10 oct 06 - almost there!

phew! the end is near! the end, that is, for the model. i've learned a ton along the way, and i've realized that there's still way, way more to learn before i'd consider myself a modeller. aside from that, here's mr. ham!



here's a view of his... um... skin? isn't he just a beaut!?



here are a couple shots of his paws. i'm finally happy with them! remember how "ugly" they looked before? well, i got my loops in and everything flows in a way that i like!




and the final shot is up close and personal with your's truly! look at his sad eyes! those sad looking eyebrows. lemme tell you where the trouble is... you see that ear? it's in dire need of some reconstruction.... in fact, i may just rip it off and start over. it's just not right. (that's the motto of a perfectionist, isn't it? ha!)



i think that after his ear(s) get better, it'll be a good time to add an armature, a skeleton, get that guy posable! wahoo! and then... the real fun begins!

8 oct 06 - ah... getting better

here's a quick post of the improving ham!





here's ham's paw... ick! they really need some work!

6 oct 06 - a shaved monkey with facial reconstructive surgery

well, i had some good looking fur and fuzz on ham, but his eyes were not right at all... not right at all. so i shaved him and started focusing on actual work instead of just hair play. i completely reworked his snout, eye "sockets" and eyebrows, and now he's finally starting to take a lil shape. oh yeah, i also ripped off his face and ears (i'll get his paws pulled off, too, later).



and, there he is! wow, huh? can you even tell the difference? ha! actually, when you start to look at his wireframe (that's what defines his shape), then you can start to notice.



spooky, isn't it? just a bit early for halloween! besides all of that, though, i'm starting to get the feel for the flowness nature of the wireframe. perhaps someday, i'll be finished with ham, and he will look awesome :)

3 sep 06 - a furry ham

well, folks, here's a furry ham. i finally figured out how to get the (hair) particle simulation to be drawn with "fat" strands instead of just wires. also, his fur covers only the parts that need fur now. i still have got to get his face, ears and paws fuzzed up. ham also needs a pair of eyeballs. from there, an armature, and then he's posable! hooray!

01 sep 06 - a dustball

here's my attempt at doing fur/feathers... actually, i confess, it's a modified feather-ball i downloaded from the internet. this is closer to what ham needs to have. i'm learning about the size of the halos, which add the thickness i was needing to each "hair". someday, this dustball will be beautiful, just wait!

29 aug 06 - ham's first set of paws

today, ham is starting to get some front paws. i really liked the cartoony legs he had before, but the time has come to get 'em right. i've also fixed his nose and eyebrow, as well as done a ton of work on his ears. also, i'm starting to add some color to him. i did try adding fur to him from a tutorial i found online, but i must be missing a setting cause it made him look like a plucked chicken. i found myself playing around too much trying to get the settings right that i finally gave up and continued modeling. he's still far from finished, but it seems that i can only work for a little bit before i get a call from cora asking me to pop in her pacifier or bounce her or something.

more to post in a bit...

20 aug 06 - the first animation post

here's the one... the only... ham, the monkey! isn't he just cute? he's my, well, uh, *first* attempt at modeling. it's not really my first, but it is the first attempt that i'm actually very pleased with. my previous attempts were quite unsightly and unmanagable! i still have a ton to learn! ham's nose looks like it's dented in, his seams aren't defined correctly, his butt needs some shaping, he's missing ears and paws, and i feel that his eyebrows are too hacked. aside from all that, though, he's been a wonderful subject for me. i've also come a long way from my very first stabs at it... let's just say ham looked like a wiener dog wearing a construction worker's hat!

by the way, i'm doing all my work in blender (v. 242). wahoo! blender!

separate thread of news, although it's better than a week old, i've shaved my head! all my hair is now gone. it's a nice change indeed.

and yet again, another unrelated bit of info: i'm spec'ing out parts for an upgrade. right now, i've got a p4 1.4, 768mb ram, 250gb hdd, ati rage 3d pro, ati mach64, two used 17" crts (one's got a huge scratch and the other has a win98 taskbar burned into it), and used cdrom and dvd drives. for the most part, it does exactly what i want it to do. unfortunately, it does it 100x slower than i'd like! in particular, the graphics are in need for some speed! so, i
have been eyeing a 19"wide lcd on tigerdirect... i'll grab me two of them and plug 'em into a geforce 6200. so for about $400, i'll have a decent machine to finally get some work done and still remain sane :)

cora is awake, again. we've found out that she gets really gassy when cindy eats lettuce. well, we forgot all about that today and had blts. whoops! so, she's awake and gassy.

that's all for now! g'night!

19 aug 06 - the beginning...

wow! i'm so excited about having my very own blog that i'm really confused about where to even start! should i start with my new, wonderful baby girl? should i talk about my wife's new job? should i post updates on my quest to become a kick-butt animator? or how about blogging the random thoughts that pass through my head every second?

ooohh.... so many choices!

how about starting with my daughter, cora!? (pictures) she's been growing and growing and growing. this morning, cora and i went on a stroll to the bank and post office. she made those funny baby noises the entire way, kicking her feet all the while! so much fun! tonight, we were at a "new faculty and staff" dinner, and she pulled the lemon slice off of cindy's tea... well, let's just say that she started down the path of food that wasn't mommy's milk... surprisingly though, after a few scrunched faces, she began licking it like it was a lollipop! she loved it! ha!

cindy was recently hired on as the women's residential director of tabor college! we're both very excited about this. we've felt god's call here in hillsboro, and we think this might be the direction he'd like us to head. the job does come with a fairly spacious apartment that just a few steps away from the girls' dormitory. all this week and most of next she's been training the residential assistants (as well as herself), which has mixed up our life completely (in a good way). cora's been coming with me to work and spending a little time at a babysitter's. we're all learning a ton about being flexible!

animation :) animation :) animation :P~~~

prior to cindy being accepted as women's rd, we were trying to figure out our 5 or 10 year plan... and one thing i've come to realize is that even though i like computers and learning about making them do work efficiently and reprogramming them and pushing them to the limits... i really don't like fixing/cleaning/debunking them all day long! i feel like a digital janitor. "somebody just dropped their drink on the floor over there" "the carpets need vacuuming" "the trash needs taken out" "the cats just vomitted on the poop that the dog left on the sofa" so anyways, i started to explore areas of interest to me, namely graphics and computers. i also seem to carry a bit in intuition when it comes to movement. and i absolutely love seeing great computer animation and visual effects! so, let's see where that takes us!

i've researched a handful of schools that teach computer animation and have narrowed it down to two. vancouver film school (yes, vancouver, canada) is quite famous for producing some very good animators. i really enjoy looking at the students' demo reels. it's a concentrated 12 month course, where basically i'd be eating, sleeping, and doing only computer animation for that entire 12 months... they say about 80 hours a week will be dedicated to lab and lecture. i've definitely got mixed feelings about that part. but, the topper is the people involved in training the students are out in the industry right now. they aren't just some professors that love theory. they actually make the movies, they do the scenes, they follow the rules they teach. the other "school" is called animation mentor. it's web-based, 18 months long, and i'm super impressed with the students' work! they also have industry people teaching... actually... mentoring and critiquing the students. it's also about half the price of vfs and i can attend from anywhere. however, i will have to provide/purchase the computer and software, it's 6 months longer, and it focuses only on animation (not modeling or visual effects).

but, i don't have to decide right now.

i have been practicing my animation and modeling skills. i'll definitely post a bit along the way ;)

hope you've enjoyed my first posting. i'm headed to bed! good night!