Wandering Imagination

It is weird. I think this has been one of the quietest periods on my blogs since I started doing them way back in late 2006 (has it already been almost 3 years?!?). I guess I needed a blog break, and to be frank it has been nice.

I feel a little guilty not getting Traumador out of Canada (I'm sitting on lots of cool adventures of his...), but my inspiration was low.

At the same time it doesn't mean I haven't been doing stuff.

After the rather informative discussion started by Peter over at ART Evolved, I've tweaked my Pterosaur inspired by advice and insights provided by Evolved crew member Nima (check out his awesome blog!).

The main changes are in the hips (something I'd been meaning to do anyways), the wings attaching to the sides now instead of the legs, and the shape of the wings which were curved backwards.

It still has a way to go, but I'm at least happy with the body, legs, and wing texture/transparency.

Of course anyone paying attention will realize I haven't done a ton to Mr. Pterosaur. The immediate question is what have I been doing with my creative spare time? I raise the question as I need to rationalize just to even myself.

For those who don't know, I suffer from a light to moderate case of attention deficit disorder, and as a result I have a tendency to drift from project to project. Normally Traumador's life is varied enough that I can keep up my gusto for his blog. However recently I had an old problem (that had gone dormant for a while) come back.

A fun fact about Craig: If he sees a good movie it can complete redirect his imagination and creative efforts towards new genres.

Now in the last few years this hasn't been an issue. So few things have taken my fancy,and those that have, lent themselves well to Traumador.


However this year saw the release of the first semi-descent (semi is sadly the key word this time) space epic in years. Well sadly taking Traum to space just wouldn't work for anyone I think... So I kind of lost the plot as it were.

Notice how Craig veered right off course and started building spaceships (here is the latest version of MY Enterprise by the way).

Sci-fi has always had a powerful draw for me. Especially given my wanting to be a computer animator on a Trek project (had I succeeded I may well have worked on the new Trek *tear*).

Meaning this is the first real challenge to my Dinosaur focus the last 3 years (which is amazing... back in the 1990's, the heyday of space epics, I'd veer between genres every couple of weeks!).

Though it hasn't been good for Traum, and is most likely the cause of my blog break, an my reactivated Sci-fi bug has led to some real progress on a long dormant (and overdue) project. My last movie Delta Patrol.

Filmed back in 2006, not only does the movie need 100 or so effects, but it hadn't even been completely put together... till this week!

I'm happy to say the rough cut is nearly done, and that soon I'll be aiming to crank out 1 effect a week (mostly laser shots and live action effects for now... I have a lot of spaceship modelling to do before the outright effects. This above picture is a sample of my current modelling efforts). Meaning realistically Delta Patrol won't be done till next year, but I can't say for sure.

I was really worried it'd take a while for my recent space obsession to wear off, and Traum would be in mothballs for months. Fortunately a great Traumador like film came out, and was way better then the let down that was Trek.

That was of course Night at the Museum 2.

Go see it! It is all the fun of the first film, but this time for the whole movie! After the first 15-20 minutes setting up the situation, this movie just keeps on delivering hilarious museum themed adventure and fun.

The great part was it doesn't resort to any gross or adult style humour. It is all family friendly, and not that I'm opposed to racy content, it was nice to see a innocent production in this modern era (especially after some of the dodgy jokes that somehow made it into the Ice Age 3 trailer before Museum).

So full on production on Traum resumed an hour ago. This being your sample of tonight's 3 images. Hopefully I'll have the post up in no more then 4 days...

It was perfect timing that Traum would get movie backup. Delta Patrol has received a much needed boast of work on it, but at the same time I should sit back and think about how to tackle the astronomic project of modelling the space stuff (pun intended).

So expect a flood of stuff, as I hopefully reemerge onto the blogging sphere in full force!