The conquest of Feathers...

So I've been working on 3D feathers for a year. Yeah you heard me. A year. You finally get to see the results now.

The exciting news is this part of a build up to a relaunch of The Tyrannosaur Chronicles. The video direction has hit crippling schedule conflicts (much like the Chronicles). The bad news is you might still have to wait a bit for Traumador's return. I'm taking the time to build up to an awesome return.

So in the near but undefined future (realistically probably late May) expect more Traum, New Zealand, Vivus-critters, and mythology. Plus several other surprises. So stay tuned.

These are my feathers, as of my 2010 revisit in March.

A little better than my old feathers. However verging on shag carpet. At the time they were better as I put them on in patches and could better control their orientation. Yet they still don't quite look realistic.

I re-approached the project this month. The results have been slightly spectacular.

This is feather kung-fu in comparison to my previous attempts.

Any thoughts from out there?

My new Mark 6 3D modelling technique

Managed to put in a day's work on a Terror Bird for the upcoming ART Evolved gallery.

While the model itself isn't my best work, you may note the nice new feathers. Despite these giving me a few slight issues, they are no where near as infuriating as they were two years ago!

I have developed a rather nice, simple, but yet devastatingly efficient way of feathering a critter without MOST of the fuss (other than orienting the feathers on the model).
Which means I've stumbled upon the next Mark in my 3D construction techniques. Ta-da we have Mark 6!

Meaning I have to upgrade all my previous feathering rigs (which is fine. I have plans for them when I finally manage to get back to Traumador... oh how I wish I had a machine that could produce extra time!)

Ornithomimids are WEIRD!

So I had my first ever proper teaching job interview yesterday. I am not sure how it went yet, but keep you posted.

For some stress relief, I finally got to some 3D work done.

I can not talk about what this project is for, other than it is aiming to be in a formal publication. All I can say is it involves an Ornithomimid.

This is a Dinosaur I've never built properly before. Despite this is really is just a stretch and distortion of other theropod body types. So I just modified my Deinonychus into this...


Now is this just me, or does this not look right?

Seriously the whole thing just looks out of proportion to me. Yet, apart from the hands, this guy is total to anatomical specs. Seriously.

So am I the only one who thinks this fellow just looks wrong. I'm sure once it is posed he'll look better.

To prove he is correct here is my procedure.

Here is what I manually created initially based on my guts (which if you're wanting to be a serious palaeo-artist... you should never do!!!). It looks more like a Therizinosaur.

Well to get me in line with reality, I throw up a real Ornithomimid skeleton for comparison. Which shows you why I think the real proportions are so weird.

You can see exactly what I think the key features of an ostrich Dino are. What is weirding my out is how the neck really isn't as long or robust as I have pictured in my head. They are actually proportionally very small and skinny compared to especially the legs (which makes sense given they were the fastest of Dinosaurs).

After a few tweaks (and in a couple cases major overhauls) I narrowed in on the proper ratio.

So I just need to fix the fingers, and maybe the tail.

Leaving me again with this fellow. Who just looks weird to me...

Wish my luck on the project, specifically getting the gig.

My Tyrrell Talk

Well my talk at the Tyrrell has come and gone. From all the feedback I've heard thus far, it was well received by scientist and general public member alike. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it (and if you didn't make it, no worries. A mid-Friday time slot on the same day as 10cm of snow. You've got plenty of good excuses :P).

For those who missed it (or want to see it again... minus my laser pointing) here is the talk with my audio and slides.



Sadly it might lose a bit without the laser pointing. Oh how I love my laser pointer :P

I'm giving a talk at the Royal Tyrrell Museum!!!

If you have nothing else to do this Friday the 14th at 11am and find yourself in Drumheller Alberta, why don't you pop by the Royal Tyrrell Museum for my upcoming talk on New Zealand Palaeontology.

As I know for 99% of you this will be impossible, no worries. I just thought I'd put it on the record that I'm going to be an official part of the Tyrrell's speaker series.

My talk is a general overview of New Zealand paleontology, with a particular focus on what kiwi fossils do or do not tell us about the evolutionary influences of island isolation.

For the majority of you who won't be able to make it, I'm in the works of seeing if I can record my talk and post it here. I haven't had official word back yet. So I can't make any promises.

New Year... New Traumador

Man I can't believe what a bust 2010 ended up being for me artistically and creatively. I not only was not able to really push the boundaries of my current skill set, but I was unable to keep up with my ongoing projects.

My attempt at doing Dinosaur Olympics has almost all but killed my interest in the Traumador saga... Though to be fair a combination of failed photo shots here in Canada, a collapse in my envisioned future of Traum's storyline, and most critical of all no free time (on account of the most temporally demanding job I've ever had!) were more at fault than the Olympics themselves...

Point is I'm taking a break for the next couple of months from Traum's storyline. My apologizes to those out there who really enjoy this part of his blog. However I have neither the drive, energy, and most important interest at this stage. Honestly to do it right I need these things. I'm not saying I'm throwing in the towel on it altogether. I am just taking a break until I can sort out my issues (that being mainly my current job, which will end as of June this year one way or another!!!).

Not to despair though. I'm far from abandoning Traum. If anything I'm putting more energy into him compared to at least 2010 (and 2007). Though I like how the character has grown on the web, I do miss a key part of his roots. That being him in lots of silly videoes.

As there is no way I can see me combining Traum's storylines with video (just making some of the still images for posts was killing me), I'm falling back to when he was doing palaeo science stuff. I have some real treats and surprises for you guys already filmed, and a bunch more coming up for filming in 2 weeks. So stay tuned.

My hope is that I can finally create a real following for Traum. He currently only really has a couple dozen (at most) loyal readers. I'm hoping to up his exposure, and try to establish Traum a legit place in the palaeo-blogging sphere. While I'm a medium level blog out there, this is more just due to Traum's running time. The longer a blog is maintained (Traum's going on the 5th year here!) the more prominent you become. While this has helped, I've hit a wall in the last 1.5 years growing him. So I feel a new direction is needed to try and get some new people reading/watching him (plus than they'll hopefully go through all the old content and ask for more...).

The other reason I'm stepping back from Traum's story is that it eats up about 75% of my creative time and energy. Up till now that was fine. It had plenty of skills sets embedded in the art that were forcing me to grow and learn new things. However at moment I feel very comfortable with everything and anything I've needed to do for Traum's story pictures. Now I'm craving leaving my comfort zone. Especially as I have new "toys" as of X-Mas to play with.

The first of these is Adobe Flash! I have quietly been wanting to learn Flash forever, but never gotten serious about it mostly due to not owning the software itself. Now that is no longer an excuse due to the generous gift from my parents.

So I've purchased a teach yourself the program book, and so far I'm ahead of the game! This Ceratopsian (bonus points if you can ID it in the comment section) is my product from a lesson supposed to teach me how to build a simple tea cup. So I'm optimistic I will pick all up fairly quickly.

It helps that Flash's hardest functions and tools are from both photoshoping and 3D animation. So I'm already pretty competent in both... Keep you posted.

My direct Traumador project is trying to take this play logo from Dec, and turn into into something more cute and funny.

This is where it currently stands as it were.

I've put a LOT of work into this T-Rex skeleton... So much so I can and have...


Animated it. This will all be directly tied to the big new ongoing monthly Traumador feature... However you'll have to guess what for now.

Anyways back to tinkering.

Elephant Live Blog 4

So after a little bit more work last night, and a bit this morning my Mammoth is done!

While I shall force you to wait till the Gallery's opening to view the final version here is a preview of things to come...
So here is my sad little guy in the middle of his arctic abyss...

In the final version he is posed and there is a bit more going on in the environment, but only a bit more.

The only clue you get is this epic fail of a render I tried with my snow effect. What is going on with the snow you'll have to predict.

So that concludes my live blogging for this gallery. This must constitute my shortest 3Ding creation for ART Evolved, but I was aiming for something simple and non time consuming. I have a lot of other projects on the go. All due this New Year!

Elephant Live Blog 3

Here we are, nearly the end of my first day's attempt, and my critter is 75% done after a mere 4 hours. A first for sure.

A quick aside. The cartoony fur job was inspired by an ancient screw up on my part way way back when... Looked bad back then, hilarious now. So remember kids, always learn from your mistakes!

So starting on the Mammoths face.

The tusks needed to be brought down.

This first attempt at the trunk half looks funny as the shader didn't match...

Furring the face has been proving a challenge much like the feet...

First thing I did was seperate the head into a forehead "blub" and face. This way I could make the face fur thinner and the blub thicker.

Again the eye holes were proving a titch fussy...

It took a few tries...

However a little preserverance and you can manage anything!

Elephant Live Blog 2

So got a leg done just before post 1.

Here is my progress with it.

Here is how they started.

Adding hair to them I got this. Wasn't totally happy with their orientation.

A slight tweak later, and presto! Contentness...

Now to add some toes. This was proving a titch harder than I thought...

However with some patient reapplying of my replicator I cleared enough space for the toes.

So now I had to add the toes. Which on the first go were too tight to each other.

However with the hair clearing I'd done gave me the effect I was going for.

Though I'd cleared a bit too much of the shag from the inside...

So a quick Adjeustment and we were right as rain.

I'd almost be embrassed to post this thing as just the modelling I've done. It is nice and simple, which on one hand is kind of neat. Yet it isn't that impressive...

Adding my hair (which has been proving to be about 70% of my time expended) I get something rather impressive!

He is a virtual muppet!!!

Now on to the imposing task of the head...

Elephant Live Blog 1

Righteo, a Mammoth is the order of the day. I still don't have a clue what I'm aiming to do.

I do know I have NO interest in a full on scientific reconstruction of one at this point in time. Mammals bore me most of the time, and frankly I have no use for a Mammoth. So rather then enter into the very time consuming process of making a realistic Mammoth, I'm aiming for something not real...

What and how I have no clue!

So I've spent the last 40 mins playing around.


I've so far only really built the body. It is a simple thing, but should suffice for the moment.

Espeically when I add the Wolly part to it, it looks not too bad. Though the Wolly was a bit too big here.

So I've just been playing with the size of the shaginess.
This was what I ended up deciding on.

However I tried the next size down which ended up looking TOO real...

Added the shader, and I think I'm off to a good start.

I've just started on legs, but literally just started. So I'll leave them to next hours post, as I expect they'll take up the majority of that time.