CLink CLanK CloNk!

Feeling a bit sad because I didn't get to do that much this week, too much other stuff in the way. Anyway, posting up the finished Iron Man model from last week. Still not too happy with it since it ended up heavier than I intended, and the wires are all over the place :( Still prefer organic modeling over hard-edged stuff.

Gonna throw this one in the closet though - no immediate plans to do anything with it. Maybe one day I'll get back to it. Until then, it's just a quickie modeling exercise.

*random Ultimate Iron Man fact : even if you cut him in half, he'll still grow the other half back. Sick.

Geek Spasm

On Thursday night, after coming home from work, I totally geeked out when I found out that Kahnehteh (Eric Canete - check out his super duper blog from the link section) paid a visit to this blog and left a nice note. That... really made my day :D

So... Friday was a bit slow in the office, so I started workin on a new piece. Since Kahnehteh just wrapped up his work on IRON MAN : ENTER THE MANDARIN (a comic book, nothing to do with CNY oranges :P), I was in a really Iron Man-nish mode - so here's the start of my Iron Man model (this is the version from the Marvel Ultimates line of comics).

Just basic form, no surface details yet... and here's a wireshot.


I really like the Ultimate design for Iron Man - they made him look a more insect-like, heavy hitting tank. Plus, that universe's version of Tony Stark is way more funny :p The goal of this project is to be efficient as possible with the polys, and keep the wireflow nice and tidy. Just felt a bit worried after realizing how much I depend on Zbrush these days to do organic modeling, so going back to basics, modeling clean base meshes straight from Maya.

OMG - it's getting late. Will continue working on this tomorrow morning after my morning swim, weekly spring cleaning, bathing my two crazy cats and doing laundry *sigh* ...will I even have the energy?

Eff-Aye-Que?

Ola! Just thought I'd post some answers to two questions frequently asked :

1) Why only quickies/3D doodles/sketches/schmoe work?
Well.. I'll post up anything depending on how much time I had to make it. If I ever work on something heavy, I'll post it up too - but at the moment I'm just limiting myself to around 3 hours for each piece. Kinda hectic between classes (did I forget to mention I'm a teacher? maybe) and other projects.

2) What are my computer specs?
Old OLD old 3.0 Ghz processor from around 4 years back, before today's fancy HT and duo-core stuff *sob*, 1GB RAM *sniff*, and an old 6-series Geforce display card *sigh*. Still works well enough to make stuff though... but it gets pretty choked up at times.

...and one more specially for a confused Mr. Pietr :P
3) What means 'tikusatuih'?
just a silly play on the word 'ratatouille'. 'tikus' means 'mouse/rat' in malay.. and 'aaa-tuih!' is basically the sound one makes during long-distance spitting 0_0

Okay, enough with the words. Another weekend piece coming soon!

CNY Post - Tikusatuih

Happy Chinese New Year/Year of the Rat to all my chinese friends!

*another messy quickie, basemesh 814 polys, quick zbrush session, patches of maya fur here and there.

Quickie - Ultimate Thor

Quickie model done last Sunday evening, 3 hours (2 hours, late mcnugget attack at McD, another 45 mins on the face and arms), with no regard AT ALL to wire topology or poly efficiency... so it's a real mess :(

If you like comics and haven't read Marvel's The Ultimates... you really should - it's a great read (at least, the first two volumes are.. the third one is kinda lame so far). Most of the praise for this comic goes to the gritty, realistic way they approached classic, iconic characters and made them really flawed and human. Anyway, one of them is our boy Thor; he's a big question mark early in the series. The others don't really believe he's the real Norse god, and later on Thor himself starts wondering whether or not he's the son of Odin, or just a freaky-strong mutant with lightning powers and a funky hammer.

This was just a 3D doodle.. not gonna use him for animation or anything, not even gonna bother texturing, just a quick practice session. There should be time to do another one of these next weekend if nothing comes up.

Any suggestions on who to make?

...and a few more leftovers

This wasn't too long ago (December). Just a sequence of stills from a talky test I as doing. Thought I'd add it in cos everything's so.... colorless at the moment.

Also added a bunch of heads at the bottom of this page.

2007 leftovers...

Ok, ok... I promised myself that I wouldn't put up any old stuff, but until I get home from work, I'll make an exception for this thing.

These were prototype character models for somethin short I'm workin on. Since this particular version of these characters were scrapped and will never see the light of day, I might as well post them up.

All these characters were modeled/rigged within a 3-4 week period, on and off, when I had the time. No textures, just wanted to see how well the forms and silhouettes turned out. Character designs by my talented and lovely fiancee, Mel (who, incidentally, also started her own blog recently at kusut-masai.blogspot.com - check it out! :p)

Ooh... a blog!

Thanks for visiting this blog - if you're lost, and got here accidently.. er... thanks anyway? Anyway, this blog is basically an art dump for me where I can put up all the stuff I manage to do in my spare time when I'm not busy with class-related stuff.

This is something I've wanted to do for quite a while for several reasons:
1) I keep losing my stuff.
2) People keep asking me what I do when I'm not working.
3) To keep myself from slacking off too much.

All the work that's gonna be posted up here is February 2008 onwards, so no old stuff from me. Alright, enough introductions. As soon as I figure out how to arrange stuff in this blog, I'll post up some stuff, hopefully by tonight. Thanks again for visiting!