Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Oscars 2014

Oscar meets the real oscars.. aka Astronotus ocellatus. 


Modelled and textured in Blender. I started out doing a model of the statuette.. then realised that a lot of people have already done that.. so stopped refining mine(its pretty rough) and added a few othe Oscars :)
the Oscar Cichlid was way more easier to model than the rough statuette! 
 decided to leave at this detail.. and then just do the rest with textures.
 the front texture is from a photograph.. the back was painted on..
 the fish were easier to make.. basically they have oblong pancake like bodies with fins

 they all have the same refrence image as a texture.. quick and dirty
 heres the final thing on sketchfab.com


Have made the Blender model and textures available at Blendswap. 
click to download
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/73588



Thursday, February 20, 2014

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

How its Made - Lego Aliens Model

For a recent contest at Sketchfab.com i created a diorama of a few aliens(Xenomorphs from the Alien franchise) attacking 3 hapless humans.

The constraint was that it all had to be in Lego style.. to coincide with the release of the Lego Movie. The results were annunced today, and this model won 3rd place!
Heres how i built the winning model(3rd place):

To build the basic Lego character I followed a cool tutorial by @PatImrie -
http://www.creativebloq.com/3d/create-your-own-3d-lego-superhero-21410592 While the tutorial is for Maya, the same theory can be applied to any 3d software. I used Blender.

I havnt shown the modelling of the face hugger , guns or other elements as the process there was too haphazard and experimental to show properly in tutorial form. I have however shown how to texture paint in Blender and modify the textures in Inkscape.

The finished Model is viewable below

and my model's source files and textures can be downloaded over at Blendswap - http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/72535

In the model you see all 3 main phases of the xenomorphs' life cycle - the Face hugger, the Chestbuster and the adult. and heres a video explaining the biology of the Xenomorph..



20th Century Fox all rights reserved

oh and before i forget.. 
Congrats to the other winners of the contest!
1st prize:


2nd prize:





Monday, February 17, 2014

100th birthday of Bill Finger

The 100th birthday of Bill Finger was this week.. i know you probably missed it.

Its not your fault. Blame the publishing industry or Bob Kane or whoever you like..

The fact remains that Batman would be unrecognizable without Mr.Finger.


He's the writer best known as the uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comicscharacter Batman, as well as the co-architect of the series' development. 
Finger offered such suggestions as giving the character a cowl instead of the domino mask, a cape instead of wings, adding gloves, and removing the red sections from the original costume.[13][17] 
- more at Wikipedia

heres a quick run through of why he should be important to every Batman fan.



He later said his suggestions were influenced byLee Falk's popular The Phantom, a syndicated newspaper comic strip character with which Kane was familiar as well,[18] and that he devised the name Bruce Wayne for the character's secret identity. As Finger described, "Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Wayne, being a playboy, was a man of gentry. I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock ... then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne."[4] Kane decades later in his autobiography described Finger as "a contributing force on Batman right from the beginning... I made Batman a superhero-vigilante when I first created him. Bill turned him into a scientific detective."[19] Finger biographer Marc Tyler Nobleman described, "Bob [Kane] showed Bat-Man to [editor] Vin [Sullivan] — without Bill. Vin promptly wanted to run Bat-Man, and Bob negotiated a deal — without including Bill."[20]

Finger also wrote many of the original 1940s Green Lantern stories and would go on to contribute to the development of numerous comic book series.
He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999. His name provided the basis for the Bill Finger Award, founded by Jerry Robinson and presented annually at the San Diego Comic-Con International to honor excellence in comic book writing. - more at Wikipedia

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Lego Sketchfast

Sketchfab was back with another Sketchfast last weekend! To celebrate the debut of The Lego Movie, They decided that the theme should be - Lego! 
The goal was to design a Lego character and go crazy with it.. ..

Heres my entry..


obviously i'm a big fan of the Alien Franchise :) and i love Xenomorphs.. so i included them in all 3 forms: ChestbursterFacehugger and, Adult male(for details of the lifecycle click here).

Modelled and texture painted entirely in Blender, with Photoshop and Inkscape for some of the textures.

to see the other entries check out - sketchfab.com/tag/legofast

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Falana Dimka Films Logo





obviously we've got big Biooshock fans at the studio :)

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Centaur from Radioactive Hell

A little action figure customisation that happened during render time.
this was an action figure from the Chronicles of Narnia.. i had it gathering dust.. so decided to reclaim it with some art :)


Makerbot Replicator XL

Now you can print all those custom surfboard designs you always wanted :P