mood: artistic Current Music: Dead Can Dance - Serpent's Egg Tags: head, sculpture, zbrush

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08:29 pm - Updated Torc Found a rather nice pewter material for ZBrush which gives the "dirty metal" look. Current Mood: chipper Current Music: Robin Trower - Bridge of SIghs Tags: 3d, render, torc

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12:55 am - ZBrushed Torc A small art update. I've been experimenting with the newest release of a bit of software called ZBrush that I bought about the 10th copy they'd ever sold in 2000. Suffice to say, it's moved on a bit since then and they upgraded me to the new version for free, nice people that they are! The new version has this insane 3D sculpting capability which makes detailing and generally mucking about with complex 3D shapes really easy. The attached picture is a torc that's off a 50 pfennig stamp from 1976 that I found on t'web. Originally just a 2D outline, now sculpted into a fully 3-dimensional shape and rendered out with a basic shiny material. Nothing fancy, just playing with the software. As a footnote, I've just managed to find a photo of the original torc, and it's interesting to see how much information is lost in the 2D drawing from the stamp from the original object. i.e., there are "horns" on each beast plus the detailing on the main torc is completely different to my version. Funny how I used to argue that 3D scanning objects gave a far more accurate record to be met with the rebuttal (from archaeological illustrators, of course), that all the information in the object can be conveyed in a drawing. My arse, it can. Anyway, I present a rendering of the great torc of the tribal elder of the legendary sheep tribe...enjoy and comments welcomed! 50 Pfennig Stamp used as reference ZBrush Rendering Photo of the original torc Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: System 7 - Phoenix Tags: 3d, art, torc, zbrush

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May 25th, 2008

09:35 pm - Great Scottish Walk Well, the Great Scottish Walk was on today. I did the 12 mile route in a not unreasonable 2 hours 48 minutes. Slightly slowed down due to excessive nattering with someone for a mile or two in the middle, but finished a respectable 64th. E managed to finish a sterling 12th and colleague E^2 finished just ahead of me at 58th. Not quite as many people there as the numbering (6225) led me to believe....couldn't have been more than a thousand, max.... Still....thanks to dalg and ksimes for pandering to my last minute sponsor extortion... The Bat Conservation Trust is the charity of choice and a nice round hundred quid is heading their way shortly.... Current Mood: sore

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March 27th, 2008

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08:40 pm - Orbital 2008: Report Yet another con report.... Friday: Got to hotel. Had the room of the damned immediately beside the lift. Originally thought this would be extremely noisy, but ended up being quite quiet and ridiculously handy for dropping stuff off mid-wander. Had a sleep. Got up. Thought I'd better find the art which had been couriered down. I knew it was in the hotel, but no idea where. Turns out it was actually sitting in the Art Show all along. Good Lord. Managed to wrangle ksimes into being "crew" and a very appreciated pair of spare hands when hanging said art. psychochicken appeared and had a blether about "ert". Much picture adjustment. That done, beer and lunch ensued, pretty much in that order. Met up with dalg and others from the satellite_2 crowd. Dinner. More beer. Beer. And beer. Did the Art Show opening soiree thing and waffled considerably. All very good fun. Was introduced to sha_d who had many and varied hendbegs on show. Very good response to the new abstract pieces with some general oo-ing and aah-ing which was much appreciated. Saturday: Not much different. Discovered that the hotel had free WiFi which dalg used to great effect to cancel an order of "Alice in Sunderland" and snaffled a signed and illustrated copy off the present, and awesome, Bryan Talbot. Oh, technology! I think beer was involved at some stage. Had a good blether with cuddles_batcave and even managed to attend a GoH talk. Mr. Mieville to be precise. Who was excellent fun and scored highly on the use of the word "fuck" before lunch. Wandered around the Art Show with the reprobate SMS considering the Flosquian standard of this year's art show. There was a clear and undisputed winner in our minds. Sunday: Last morning of Art Show before the auction, so much fuh-fuhing at the last minute. Managed to get two pieces into the auction, which was most gratifying including one of the new abstracts. The remainder of Sunday was spent mostly sitting around talking to various people and broken only by attending Neil Gaiman's GoH talk which was pretty awesome. Others have undoubtedly posted better on the topic. Suffice to say, I now want his new book. Caught up with Anne Sudworth, Warren and Keith Scaife in the evening for much drivelling and tank porn. Monday: Blagged a table at the Dealer's Room to attempt to shift some more art. Interesting experience having lots of "dealer's room types" comment on it which demonstrated there's a lot of people that go to cons that never bother going to the art show. Which was sort of interesting, in itself. Several snotty comments, but mostly lots of good conversations with people about things. Finally spent some money in the dealer's room and got a bat and a copy of jonnynexus "Game Night" which is turning into being a bit hilarious. Cracking con! Signed up for lx2009, satellite_2 and odyssey2010. Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Dead Can Dance - Serpent's Egg

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March 11th, 2008

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March 9th, 2008

01:20 am - Orbital 2008: Codex Orbitus (Updated) An updated version of "Codex Orbitus". dyllanne has commented that this now looks like a view down an elliptical tunnel with stripey sides. It does look a bit like a B5 jumpgate now that she's mentioned it! Or a De Stijl version of Tempest....(ooo....there's a thought!). General changes....line thickness thickens out towards the right-hand side improving the overall sense of fake depth. The central hub is also now black which gives a strong focal point and also improves readability of the code built into the image... An improvement over the previous? Current Music: Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Tags: babylon 5, jumpgate, mondrian, orbital

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01:14 am - Orbital 2008: Gravity Waves More abstract stuff. Reader views encouraged! Gravity Waves This is a Mondrian-esque mandala style image simulating a wave interference pattern. Current Music: System 7 - Phoenix Tags: gravity, mandala, mondrian

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March 4th, 2008

12:19 am - Orbital 2008: Sunrise Enough with the weirdness, I hear you cry! Show something normal at Orbital! Comments welcomed. Sunrise A re-run of a picture that was shown exactly once at Albacon 1998 Geek Aside: This one took 14 days on two high-end PCs of the day to raytrace. I re-ran the job for amusement on a dual-G5 XServe and it took 1 hour 45 minutes. Occult Aside: The book's pages are actually the Sigillum Dei Aemeth from John Dee's manuscript of his angelic conversations. Current Mood: mellow Current Music: Colour Haze - Tempel Tags: albacon, john dee, occult, orbital, raytracing

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12:13 am - Orbital 2008: Twist 7 Another contender for Orbital 2008. Reader input desired! Image size might be A2. Twist 7 A Mondrian-esque abstract work with a recursive square of squares forming a regularly subdivided grid structure. Note to the travel sick! Stare at the centre of the grids at infinity. Defocus eyes a bit. Move head slightly. The squares will probably start to gently wobble around. Also, you might see effects such at the intersections between black lines pulse with white dots. This latter effect is more marked on the larger prints. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Boris - Amplifier Worship Tags: abstract, escher, mondrian, orbital

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12:04 am - Orbital 2008: Twist 2 Another contender for Orbital 2008. Reader input desired. Picture size will likely be A2. Twist 2 Minimal Mondrian-style artwork abusing Mondrian's original precepts of horizontal and vertical rectilinear subdivisions. Grids, if you will. This takes a putative square of squares and twists it off the axis into infinity. Note to the travel sick: This one can wobble a bit if you stare at the centre and move your head around or treat it a bit like a Magic Eye (ie, defocus your eyes). The effect is magnified on the larger prints.... Current Mood: awake Current Music: Boris - Akuma No Uta Tags: abstract, escher, mondrian, orbital

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March 3rd, 2008

11:49 pm - Orbital 2008: Riemann 4 Bit of a change from the usual style... First one up for display at Orbital 2008. Reader input desired! Artwork size will be probably A2. Riemann 4 A Mondrian-inspired bit of abstract work. This is essentially built from "hypermaths" which has been trimmed down to be a Mondrian grid projected into Riemann-esque spherical geometry. Think Escher's "Circle Limit IV" for an example of taking this into huge detail. Current Mood: mellow Current Music: Electric Wizard - Witchcult Today Tags: escher, mondrian, orbital

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