The only course of action….

18°C, humid

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I felt very sorry for John Hogan who jumped off an upper floor of a hotel with his children when it was featured on the news yesterday.

The BBC broadcast footage of him so distraught that he had to be carried into the courtroom on a chair. No doubt the gutter press will attack hime like a pack of wolves, but then they would.

He’s going to be in agony every time he remembers what happened and how it turned out, a far greater punishment that anything the Cretian legal  system could mete out.  I can only see one outcome that could retain any honour; he ought to now commit suicide.

A Will?

18°C, heavy showers

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Feeling better, well enough to think about death. I am going to write a will.
What if I get squished under the wheels of a lorry riding to work next week? Who will get my Frank Zappa collection? Big questions to deal with? Suggestions welcome here.

 

3Ds Max: just to continue an August thread, here is a texture map for the Walrus. It’s overlaid with the template and saved here ¼ size. In case you didn’t know, it works like pulling a part a cardboard model and opening it out flat. Then use photoshop to create all the surface colouring and stuff.

On hold

18°C, showers

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Paused. Does this mean the last week of the holiday is going ot be wasted, the weather isn’t so good and I have a cold. So few entries over the last weekend and painting progress is slow. You just can’t paint unless you feel sharp, I keep getting the pictures off the shelf, but then don’t paint.
Picking up the 3D modelling is easier for short periods, so that’s how it goes.

Sleep is needed here.

Pluto wants to to know…

20°C, clouding over

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Is it a planet?

 

Some days it is, some not. Nice to see astronomers arguing over something small.

 

Just realised that I have done no painting for a week! Time dilation effects can occur at any time. I lost a chunk of time this afternoon, it’s hard to explain as I was asleep at the time. It was a ½hour nap that started at 17.00 and finished at 18.30. The weather has been odd today also, I got soaked cycling but the roads didn’t get wet- a day of conundrums.

 

3DS Max: as you’ve seen from the photos, that Biplane looks ok, but on measuring it, all sorts of errors appeared. Some bits were only 1 inch out, but several others were considerably more. It’s taken 2 hours to get that right, plus to make some other modifications. the problem appeared because the undercarriage wouldn’t fold properly into the wing, the pivots/levers were way out.

 

Picture(right) is the new plans imported to max and (left) a render showing the new rounder leading edge on both wings, it was rather angular before. It has nearly reached 6,900 triangles.

Obsessive?

19°C, rain

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3DS Max: is this getting obsessive? There is something about this application that does this, far more than any other, even games. I’ve sepent over 5 hours on this little project, now the plane is reasonably complete, apart from a few bits that make animation easier, and about 3½ hours making a character to go in it. It consists of 6K polys, and expecting to render animations at around 45 sec. per frame. The fun bit wil be getting the water spray to look right in the landing-on-water sequence. If it works out, you may be able to see a preview on YouTube.

Malice in Malaga

20°C, rain

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Soapbox: "Guilty of Tavelling whilst Asian": is a phrase used by a British muslim commentator last week- (Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent- Ali Dizaei). His premonition came true yesterday:

 

A Monarch airlines flight from Malaga was disrupted by passengers who took a dislike to two co-passengers. Interviewed on TV this morning they said some passengers thought they heard them speaking Arabic, also they pointed out that they were wearing warm clothes while the other passengers wore flip-flops and shorts. Some passengers then refused to fly and got off the plane.

 

Is this to be expected? You travel on a flight loaded with holiday-makers from Malaga, did you notice how many were carrying copies of the Daily Mail or Sun newspapers? These two guys were cleared later by security, the flight delayed by three hours and they had to fly on a separate flight. Those passengers missed an opportunity to apologise to the two "asians". I hope they received some compensation, and learnt not to fly on a plane full of British chavs.

 

Read here on CNN

 

 

Pointer three

 SW winds, dry.

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Turpentine: started the Pointer painting again, third time lucky. This time on a larger canvas and some slight changes to the technique. For speed I used the rubbing back technique as sson as the ground was laid, no wainting for it to dry. The figures fit better and the odd proportions are not excessive.

 

Flight Sim X: playing with the demo of Microsoft’s new sim which looks quite good. It has lots of periferal details on the ground like road traffic, boats and other aircraft. Previous version were rather barren. there is some wild-life like fish & birds but I can’t see if those animals on the demo video are there- the Elephants. If so, I may just buy it.

Quick! lightning

upto 20°C, sun & storms

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Cycle in electrical storm and you’re at risk I feel. It’s the one thing that scares me while cycling (apart from joy-riders & white vans). It felt like a race because the black clouds were approaching home while I was still ten miles away to the North. So I rode hard and got into town just as the first drops fell. Big feeling of relief, but shaking.

 

Walrus:

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Lots of little fixes today- strict sizes, wires, mapping and panel lines started.

Walrus more

20°C, some thundering

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Walrus: has a rough texture map. It’s a bit simple, no grime layer or panel lines but it will do for today. Max 8 isn’t without bugs, for some reason the file doesn’t render with motion blur, the propellor is static in the last few renders (unless I have hit a keyboard shortcut somehow).

 

Turpentine: the saga of the restart is still running. Newly bought canvas now has underpainting with rubbed-back figures (again) all ready to go. To check the figures I traced the two males and painted on the tracing paper. Isolating them makes it easier to check the posture and proportions. Another thing to try out, and I don’t know how practical this is, is to use Poser, see B/W picture. The sketch render isn’t really essential but, you know…

False start

20°C, big dark cloud approaching:

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Started a bigger version. <Started a bigger version of what?>; that painting;<which one?> "the pointing"; <oh that>.

The figures are just that little bit small, resulting in the largest one being cramped on the page, also his posture is a little inelegant. Much bigger canvases look appealing in on the shop.
Plan ahead lad, plan ahead…

All change.
Hannah has insisted that I stop the picture just as I was "rubbing back" the ground. She liked it so much that she wants if framed as is.
It’s funny this, I think – mad but it does have advantages. The standing pointer is too far to the centre, so I will begin again tomorrow (with a bigger canvas) and move him over. Proportions & placement can be sorted with overlaid tracing paper and this should leave more empty apce to point into. The original plans will remain the same otherwise.