This is the time of year when I try and get my ‘house in order’ 3D wise.  So I thought I’d do a count of how many models I’ve done this year so far.  (Baring in mind there’s still time for a couple more yet.)  The number right now stands at 149 models from January the 1^st this year.  It doesn’t count the ones done for clients, only personal ones.  I think it’s a pretty fair number to be honest.

Out of these models 90% are Zbrush ones and the others Mudbox ones that predate the release of Zbrush 3.  Not all of them ever saw the light of day for a variety of reasons.  Ranging from some of them were unfinished or ropey in my view, to the fact that some were done maybe 3 at once and I didn’t want to bombard people with them.

Providing I have time I’ll try and put together in the New Year a video compilation of all of them (or as many as I can track down).  I have to admit that the difference in style between the ones from may and earlier to the ones done the last month or two is dramatic!  It also helps to show how much Zbrush 3 actually helped me as an artist.

I’ve had to round up the ‘best of the best’ sculpts over the last week for something coming up next year. So it’s been quite a trip down memory lane and I couldn’t’ help improving some of the older ones from earlier in this year I have to admit.

So how many will I do next year?  Well I’m not machine gunning them out like I used to as work is taking up more and more time with paid work for clients.  That’s obviously a damn good thing for me, but means I rarely have as much time to devote to sculpts for personal use as I once did. There are a few big things coming up in the 1^st half of next year and some of them I have been reminded I cannot mention until it’s cleared by the respective clients.  But all in good time….  In case I don’t get a chance I’d like to thank all those who read this blog and hope you all have a wonderful Xmas and fantastic new year.

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As its coming up to xmas and there is a covering of the white stuff on the ground, I thought it would be agood time to take some videos while on my regular 5 mile walk fro where I live deep into the countryside. As you’l see I do my usual rambling talk about 3d etc as I progress and also show some of the magnificant scenerey of the Derwent valley where I live.

Enjoy.

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Just a quick one to say mery xmas and basicallyas an excuse to try out the video on my new phone.

Well I did a few more quick tweaks to this one tonight for a few minutes. This sort of style is my usual ‘thing’ so its a bit more of a challenge than they usually are. But as the whole pointis to keep developing as an artist, its always good to go outside of your comfort zone whenever possible.

I’d find it a bit borring to just keep doing and showing the things I’m comfortable with, as this wouldn’t push me as an artist.

Hope -early stages of a Work in Progress

I’ve just started messing around with a sculpture of the more ‘arty’ variety called ‘hope’ tonight. It’s still in the early stages (very early in fact) but was an attempt to flip the usual artistic interpretations of the theme ‘hope’ on its head a bit. You see as a rule ‘Hope’ is depicted as female, with lots of nice drapery and floaty stuff, but I thought it would be interesting to make ‘Hope’ a man.

He is yet another of the ‘man who has had a nasty accident involving a band saw and a penis’ model as at the moment the poor thing has no genitalia. My reasons for this were simple, I have a young child and don’t’ want him running round telling everyone that ‘Daddy has a penis on his desktop wallpaper.’ LOL. Call me picky but it doesn’t sound like a very good idea to include genitalia just yet on this one. I’ll have to see where this one heads, as I have a lot of models on the go right now and something is bound to be overlooked for a while if I’m not very careful.

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YouTube veoh v1364918wQcS7MxaWaynecast #5

 This was in two parts, but unfortunatly I count’ find time to edit the 2nd part to upload it, so this one stands as a single parter.  I’ll try adn get at least another 2 parter done before xmas all going well.

Wayne…

Tonight I decided it was about damn time I did some more animation!  It’s been well over a year and while my sculpting certainly ‘does the job’ my animation is a bit ropier, so it’s something I’m concentrating on for a while. Instead f going for something easier such as a ‘walk’ etc, I thought I’d try my hand at some more facial animation.  So I’m animating ‘Davros’ from Doctor who using  a very quick facial animation rig made in 20 mins and knocked up a short test run. 

As a quick test it holds up ok bearing in mind it’s not a final model and only uses the colour map in the subsurface scattering shader, but obviously it’s something I’ll be working on more.  I lip synched it by hand as I didn’t want to shell out for an expensive plug-in and plus it gives me more control.  I doubt I’ll share it just yet unless I’m feeling a little more confident…..  But it at least shows me that the set up I used has possibilities for facial use, plus it about time some of my sculpts were move ‘active’ in animations.

 Other than that its been a long week and have only slept 4 hours in the last 36….so tie for me to get some rest I think.