Finally a good Sci-Fi Film!

Not quite the first official post of 2010 I'd planned, but I've been kind of busy doing the stuff for future posts... So my Tassie adventures will have to wait for a slower day.


I went with the Clan of R (of whom my partner Lady R is the youngest daughter) to the theatre the other day to catch James Cameron's Avatar.



HOLY *BEEP* it was awesome!!!


I went in pretty cold turkey. All I'd seen on the film was the single TV teaser shown in NZ, which is about 20 seconds long and makes the movie look pretty stupid (the Kiwi's have a skill at doing this in editing their teasers for movies though... everything that has come out since I've been down under has failed to appeal due to bad teasers).

I knew the basic premise it was going to be a environmental driven film, and guessed before entering that the soundtrack would likely be a James Horner. This was about it. None of which prepared me for what I was going to see.


Having avoided the hype going in, I could easily get on the band wagon now... to an extent.


Overall it was an excellent film, but NOT perfect. It also sadly didn't change how I'm going to watch movies.


I'll start on a negative about the experience, but not the film. Despite the hype around the new 3D aspect of this film, I seriously did not enjoy it!

When I left the theatre my eyes hurt, and I developed a headache later as a result (though my genetically inherited migraine genes are more to blame for the last part). The Clan oh R complained about eye pain too.

The 3D effect worked for the forest and wilderness scenes, and definitely created a neat effect there. However in human created environments, like inside buildings and spaceships the scenes had a very disconcerting fuzziness and blurring on the edges and backgrounds. Writing in these places in particular was hazy, and if your like me, trying to "focus" on them won't help focus them. It was the movie's controlling what I was "focusing" my depth perception on I found very disconcerting, as I have mild cataracts, and this movie mimicked it perfectly. Yet moving my eyes didn't fix the problem, like it would in real life... My constant instinctive trying to fix the problem caused me no end of fun during view I assure you!

If you have perfect eye sight pay attention to this effect if you watch the film, and imagine having this problem in real life too!

So I'm not a huge fan of the 3D part of this film.

The effects and CGI on the other hand... Just when I'm thinking I'm on my way to getting okay at CG stuff. Watching this movie made me want to cry myself to sleep, and throw my puter into the rubbish bin. It is definitely a work of special effects art!

The alien planet and its creatures were the highlight of the film. Both in design and execution. Apart from the horse like mounts of the native, everything about the planet was just incredible and fun to watch in an exploration and wonder sense. It conveyed exactly what I feel when walking through an real earth forest (been doing that here in Tassie a lot this week). Hopefully a few none nature inclined members of the audience will pick up some of this sense of awe of the nature world from the film... I loved every second on Pandora.

One of the factors that blew me away unexpectedly, was the soundtrack. Due to his own admitted tendency to write music the same way (as it is music as he thinks it should be), I'd written James Horner's scores off a while ago. Sure I can appreciate that the man has a certain style he sticks too, but once you owe the first fresh versions of these sounds from the 1980's you don't need to buy new barely different versions afterwards.

Avatar despite having a definite Horner feel to it, has an astonishing score, and one full of all sorts of new things from Horner (for me anyway... I guess he picked up a few new tricks in the last couple years, but this was their mega polished presentation). It pleases me greatly to have a NEW Horner album to listen to after so many years, and yet revisit some of his style from the 1980's (which as of late I've decided is my Golden age of scores. More on this in a future post)

The plot was very enthralling, but flawed, and this is why you won't catch me saying Avatar was the best movie ever or other such praise. I'll save my reservations for a minute.

Immediately as the film began revealing the rather bleak future for humanity Cameron forecasts in this universe, I found it relieving that others share my complete disdain and disgust for baseline human nature and more specifically corporate America. The environmental themes were excellent, and I loved how the native spiritualism was more a simplified version of food chain energy exchange then religious nonsense.

Most of what I heard about Avatar before seeing it, was about the "indigenous people" metaphors in the film, and how one smart white man saves the day. Watching the film, I found this argument absolute BS. If anything this film was about how cooperation from diversity and difference comes strength.

Yes the natives needed the human to help them defeat the advanced army they faced, but this is why they were the sympathetic side of the story. If they'd been self sufficient, the story would have been humans trying to stop them from taking over the Earth. The natives gave as good as they got from the "superior white man", if not for them he'd have had no salvation, no army to fight to save the planet, and no means of harnessing the native terrain and animals.

Speaking of characters, I liked the gimmick of the main character being crippled. Overall the cast was just stereotypes and archetypes, but they functioned the story pretty well. Too much Joss Wheadon like characters with their greyscaling would have gotten in the way of Cameron's environmental and society messages... which I think can not and should not have been greyscaled. So good on him for sticking to simplicity on this front.

Where this movie fell apart for me was the end climatic battle. It is basically a more gritty, gory, and sexy Battle of Endor from Star Wars. A tribal hunter/gather culture battles a Space Age mechanised army. Now though this film does it much better then Star Wars, it still suffers the same problem.

SPACE age opponents should not be dumb enough to fight in a manner hunter/gathers can even really participate. Without spoiling anything, the end fight on the human side should have revolved around the best quote from an earlier Cameron film. "Nuke the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure".

That said and done, I REALLY enjoyed the battle once I disengaged my brain, and let the flawed situation play out. For you see I have a very key weakness in Sci-Fi. The instant spaceships start shooting at each other, I enter a blissful state. Replace the good guys spaceships with Pterodactyls, and well Pterodactyls shooting at spaceships and vice versa. I'm kind of forced to enter a foaming at the mouth love of the piece!!!

So in a year that saw several shit attempts at Sci-Fi it was good to see one that was finally really good (okay and District 9, watched it on the plane, and it was as an overall film better then Avatar, but depressing and not fun. Might talk about it later too)

My 2009

The short version 2009 was a good year for me. At least compared to 2008. There were no really issues or dramas to making a living this year, which was nice change of pace. As 2008 was nothing but those.

Life

The Biggest Event 0f 2009

This year marked my last living in New Zealand. As of such a lot of my spare time was devoted to seeing everything in NZ for the last time, and overall I succeeded. I leave with few regrets of things unseen or not done.

The only things on the list left undone were making it to Stewart and/or White island, cage diving with a Great White, and meeting New Zealand's Dinosaur woman Joan Wiffen. The islands proved to expensive, the shark dive was impossible due to the company offering the experience never actually starting, and very tragically Mrs. Wiffen passed away this July.

Yet despite this small list, the list of what I DID manage to see and do is huge, and easily out weighs these small regrets.

That Which Stayed the Same

This year marked me and Lady R's 2nd year anniversary, and I look forward to many more of these. I couldn't imagine my life without her these days, as I have come to rely on her companionship and love to enjoy and survive life's ups and downs. Lady R's contributions to 2009 I will most certainly remember fondly.

Creative Efforts

2009 proved a huge year in my imaginative exploits.

The Biggest Single Thing of 2009

Of everything that came up and happened in 2009, the one that has had the biggest impact and will probably continue to do so, was ART Evolved.

When Peter and I started the online palaeo-art community, I personally had no idea how much this would impact my art. Originally I saw my 3D as nothing more than a fun hobby, but thanks to the to the motivation and inspiration of the bi-monthly galleries and the other participating artists, I'm beginning to seriously see the possibility of doing palaeo-art professionally (though most likely just on the side). This is a very exciting prospect, and one that I hope to strive towards with solid results in 2010!

As part of all this I saw the first of my art pieces go into print through ART Evolved in the magazine EARTH. I'm hoping in the future to increase this.

The Second Biggest Thing of 2009

I'm officially a "note worthy" blogger! Of my two major creative online projects (Traumador and ART Evolved), both were picked up and highlighted by Google on their Blogs of Note daily feature. I don't entirely bring this as up a boast, but it does feel incredibly good to have both these efforts recognized in such a public venue.

What was Lacking

Sadly in this finite world, one must make trade offs with their limited time and resources. Despite the success that has come his way, I sadly have not been able to put the effort into Traumador that I had in previous years. So I need to regroup and sort out my creative priorities.

Though having said this, I made sure towards the end of this year that I came up with some VERY exciting adventures and guest stars for everyones' favourite T-Rex to encounter in the new year. So hopefully I can pick up the pace on him a bit...

Work

Work that "Worked"

One thing that I will miss about New Zealand is how entrenched in my 3 regular skools I became. Despite being a substitute, I was essentially a staff member at Concord, and getting that way at Fairfield. So teaching went very well this year, with the exception of term 2 in which the swine flu scare caused teachers to take very good care of themselves to the point of not needing subs.

I also found the perfect part time job for the skool breaks! Sadly I stumbled across it on my last such skool break. None the less, the crew at Magic Childcare were lovely to me, and I hope them all the best during the NZ summer break!

Work that did NOT Work

Any job beyond free lance teaching. A small part of the problem is the economic crisis hitting Dunedin hard, but the bigger part are Kiwi employers. I consistently hit an attitude of due to not being a local (or worse be called an American!) I was not worth hiring. The holiday program that laid me off did so specifically for bringing new non-kiwi ideas to the table, which frankly I find unbelievably stupid!

There are many more things I could probably recap, but that would verge on ranting, and frankly I can't be bothered.

So here's to 2010, a year of epic changes for me. Hopefully it runs somewhat like 2009 did, or better. In any case you can probably read about parts of it here. So catch you then.

New Zealand- Final Thoughts

Well, here we are. A time long talked, planned, and prepared for. Only now it is actually here. I'm leaving New Zealand after 3 rather eventful years this weekend.

Like any other period in my life it has had its ups and its downs. This past year it has been becoming clear though I've overstayed the place. Which is just fine. I had many great times, and admittedly some really miserable ones. This is just life. I leave with many fantastic memories and have lots of good friends staying behind as an excuse to return one day.

I thought I try to summarize for both myself and everyone else my New Zealand experience with a BALANCED tally of my experiences of the country... I will do this through a list of for everything thing I will miss countering it with something I will not (currently if I were to just do this without balance in mind the will NOTs would win by a clear majority)

I will miss all the great friends I've made over here. In particular Clare, Paul and Laura, the Twitch, and my horde of Germans (who are too plentiful to list individually!).

I will not miss driving on New Zealand roads. Mostly due to Kiwis absolute inability to drive properly. They are hands down the worst drivers on the the planet (and I'm taking into account the stereotypical Asian)!

I will miss the actual truly "Beautiful Green New Zealand" with its many awesome beaches, forests, mountains, and natural parks.

I will not miss the propaganda and lying about "Beautiful Green New Zealand", a country that doesn't recylce, pumps its sewage into the ocean, has litter and garbage scattered on the street of even its smallest villages.

I will miss New Zealand winters, as it never dropped below zero for very long and only snowed one or two days of the year.

I will not miss New Zealand winters. Despite the aforementioned warmth of winter compared to the Great White North, the Kiwis don't insulate their homes, and as of such your living or bed room is only 1 or 2 degrees warmer then outside. This can be quite unpleasant when sitting down and trying to relax.

I will miss our current house. Especially the fact that the roof is just a giant glass covered balcony

I will not miss our house in the winter. Again it was the same temperature as outside OR colder!

I will miss living by the ocean and the many beautiful beaches of Dunedin

I will not miss being taunted by the ocean, in that you couldn't really go swimming as it was too cold, and despite buying a wet suit, having to still avoid it due to the cities sewage washing back into shore often throughout the year!

I will miss the road trips around Dunedin. 60% of all the coolest stuff in New Zealand was within a days drive (granted this could be a full on 14 hours round trip) of my house.

I will not miss the Kiwi drivers I'd have to watch out for on these road trips. Yes a repeat, but I really can not emphasis how bad at driving these people are.

I will miss how friendly and awesome the world travellers I encountered were. Be they from outside of NZ or be it a travelled Kiwi.

I will not miss the hostility and xenophobia of the none travelled Kiwis. They seriously put Americans to the test for most insular and nationalistic western country.

I will miss the food, at least the fresh ingredient foods like diary products and seafood.

I will not miss the Kiwi food. As a culture the Kiwis don't believe in spices, and eat very bland meat and potatoes style dishes.

I will miss my work. Especially the self employed system of substitute teaching down here. I was an educational mercenary and had to carve out my living amongst the dozens of independent skools in town (NZ did away with centralized skool boards in the 1980's, so they are all self contained entities for my purposes).

I will not miss my work, in how during slow times I was not guaranteed work and had to endure not getting paid for long stretches...

I will miss all the exotic wildlife down here

I will not miss the locals none caring or outright hostility to the wild. Not all Kiwis were like this mind you, but many who lived in the rural areas were the animals were to be found were shocking.

I will miss New Zealand, for the reasons above.

I will not miss New Zealand, again for all the reasons above.

So with this list done and out of the way, I leap into the heart of moving on the eve of the X-Mas holidays. As a result posts from me here and elsewhere (Traumador in particular) may be slow for a little while.

All the best to you this season (be it winter or summer), and we'll catch you on the flip side...

Last art post for a while

We're very close to T-Minus 1 week from the leaving New Zealand forever!
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As of such things start happening here quick, fast, and hard... To quote my favourite teenage space opera (which one is it, you geeks out there?)
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Meaning there won't be much time for either making my art and/or posting about it. The goal after this post is that I get my 4-5 pieces done for ART Evolved (a series set in the same time and place... one of the advantages of using CG), so I don't have to worry about working on them immediately after heading over to Australia.
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Here is your slight sneak peak of what they're going to be...

I got Kaiwhekea skeletoned, rigged, and roaring to go.

My next big obstacle is creating some prey for him.

There is a chance Dr. Fordyce will be interested in using this fellow now that I've got it. So that could be exciting.

The biggest news of all is that my Squalodon passed its final inspection by the good doctor, and has only a few very minor tweaks. Essentially I got a 90% (with the chin area being the only absolutely major concern). More on this story coming to ART Evolved in my Flukes series.

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He'll be making an appearance in Jan along with the Kaiwhekea (among other critters!) at ART Evolved. Hopefully in even more public venues later in 2010!

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As I've been taking a lot of Traum related photos for his own big finale with NZ, I was inspired to start work on somethings for his future here too...

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Thought you'd seen the end of his interactions with Mythology and Maori Legends... Think again!

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This is the start of one of several new Mythological inspired denizens to be appearing on the Chronicles next year...

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Note it is too scale!

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I'm also trying to make sure I keep Traum's current adventure going and conclude able by Feb... as there is a HUGE surprise in store for you all then!

The next two Dinosaurs are presents as it were for two old and dear friends of mine, who were gracious enough to put up with my insanity and appear in Traum in the next few posts.

Why and how they are presents will make sense with the post themselves.

The question I have for you all, can anyone successful guess what types of Dinosaurs these two are? I'll give you one key clue, they are both native to Alberta...

Head in the Game

Having shown my Kaiwhekea to Dr. Fordyce I was interested to hear that there was no definitive stance on exactly how this animal's skull was supposed to go together in life.

That's not to say we don't know what its skull looked like. Kaiwhekea is known from a fairly complete skeleton (in fact the MOST complete of any known marine vertebrate from New Zealand), but it is badly crushed. So the skull is distorted, and as of such it leaves a few questions as to how it would have been pre-burial.

This was my initial version. You'll notice the nearly 200 needle teeth. They were a "lot" of fun to put in... especially as you'll see, I ended up having to place them all a few times *groan*

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As he was unconvinced one way or the other as to what the animal might have looked like, Dr. Fordyce did not venture much of an opinion on the skull (though the neck needs a bit of work).

This is the Kaiwhekea skull (courtesy of the University of Otago's page on the animal). Despite its crushed nature, people with some knowledge of typical Plesiosaur skulls will see how this animal differs greatly from other Cretaceous Plesiosaurs. However the details are lost, and as of such I was trying to recreate this skull with as few "details" as I could.

This ran in the face of the one common restoration of Kaiwhekea out there on Wikipedia, by Dmitry Bogdanov. You'll notice there is a lot more definition and "detailing" in the forehead and chin then is present in the skull. Additionally the mouth has a discernible U slope under the eye, again not present in the skull.

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I was wondering where Mr. Bogdanov was getting the ideas for this. It looked kind of cool, but at the same time I got the impression he was working off a skull reference of some sort. It certainly wasn't the fossil skull, as I'd been using that, and it wasn't anywhere near as "interesting" in its details.

Till I came across the skull restoration available on Plesiosaur Directory. There was no question this was Dmitry Bogdanov's basis for his restoration. I decided to follow suit, though not exactly as he had done.

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It was tricky getting a match. Especially on the thin "lips" at the end of the snout... So Dmitry Bogdanov's restoration once more for comparison. I use his, as again it is the only other (accurate) restoration out there. Geoffory Cox and Chris Gaskin have both done supposed Kaiwhekeas, but their heads were clearly modelled on the more typical Elasmosaurid design.

Mine version is not an exact match it should be noted. Partially as I couldn't be bothered to match the skull 100% (as likely this skull restoration isn't 100% correct itself), and as I wanted mine to be a little different this is where I got it too.

My Kaiwhekea on its own.


With its mouth open it demonstrates just how truly bizarre and unique its family of Gondwannaian Plesisosaurs are, in comparison to the more familiar Elasmosaurids of the northern hemisphere.

Where did it all go?

It is hard to believe, but I only have 2 more weeks left in this country... Frankly I can't wait to go.

The epic soap opera that is packing and wrapping up have begun with a vengence. I've also done such a good job of seeing all the sights once more, that there isn't much left on the agenda to do that is fun (which is good, as there is no time for it anymore!).

I have so, oh so, many projects to try and wrap up.

Despite my co-creator of the kids book being something of a whinny git about trying to publish it (he has waited till the literal last minute of the 3 *BEEP*ing years!) I've given up on it, but he is forcing me to use up a precious day to work on it again (though I'm not going to be happy about it!!!)... I need to finish prepping my whale skull for Dr. Fordyce, and try and complete my 3D whale. Though the Palaeo-art whale at this stage is likely to have to be completed through email correspondence.

With ART Evolved's big "Blog of Note" break through yesterday, I'm also forced to redouble my efforts on my pieces. I'm being smart and trying to get the whale done for it, plus my Kiwi marine reptiles.

As I got some feedback from Dr. Fordyce on my Kaiwhekea the other day, I thought I should try and complete it here today. Apart from rigging I think it is ready for use in a final piece or two...

In the pages of the Prehistoric Times?

I'm getting to one of my New Year's goals early this year. That goal is to get my art published at least twice in 2010 (doubling my single publication of this year).
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The application deadline for Palaeo-art submissions in the Prehistoric Times magazine is coming up next week. They are looking for pieces with an Anomalocaridid and a Stegosaurus. I've got plenty of Anomalocaridids to send, but the Stegosaur was a problem up until today...
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Fortunately I was not completely caught with my pants down. I had my old Mark: 2 Stegosaur model built at about this time last year... A few changes and improvements to the shaders and the addition of a skeletal rig (making it a Mark: 5 if you were wondering). This is what I came up with.
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It's not too bad considering the limitations of the current rigging (rigging plates is coming close to feathers on my scale 'O hate). If anyone can see anything that needs improvements, you can stuff it! :P No, I'm kidding. Please send you suggestions to me the usual ways.
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Combined with this piece, which I am fairly confident is a very strong contender for publication, I should hopefully have a magazine to pick up... with my art in it SOON!

Way TOO much on the go!!!

Man what a week...

This was officially the busiest week I've had in months!!! Between work (2 days at regular and two late days at the daycare), trying to get rid of the old car, arrange the borrowed car, taking the last of Germ-man Traum photos, a farewell dinner for said German as he and his wife leave for good in 3 days *tear*, and finally a pretty full on migraine my week has completely disappeared!

There was next to no time for blogging, 3Ding, or anything else overly productive (other then principle Traum photography... which I guess is a big deal. I just haven't been doing a lot of them this year, and so they feel out of place).

Last weekend during my Peter phone call, I did get to starting the prey for my Mosasaur. This Kiwi fossil here, the Aristonectidae Kaiwhekea. It is a fairly specialized and unique form of Plesiosaur. I'll be going into my detail on this once I get to the serious work on the model.

Here's where I have gotten too. The big "breakthrough" (more like smart use of a simple process... 90% of art is use of common sense I'm finding) is the display of my references in 3D space. It is simplistic, it isn't really interact able, but it is handy when tweaking proportions and limb placements to have my references floating there.

I will do a proper post on how to do this later. Hopefully this weekend I can reclaim some of my time... but I have to start packing soon, and have a farewell a week till we depart (resulting in our own big farewell) so I'm not expecting any earth shattering artistic developments.

I think we're onto a winner here...

As all Mark 5 models must now include a skeletal rig for posing (why I'd do the hard, long, and inaccurate old fashion posing anymore is beyond me!) I added a skeleton to the Tylosaur today.

This is one of 3 models I've ever built that I do not hate (though looking back on one of them today might have that revised to just this model now...). In fact I'm so proud of this model, that after a few more tweaks I'm considering firing off a few shots to Mike Everhart (Mosasaur guru extrodinare) for his opinion!

Was I complaining about Mark: 5's before?

Okay, so officially I've blown myself away. When the Tylosaur only had its body shader it looked like any of my other models. By the time I'd textured up the head and lower jaw it was becoming clear this wasn't one of my typical models...

I seriously can not believe I built this. Of course the kicker is, we've all seen this model throughout the week, but with the new Mark: 5 shading, it looks like a something completely different!

That and I think I managed to capture the Monitor Lizard feel I was aiming for!

I also feel I'm closing the gap between myself and Dinoraul, a 3D modeller on Renderosity whom I respect, and frankly envy the models of... Though I have to say apart from his more detailed modelling and shading, I have actually outdone him a Prehistoric critter. This is more due to his lack of correctness on the anatomy, everything from the skull back on this guy is dead wrong!

Though I would like to be able to match his modelling detail and shading. At least I've outdone him on something :P

Next step with the Tylosaur is to skeletonize him, and add my own details... once I learn to Vertex.