Sunset

19°C, no wind.

31.4 miles on the racing bike. Now for tiredness- that deep heavy sinking tiredness, such a wonderful feeling.

Done some more to that ‘Cuda mesh try these links
ONE and TWO
The models are not finished ( buy quite a long way) but I can’t resist spricing up the images anyway, both use GI light-tracer/and a nice shiney material with a fall-off map in the reflection channel.

Anyway: shot this photo before I went out on the bike:

 

3DS Max

Fairey Barracuda

Felt like a doing a bit of 3D modeling in Max, as often the case in holidays. This is another of those amazingly ugly planes that the RAF used in the 1940s, a bit of a specialism here. The other plane on the go at the moment is the Supermarine Walrus. It’s quite an old model and it needed some work to update it to Max r6. Now it utilises the symmetry modifier – which saves a huge amount of work. Looking forward to setting up the folding wings, it looks even more ungainly then.

If anyone out there knows an ex-crewman of these beasts- do let me know.

Photoshop CS2

WOW, it’s installed at last, I had to wait for the activation but it’s up & running now. Seems to load a bit more slowly than the last version (v.7), but there are some very useful new tools. 
Some tools seem to be very useful for 3D artists, the vanishing point is one- you can paint selections ( like clone) onto a perspective plane- that will remove the need perspective distort after a clone operation. The best bits seem to be aimed aty digital photographers, jpeg artifact removal, lens distortion and colour correction.

Now I’m off to look for the poorest photograph I have on file and see what can be done with it. Actually the worst photrographs can be found on other peoples blogs.

Tablet:theory
I have an idea why the graphics tablet is no longer working, the cause- a cup of tea, it wasn’t spilt but the hot cup was left on it to be found by me when I got home from work.

Teapothead:work resumed
It’s dry enough to continue, so>changed treapot colour>1st linseed layers

House Martins are “handed”

21°C, light winds

House Martins seem to like landing from the same side. I will explain…I stopped at a Cafe in Staunton Harold which is in a square courtyard- probably the old stable block of the house. In the upper floor windows are fairly small windows which have Martin nests in the top-right corner. There were six nests in all, none on the left of any window. The all make their landing approach from the same side, so the pane of glass is on their left. So House Martins are "handed". I couldn’t make up my mind which hand since it was impossible to see which foot alighted first. I did think that they need to do this because it avoids the risk of a collision. If any bird flew towards it’s nest from the right, they would cross over the path of another- possibly.

Time for a rant
Teenagers are going to inherit the world aren’t they. So whay are they so opposed to conservation? Ours are dead against it anyway, they refuse to avoid unnecessary pollution. They want to be driven in the car a mile, they want the lights on in a room that is already full of blazing sunshine, they want the central heating on on warm days. They will only put recyclable rubbish in the normal land-fil bin. We have had recycling bins for over two years now.
But they are inheriting the world, what world do you hope to get? Are you going to blame us for the condition it’s in?
[/rant]

Phew… that was easy wan’t it

Don’t Trust

"We will try to answer your request as soon as possible. Generally, we will send an answer within 48 hours of reception (weekends and holidays excluded). Our hours of operation are Monday-Friday 9.00-17.00 CET." The date of the message is 30th November 2004- the date I origionally wrote asking for a new pen.

This is the response I received today. Are they trying to annoy or are they just incompetant?

18°C:strong winds from the west

The BBC are admitting that it is windy again, they have pretended there is no wind for the last two weeks on the TV. Just because they have flashy new graphics on their forcasts, they think they can leave out half the information.

Turpentine time

32°C:moderate SW winds 

I’m getting to know the point when to stop the turps, now is the time to open the lid on the oil, now it needs a night to dry. Next dog the walks
The teapot maywell become a burgandy colour tomorrow, the tonal work is along the right lines, but the sky doesn’t work well with it. I’ve just realised how much of a hole that right hand is, that will have to change. The ear has the same problem.

It will be raining.
______________________________________________
later 22:35

What an extraordinary night. It’s very warm, not a cloud to be seen. When you walk past a brick wall, the heat from it is quite startling. Best of all is the smells. Every ten yards or so is a different one- heavy, rich and sweet. The blackbirds don’t seem to be relenting ontheir songmaking since the sun went down.

I’m quite struck by it all.

Graphics tablet

Got:pen

Now the tablet itself is playing up, after all that fuss too.
Anyway, here is a small sample of a doodle drawn with it a few months ago when it was working well.

Ironically it’s this tablet that got me into oil painting, I bought it when I bought Corel Painter 8, but real paint and brushes are easier and more effective them computer paintined pictures. the picture below was made in Alias’ Sketchbook – which is an outstnading program that very closely simulates the feel of real pencils & paper.

Pthalio Blue and Rose madder

For a laugh

Here’s a little doodle in oil I did yesterday – just for fun. It’s like an experiment to get to know how these two colours work.

Then:resumed work on the teapot head today, this picture is certainly having a long gestation period. Somehow it didn’t really get going tonight, probably because my concentration has run out. I like this picture a lot, so no risk of abandoning it.

finally- to finish a beautiful site to go to next:
This is the best day of your life

Zinc:White

Pthalio Blue + Rose Madder

Didn’t think it would be that different to titanium white! It’s going to be great for glazing and maybe frottes.
Anyway, tried out a puzzle I set myself this evening, build a whole painting with Rose madder and pthalio blue, mind you choosing whites got distracting, – ended up with Titanium and zinc whites on the palette  ( and the canvas paper).

Dogs bearing gifts

Dogs at the door
They are social animals, they bring offerings to greet you as you arrive home. They announce your arrival with a few barks but then go quiet while they search for something to offer as you open the door. Usually it’s a stuffed fur-fabric sheep, or an orangotang. They however, feel rent by a terrible dilemma. The toy is theirs, and you aren’t going to get it, it’s ok for you to chase them for it, but you ain’t going to get it! Yet still that same toy is the offering.

While caught up with this, the dog paces on the spot, wagging and looking sideways at you…

read on