Boldly "Doodling"

For everyone who doesn't have or keep up with my recent (mis)adventures on other social media sites, the month of April has completely BLEEPing sucked! My wife in particular has been taking a beating from random events of life.

The topper of it all was this week our landlord gave us a month's notice to get out (his son just got married and wants our place now)... I won't go into the whole tale, but basically it was a clumsy attempt to bully us into his way crappier secondary rental property. Thing is this is Hong Kong, you can't play that kind of real estate hardball, and expect to win. So in good news we found a new place last night in the same building (and on the 55th floor, with a view of the park!).

The downside is it has really thrown off my artistic projects. I put the hippoceratops on the backburner for the moment (they aren't paying). I'm trying to hammer my Enterprise commission into completion. She's almost there.

This week though all I managed was this doodle version of the Enterprise. It's not up to the standards of use in an episode, but I think for a 3 hourish effort she looks pretty darned good. I'm sure if I put the time into it I could get it up to snuff.

Myledaphus Textured

It is ready for addition into the Alberta estuary. The weird lighting is from testing it in the scene.

Myledaphus the Guitarfish

It has been an interesting week off so far. I got a lot done on my Enterprise commission in the early week then I've had a ton of interruptions. The Enterprise is at a stage where I need to have solid blocks of time to make progress on it.

A lack of solid uninterrupted time, combined with some recent reservations and discussions I've been having about All Yesterdays has me a little more inclined towards palaeo-art again.

Today I found myself with just under an hour, and a running computer. So I thought I'd try my hand at making a Myledaphus (a prehistoric ray that was incredibly common in Alberta). 

I was thinking it'd be one of those hours wasted on R&D, with me only learning how NOT to make a 3D ray. Turns out I nailed it within 30 minutes...

He obviously needs textures. I also made the nose too pointy. So need to blunt it a bit before proceeding. However overall I'm quite pleased with it overall considering how not hard it turned out to be.

Why do I need a Myledaphus?

Well here is a preview of a world first (or so I'm hoping).

Work in progress

My little guitarfish will be finding itself running away from a fully aquatic hippo like Anchiceratops!

Anchiceratops

Well now that I've overcome my palaeo-art hump, I've got two ceratopsian pieces I've been meaning to do.

The first requires our friend Anchiceratops here. Given how many ceratopsians I've done, I'm a mostly Centrosaurid fan. This is only my second Chasmosaurid.

While I love this texture, I should really knock up another. Technically this is my Kosmoceratops' colour scheme. Yeah its made up, and I can apply this to either, but I should make some more to make my Ceratopsians distinct.

So expect a somewhat unique first crack at Anchiceratops (at least I hope it is a first).

Just have to finish up my commissions first.

Sunset Play

Been literally rebuilding the sunset. 

Carrara has a decent built in sky generator, but it is somewhat restrictive in editing individual elements. So I decided to build my own sunset completely from scratch. 

Work in progress

I started building a sun. It is a sphere primitive with a liberal application of glow. However I wanted it to pack a bit more punch than this.

Work in progress

Adding a bit of lens flare I've got it down pretty good.

However the sky was too straight and uniform.

Work in progress

I think this is looking pretty good.

Wondering about the sky colours is the only sticking point.

Notice anything I haven't done right?

Getting back into Palaeo-art...

So as you can tell from this blog I've been kind of quiet as of late. Not that I haven't been (artistically) busy. I've got two board game commissions signed up (one is approaching 80% completion).

However I haven't been doing any palaeo-art in almost 6 months. Which is really weird. I can't think of a time in the past 6 years where I wasn't working on something prehistoric. For some reason or another I've experienced some serious palaeontology apathy/burn out. Perhaps after the solid half decade plus this was to be expect, but it still feels weird to not be doing my "thing".

With the decision by Peter and myself to wrap up the ART Evolved galleries for the time being, I'm forcing myself to do at least one really big bang finale piece for this tradition. I own a ton of my artistic growth to the galleries, and so it is only fitting I see them off with a final tribute.

To that end I wanted to push my new found lighting skills into unfamiliar territory. I want to do a Tyrannosaur silhouetted by a sunset.

Work in progress

Here is my start. I think it is looking promising, but perhaps has room for improvement.

Any suggestions 3D people out there?
I've got a primary yellow light coming from the back. I've got a reddish fill from the left, a orangey brown from the right, and two blues from either side of the camera. The bounce (not that you can see it a moment) is a yellowish brown.

My productivity of late

Just thought I'd post some of my most recent work here. Though do keep up with my dedicated palaeo-art site at www.cdylke.blogspot.com. I post everything there!

Stegosaurus Progress

I've been quite productive in between the hecticness at work lately. All my last few Dinosaur pieces have been models or entire scenes that I started long ago, and only had to do some finishing work on now.

The one true new construction I've been toying with lately is a piece for the Stegosaur gallery.

Work in progress

It is a long ways off, but I'm quite happy with how the environment is building up. I'm not happy with the Stegosaurus base colouration underneath the bright blue. So I will be playing with that a lot more immediately after this post.

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.