Aye Aye Captain!

A smuggler captain character I've been working out for a while. More to come on this guy and his crew later.

Post Halloween Post 2012

I think I've set a new personal record for longest gap between posts. My last one was...holy shit back in February! I'm sorry blog, how could I neglect you for so long? ::Maybe it's your abysmal design interface...nevertheless...I'M BACK:: I had a few rather ambitious projects in the queue this year--and unfortunately most of them were a tad too ambitious for the time frame. My girlfriend and I moved into a new apartment which sort of threw a wrench into finalizing these creative projects. However, that didn't stop me from coming up with a bunch of concept work! To start: I created these two characters with the intention of sculpting them, casting them, and turning them into puppets. I would then film these puppets, and project them into my haunted cemetery display on Halloween night---much like the 3D animated Skeleton and Victorian Ghost from two years ago.

The second, round-headed guy did get a finished sculpt---I've just been dragging my feet on getting some nice photos taken.

As you can see, I only got so far as molding and making a few test casts in rubber. I really wanted the end result to look something like this:

Speaking of failure, I entered a design challenge over on the LAIKA/House facebook page. They do these neat art-related contests every month. October's theme was create your own monster, or bring back one of the classics in any medium of your choosing. The only requirement is it has to be in black and white. I put my own spin on my favorite classic movie monster: Creature from the Black Lagoon!

He was modeled and rendered entirely in Maya, and then touched up in Photoshop. You can see an animated turn-table here: Unfortunately, I didn't win this contest :'(. Now onto something that DID finish; My girlfriend and I decided to go as vikings this year. We ordered some ::very:: minimal "sexy" viking costumes, and then added lots of fur, fabric, and belts to the existing costumes.

I'll admit the final costumes deviated a little bit from their initial concept sketches, but I was really happy with the final outcome. Plus, I designed some fun viking characters based on our costumes:

It all does come and go so quickly...