Avengers Ripoff #6

My favourite fake teamup by far. Buzzlight Year, Mr. Incredible, Pelvic Thrust Batman, and.... well you can't love them all... Spiderman.

Avengers Ripoff #5

Yet another counterfeit superhero teamup. Ben 10 takes the cake on weird member. Though pelvic thrust Batman tries darn hard to compete.  

Avengers Ripoff #4

 Another counterfeit superhero set. This time we see the movie stars Wolverine, Captain America, Spiderman, and... Gladiator?!?

Transformers Ripoff #62

Chariot King: Transform

Transformer Ripoff #61

Bat-bot

Transformers Ripoff #60

Sorry these aren't the best pictures. I snuck these snaps in a very carefully guarded and hostile (especially to photographers) Chinese department store. I barely managed these given the one clerk who was keeping her eye on me (I got it in while she was helping another customer).

Conversion: Metals Car

Avengers Ripoff #3

Bonus points to anyone who can present an actual comic with all these characters on one team together

Avengers Toy Ripoff #2

Like I predicted, after this summer of super hero blockbusters the counterfeits have really started to roll out on the streets of Hong Kong. So with three choices of film Dark Knight, Spiderman, and Avengers I've been finding it humorous how these all get combined.

Take for example who this "Avengers" set includes... 

Transformers Ripoff #59

Transformable

Transformers Ripoff #58

Interchange Super Marshal

Robots Warriors

Intermediate

Transformers Ripoff #57

Dong Man Jin Gang

Transformers Ripoff #56

X-Formers Mutantes: Power Trucks

This is why I hate making Stegosaurs!

 Now that Stegosaurs have officially won the ART Evolved poll, time to hammer out a submission. As I'm starting to find my artistic bearings returning (especially after my museum success), I want to create a very unique and hitting reconstruction for this gallery. 

Before I can do that I need to tweak and fix my model for posing.

That means I have to rig every plate... Which is "fun". Increasing my enjoyment, it takes about 5-10 minutes per plate...

Oh well. Once it is done I have a fantastic scene in mind to show off a twist on Stegosaurus I've never seen before.

Is this a finished piece or not?

After a bunch of rendering through the night (I slept while my computer worked) I'm finally close on this Goronyosaur piece.

In fact I'm personally happy with how it looks now. However my wife has accurately pointed out the water is too blue given the stormy sky. I totally agree, but I don't want to render it all again, and I like the paintingy look it gives the piece.

Possible final version
Is the water too blue for you to handle

What do you think? Is this finished or not?

Contrasting with other splashes

I've improved the splashes a bit on the Goronyosaur piece. However I hit a better way to improve the piece, and that is my old friend photoshop.

Work in progress

I took some of the highlight out of the splashes, they were looking like balloons. The big coup of today was tinkering with the contrast in paintshop. The final product will definitely undergo this treatment.

Nearly there...

I'm closing in on the winning splash amount and placement for my Leopard Goronyosaurus.

Work in progress

The problems are minor but definitely there. The most important is the flatness of the prey splash off the ocean. I'm adding some supplementary splashes to give that a more rounded feel. The splash off the Goronyosaur's neck is doing something funny with its transparency, so that will need a bit of a tweaking. Finally while I like the blooded water around the neck, the stuff out of the Goronyosaur's mouth seems a bit over the top. So it'll be gone next pass.

Apart from that I think it is starting to come together alright. I also want to build a shoreline to put in the background, but beyond that this might be the end of what I thought would be a long build.

A better colour for splashes

I think I got this a bit better on the shader. I need a LOT more splashes yes, but I think I got the colour pretty darn close...

Work in progress

It's all a matter of scale

Been plugging away on 3D splashes in between staff meetings (I got promoted to a vice chair on the sports committee... ironic given my sports history) and renewing my HK work visa (can't believe I've been here a year now).

While the splashes as objects show promise, at moment they just don't do the trick...

Work in progress

They are way too big, and their shading is totally wrong. In my efforts to fix it I created an interesting mistake where the splashes glowed bright white when they overlapped anything else... I would post it, but I didn't finish the render (my new splashes are sadly bogging down renders to a snail paced 30-40min for 2000X2000 resolution... I'm only rendering when I'm really wanting to see stuff).

Making Splashes

I've always loved creating stuff to do with water, but hated making the water itself in 3D. It is a very complex and finicky substance to imitate, especially when it comes to splashes. Typically I've tried to use Carrara's frustratingly limited particle systems for these, but they are next to impossible to get precious control over and add horrendous amounts of render time.

With my new Goronyosaur piece, I need splashes EVERYWHERE, but I'll be darned if I'm going to waste days and days fighting with particles (AND rendering them) to make this happen (if they let me in the first place). So I've branched out into a new tool in Carrara I've never used before, one I should have tried years ago!

Work still in progress

It is called metaball, and it seems perfectly built to make still water splashes. I was able to use it instantly for this purpose (although admittedly I won't be able to do anything else with it at all right now). All you do is create spheres that the program than will connect through virtual viscosity, and thus you get great looking water.

The only issue I'm having is keeping droplets the right size at moment.

I do need to tune the splash shader a bit, but for a quick 20 minute play I think these prototype splashes are promising...

Thoughts or comments?

Ripping into a new piece

Well given that I got a new Mosasaur done, I needed something for him to do. As I based my Goronyosaur on a Leopard Seal, I took a quick look through photos of my favorite seal type to see if anything leapt out at me. Funny enough this photo popped right out at me. So I've tried to recreate this with a Globidens juvenile as a fill in for the Penguin (based on some of the musings by Darren Naish in this article, where a possible reason of Goronyosaurus' crazy jaws was hunting down the young of other marine reptiles... Globidens being (I believe) found in the same general area and time).

Work in progress

I'm no where near finished (I'm hoping obviously). I definitely need a ton of splash and water commotion to properly convey the motion and power going on here. I also wanted to add some land on the horizon to put this into a clearly coastal setting.

I'm quite happy with the clouds I've put in and light. I think the initial lighting is serviceable for the moment.

Thoughts, input, or comments?

Expanding my Mosasaur ranks

I was in an artistic funk, but had a long weekend the last few day where I had the time to let loose. So rather than give into my apathy, I figured I'd aim to do some more obscure critters. Obscure because that has so far been my ticket to success (which makes sense, everyone and anyone has done T-Rex, but how many have done Squalodon). 

 So I decided to tackle something easy, but still neat. Thus I did one of the most unusual of Mosasaurs. The crocodile (yet cartoon) like Goronyosaurus.

Seriously it is such a ridiculous skull.

The shader proved (as always) to be the time consuming part. I went for a Leopard Seal, after a failed Pilot Whale scheme.

The only problem is I have no reliable info on body proportions on one of these guys. Only the skull...

Does anyone know much about Goronyosaurus.

Thoughts or comments?