Joan of Arc part deux

Today's update on the Joan of Arc model I've been working on. Still have some clothing and details to get done before I can say I'm done with the modelling part. And her proportions are not quite correct yet, hehe. Quite long and thick legs there, miss..




Anyway, I'm posting this update now as something tells me I'll be very, very busy with work related projects for a while now. Got a biiiig motion graphics project coming up, and I've just started teaching myself After Effects, so.. yeah, seems I have to study quite a bit the next weeks.

Joan of Arc

Alright.. So several years too late I actually started on the pretty much obligatory Joan of Arc tutorial. As organic modelling is far from my expert area I figured I could use a little refreshment on the subject. I haven't followed the tutorial step by step though, I think some parts of it are just outdated and it's alot better practice to work things out yourself than following pictures. I've downloaded the concept art and somewhat skipped through the tutorial pictures while modelling though.

What I've though so far is replacing her hair with "real" hair from the hair and fur plugin and export her over to zBrush for some final detail modellering and such. Take her a step further than in the tutorial. And of course pose her for a final shot. I thought about posing her with a small, angry dog of some sort for fun :)

Anyways, here's the progress so far. I know the propotions needs some adjustments and her arms are just temporary till I get her gloves finished. I do like her without her pants tho! :D

The Longest Journey

I just came across an article from June on gamer.no that I've completely missed before. It seems that Funcom has put their adventure game series "The Longest Journey" on hold until further notice while the concentrate on their bigger projects like Age of Conan and The Secret World. It's so typical. The games that tries to go another way, to tell a good story or just doesn't fit into the mass marked gets put aside for the AAA mass marked titles. There really should be enough room for both of them! Actually I think there is, but I guess piracy on the PC platform is too big to make it profitable.
For those of you that haven't played the TLJ games they're classic adventure games with as strong emphasis on telling a good story. Both The Longest Journey and the sequel TLJ: Dreamfall are clearly among my top 10 games list, but the second game ends in an wide open ending. Although Funcom does state that their fans won't have to wait forever, they cannot give any particular date or year which they'll continue working on the series.

I can only hope more people get their eyes up for these brilliant games and show their support by buying the games. They can both be bought for a about £5(~$10) each at stores like play.com and are well worth the money.

NRK Super "barne-tv" (kids-tv) vignettes

I've uploaded three short vignettes I worked on at Qvisten Animation last summer on to my Youtube profile. It's three vignettes introducing the daily show for children on the Norwegian TV channel NRK. These are the tre intro vignettes, there are also three outros and a webpage created with the same models. I've been modelling most of the props and some texture work. I must admit it was one of the funniest projects I've ever worked on. No underestimated deadline and they gave us "workers" alot of creative freedom. Enjoy :)

My youtube page can be found here

New and improved!

If you're a regular here you've probably noticed I've done some changes and deleted all the old posts. From now on I will keep the blog focused on my own CG related projects, movies, games and the occasional compleltly unrelated things that I just want to share. But I'll try to stay clear of the more uninteresting blah-blah that this blog used to contain.
Oh, and I'm also working towards implementing this blog into a new and improved webpage. For those of you that don't know the old one died horribly in a harddrive crash on my cousin's server. So, lads, take a learning and remember "backup = good!". :)

To start off the new and improved blogorama I figured I'd do the unusual thing to actually recommend a sports game. I've never really been a big sports fan, but over the last years I guess I've become a more casual player than I was before. At the same time a friend of mine started tricking me into playing the Fifa games, and then actually somehow managed me to go and watch some football matches with the local team. So yeah.. I guess I got hooked. Not in the crazy, screaming and throw your clothes off and run naked across the field kinda way, but I've started to see the fun in actually putting an effort into supporting and following a team.
Anyways, yesterday while surfing the net I came across a review of NHL '09 saying it probably was one of the best sports game ever created, giving it a 9 out of 10. Last time I played an Ice Hockey game was Blades of Steel on the NES, not really a particulary fun game. So the review got me interested... I got the game on my way home from work and invited a friend over to play...
And, suprise(!), it was really fun! The controls were really intuitive. The left stick controls your man and the left one controls the hockey stick. If you've played SKATE you probably know somewhat how it works. The game is also fast paced, violent as hockey should be and you really get sucked right into it. If you don't like sport games I'm not sure it'll be enough to change your mind, but if you do I can absolutely recommend it!

Also got Spore last week and have spent some time playing that, but I don't see the need of getting into that now as the net is full of reviews of it anyway. Just go get it! :)

So onto what these games have been eating time from. About a month ago I came across an open contest for a candy product. Make your own 20 second commercial, get it shown on TV and win some money prices. I figured that while things are relaxing at work I could use something else to work on and started working on some concept ideas. Right now I actually realise that I'll never reach the deadline which is in two weeks, but it's fun to work with non the less. Figured I wanted to go for a Pixar Cars inspired look and I've modelled, rigged and made some facial expressions for the main characte.. eh.. main car so far :)

Screenshot from within 3ds max above. Other than that there's some interesting @work-projects in the horizont. Can't really say much more right now, but seems there'll be more big and creative projects like www.dyreparken.no which we sent live this summer.