The Original Bloopatone

Can't have a blog and some dogs and not post pictures of your dogs on your blog.

Blue loves the Beach:




Daisy's not so sure:




But Blue is certain she loves the beach:




OK, back to computer nerdieness...

Website Update

The update I've been threatening has finally happened. I've added some new stuff to the sketchbook, replacing some older stuff towards the end and stuff. Also I've added some pictures of my sculpture from John Brown's class at Gnomon titled "First Sculpture from John Brown's Class at Gnomon".

Here are some additional pictures of this work. The initial idea was that of an African warrior or shaman type guy doing some kind of dance. I'm on an African kick right now. I think its more interesting to study som actual alien cultures than to go off making the same old "Orc n' Babe Boy Art." At some point in the future if I do decide to do an alien or orc or babe, or alien-orc-babe, maybe the character will benefit from the study of real human culture. Plus I love it when people mix cultures creating interesting discontinuity. Like when a tribesman wears a wrist watch or a baseball cap. It breaks down stereotypes and opens the mind to interesting back-stories. This is one of the reason the photography of Steve McCurry has been such an influence on me. seems he seeks out those interesting cultural intersections, the ones that occur right before the Wal-mart goes up.

Anyways, here are more pictures of my African Guy.












Here are some pictures John took for me at the end of the session:








As you can see some of these were taken from the balcony of our apartment overlooking the fabulous Hollywood Hills.

The following pictures are from a new sculpture I started last weekend. This one is a female counterpart to my african guy. First the initial sketch:




She's also doing some kind of dance. The cowboy hat? well, I thought it would be cool to have this somewhat traditional looking african woman wearing a cowboy hat. Her out fit comes from some african photography books i got on half.com. She's wearing a type pf corset worn by women of wealthy families who own a lot of cattle. Thus, she's a cowgirl. She's also wearing a man's wrist watch. I'm mixing up ideas from different people all over Africa intentionally. the reason is that my characters are individuals from a culture (or two). Perhaps they wander a bit.

Here is the sculpture in progress. The pictures are in chronological order. I've spent about four non-consecutive days on this work. She's not quite half done now.




















Hope to have some more, maybe next weekend.

Its all over for the Alienware

I think I'm giving upon my Alienware. I keep plugging up holes but the boat is sinking. I have LightWave on my Powerbook so that may be my main 3D thang outside of work for a while. I need to ficus on drawing and sculpture anyhow. Not to mention the stack of Gnomon DVDs i got at SIGGRAPH. I'm planning on building my own machine in the spring, been checking out motherboards and processors on line,maybe I'll stock up on putty...

Work has been fun this week...snowflakes in LA!

putty

So I tried to replace the heat sinks on my machine, actually my friend Jason who is much more experienced at these things came by and tried even harder than I did. The damn things would not come off thanks to Alienware's use of crappy parts and the extra cramped mother board. So we took off the fans and glued on new ones using some epoxy putty I had left over from my sculpture. seems to work ok. I also replaced the damn ribbon IDE cables with some round ones. Finally I added a USB2 card so I can get a wireless USB card. Ok, pretty boring stuff. Maybe it will get beyond the typical computer blah blah at some point.

Blogasm

- I updated the site so that the news page is now powered by Blogger. nifty.

- Spent the day sculpting a second figure. Much easier when you feel like you know what you are doing.

CPU Asthma

- ug. My PC started hacking and coughing the other day. I decided three years of DC Metro bus smog had clogged the cpu fans so I bought some new ones. now I just have to figure out how to install them. Needdless to say this has stalled my latest project, currently dubbed "Pyschoscropy."

- All my website templates are on the PC so I haven't been able to update the site, I really need to get Pshop for the Mac.

- Finished John Brown's sculpture class. Very happy with my first figure (pictures coming soon, see moaning above). I started a second sculpture on my own this weekend. The class was truly fantastic, words fail.

- Finished my two chapters of Mastering Maya 7, waiting to hear about edits.

- Interviewed Scott Singer, Robert Vogt, and Denis Couchon of Dreamworks PDI for a story on Madagascar coming out in issue 7 of HDRI3D.

- Working on a project for YuCo next week. Hard work ahead, I believe "The Good Times are Over"