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Awesome!
I've never seen the old Flash Gordon serials :(
Hmmm... I feel a new YouTube search coming!
Dude! Brash is shooting the UV Map template!!! WTF?!!!
There have been so many films and TV shows that consciously paid tribute to Flash that I'm sure you have actually seen it all, just in a different form. The scrolling text opening of the original Star Wars was taken directly from the ongoing Flash Gordon (and other) serials. Here is an original from the '30s. If you haven't seen the 1980s version with music by Queen, do so right now.
I did see the one with the Queen soundtrack! Hey thanks - watching now!
I know that many things have spawned from them, referred to them, copied them... just never actually SAW them! LOL
This is great! Thanks!
Check out Ming's throne around the 14 minute mark and think Game of Thrones.
Fantastic!!! LOL I love this!
Wow, love your playlist, Dart. The Harryhausen vids are very inspiring. I am such a huge fan.
No modeling in this update. I thought I'd share some of my concepts and inspirations and invite suggestions. The most common suggestion that I see is that people should write/create in areas that they know. I am a hobbyist, not that that isn't obvious by lack of composition, etc. In my day job, I am a financial policy "expert" with a background in law and economics. Booooo, booo (duck and dodge the tomatoes). Anyway, I have some background in the disputes and cases accompanying the financing and settlement of the North American frontier, especially occasional financial panics and crashes. Many of the stories will revolve around taking real cases and disputes from the frontier era and transposing them to the galactic frontier. Brash will be a marshall called in to try to preserve order and justice. Moxie is an official for the Treasury Department that will have financial regulatory responsibilities. They will usually be working together, but not always. Moxie has to represent the interests of the bureaucracy whether she wants to or not. Naturally, there will be romantic tension, but Brash wants travel and adventure, but Moxie wants the glamor and sophistication of the capital - she only travels when she absolutely has to for work.
Here are some of my influences.
The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier (Judge Charles Flandrau, 1900)
Colorado Pioneers in Picture and Story (Alice Polk Hill, 1915)
Reveille in Washigton, 1860-1865 (James McPherson - but Margaret Leech 1942)
Famous Sheriffs and Western Outlaws (William Raine)
Montana, Its Story and Biography (Tom Stout, editor, 1921)
The Other Side of the Frontier (Linda Barrington, editor, 1999)
The Mississippi Valley in British Politics (Clarence Alvord, 1959)
Markets in History (David Galenson, editor, 1989)
Manias, Panics, and Crashes, A History of Financial Crises (Kindleberger, 1981)
Panics and Crashes: Lessons from History (Eugene White, 1991)
The Jacksonian Economy (Peter Temin, 1969)
The Politics of Indian Removal (Michael Green, 1982)
The American Indian in Western Legal Thought (Robert Williams, 1990)
Handbook of North American Indians, vol 4, History of Indian-White Relations (Smithsonian Institution, 1988)
Structure and Change in Economic History (Douglas North)
The Suprme Court and Uses of History (Charles Miller, 1969)
The Theory of Market Failure (Tyler Cowen, editor, 1988)
Theories of Economic Growth from Adam Smith to the Present (WW Rostow, 1990)
The Theory of Environmental Policy (Baumol and Oates, 1975)
Natural Resource Economics (Conrad and Clark, 1987)
The Rise and Decline of Nations (Mancur Olson, 1982)
Public Choice II (Dennis Miller, 1989)
******
But my biggest influence, by far, is by the late Antony Jay
Yes Minister, (Jonathan Lynne and Antony Jay, 1984)
***************************************
Thanks for sharing diomede, you are really making great strides in showing what you yourself along with Carrara can do!! Interersting background. I don't know what other people think, but forum personalities can kind of be like radio personalities when you can't see the person, and only know a little bit about them, from posts, so one develops an imaginary persona about them so to speak. We have such a diverse group here, and I imagine that's true of all software forums. Well, anayway, this is maybe turning into weird post...
Thanks, DesertDude. Appreciate the feedback and support very much.
One of the issues I am looking at is publishing (Dream big!). This type of information is always subject to change. But, according to one of my references (Formatting Comics for Kindle by Niki Smith and Michael Jasper) the author's royalties are also reduced by file size above a certain threshold. For example, according to those authors, Amazon charges the author $0.15 per MB of file transfer. Obviously, a comic book is going to have more MB than a book that is pure text.
Well then... perhaps animating for YouTube would work out better for you? ;)
Just babbling, of course. With nothing produced yet I wouldn't have a clue! LOL
It's cool that we can get in at Amazon... that's a huge audience.
As for the above, I love it! It's so cool that you have such a nice, clear idea of where you'll be going with this - yet it's broad enough where you have the freedom to rally let your imagination Go!!!
I chisel stone - and just don't want to make my stuff about that! LOL I've never really got into reading for pleasure - exceptions being instruction manuals, like Bryce, Daz Studio, Carrara, etc., Before getting Carrara I got this college text book in pdf form regarding digital animation for human figures. Well to talk about digital animation the author found it imperative to first teach us all how to create 3D humans - he took us side-by-side between box modeling (like what you do) and Nurb modeling - the same figure, different modeling styles. Really intense. He actually had us model individual eyelashed instead of using trans maps!
Anyways, when I first met evilproducer and Garstor, I gave my printed copy (I printed it all out and bound it) to evilproducer, whom was expressing interest in the Spline modeler vs Vertex Modeler... and I think that the Nurbs instructions would work perfectly in the Spline modeler - but not being adept at the spline modeler, I'm not really sure if that's true... oh boy am I ever getting off the subject! Where was I goind with this? Oh... right... reading for pleasure!
So in trying to get my screenplay written, while also planning for the future episodes, I've been running into problems with the whole writing process so I started looking at creative writing blogs and am now enrolled in some classes. Before any of those classes have even started, I'm starting to see a common necessity for authors - in order to write successfully, we must read! I may even take Werner Herzog's Master Class (he's a famous filmmaker), and he's always saying that we must read, read, read!
It's not that I never liked reading... I just never had much life left in me when I got home working long hours of overtime. I'd open a novel and fall asleep. Every time I try reading a novel, I fall asleep!
Well I have a pretty decent library, but it's all factual stuf. Encyclopedia type stuff. So now I'm starting to collect books of stories - good stories. I'm starting to read for enjoyment as well as to pick up on some good habits for writing.
I've always loved to write - making adventures for RPGs, writing articles for RPG newsletters (before I ever knew what RPG was all about!), I was the author of our Astronomical Society for a while... I just love writing! So as I wait to start learning how to write successfully, my imagination started churning out ideas, and I started writing! I think you've seen that thread started by Pjotter... but he's really sparked something inside me and now I'm just going for it!
I'll still be taking my courses and reading for fun to learn - and I have some good creative writing books on their way as we speak... so I'm hoping that my films will be able to captivate an audience. As long as a few people like it, I'll be happy. But I'm hoping for something higher.
Anyways... wow... I've written too long a post again!
Bravo on your vision... I really look forward to seeing it all grow!!! :)
Oh... PS: That book I gave to ep, I wanted to add that the author was saying how similar these modeling techniques will be between different modeling software, and he went on to recommend some of the more popular modeling software, and he included Carrara in his list!!! I didn't know that Carrara existed when I first got the book!
fantastic diomede - really enjoying this t hread
Thanks, Headwax and Dartanbeck. Dart, you are always overflowing with fantastic information. I know what you mean about evolving from encyclopedic stuff to fiction. Very inspiring. I have been reading old English epics, ancient greek comedies, watching lots of silent films, and of course what may seem more directly related to my project - the classic movie serials of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Crash Corrigan, The Phantom, Batman, etc. I have also gotten the Kindle version of various hero and heroine comics from the 30s and 40s. Speaking of inspiration, here are some more of mine. This category is comic relief. This month is slapstick month on Turner Classic Movies. So many great performers being honored. I like to watch old silent comedies for one type of joke, and then contrast with language-based jokes. Some comedy resources that have inspired me include
- *** The Portable Curmudgeon by Jon Winokur is a great collection of one liners and zingers by some of the world's greatest cynics.
- The Complete Idiot's Guide to Comedy Writing by James Mindinos
- ****The collected screenplays of Yes, Minister (which I mentioned above).
- The Bob Hope Exhibit that rotates at the Library of Congress. Hope donated all of his joke files and other related resources to the LOC. They have a rotating exhibit. Check it out if you visit Washington, DC. Groucho Marx, Danny Kaye, and other comedians also have donated a lot of material to the LOC. Danny Kaye's Inspector General is right up there with Yes, Minister for me.
- a collection of silent movies by Buster Keaton
and for your viewing pleasure, compare the physical grace of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin - not just comedians (full disclosure, about their movement, not just their jokes)
And here is a little of the genius of Danny Kaye and his wife Silvia Fine, who wrote much of his language based humor
Danny Kaye dragon with the flagon
Danny Kaye knight training
which Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd used for Spies Like Us
Here is another attempt to model Brash's face. Even though the nose and mouth could be improved, I think this will be part of the base model going forward. Improvements will have to come from morphs.
Thanks again to DesertDude for all of the reference links on topology.
nice looking topography !
on comedy - Rowen Atkinson gave a great lecture on comedy - here is the first part, the others are also on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9fsn6lQBV4
full of very interesting observations
What a great series! Thanks for the link. This is slapstick month on Turner Classic Movies. http://slapstick.tcm.com/
Great stuff.
They were SO talented. Too bad they were taking advantage of - breaking bones, risking life and limb for a night's meal for their families. They should have been consodered royalty!
Ow! My tummy hurts from laughing me arse off!!! LOL
ROTFFLMFAO!!! Rowan Rocks! So do all of those he's using for examples! Ow!!!
Out of curiosity, can his mouth open when he's done? Or will he be the more silent type?
Either way, he looks cool!
Love the quality of the topology!
Thanks for the interest. Moxie likes the strong, silent type.
Yes, Brash will be able to open his mouth and blink his eyes. I've let myself get distracted by other related things (modeling his spaceship, for example). However, I have finished off the general shape of the head and have started on the ears. I think I am going to have to have 2 or 3 more false starts on the ears before I am satisfied. My favorite guide suggests starting with a 9 and a Y to shape the ear. Right now, my attempts seem too jagged and severe. Here is a partial try for an ear that was a little better than most. But, still not satisfied, so I had to scrap the ear and start again. Note - I am cheating a little on the head render in that I have 1 level of smoothing applied.
FYI: SubD is not cheating... it's a way of life! ;)
Also, I think that this ear looks rather nice - at least from this angle!
Diomede, I keep saying this, so I hope it doesn't lose sincerity, but your work and perseverance are inspiring and awesome!! Great work!
Brash's ear does look like a very good... keep at it diomede... seems you are nEARly there.
Looks great - and smoothing certainly isn't cheating!
Thanks for the encouragement, everyone. Here is the head with my current ears attached and his mouth open and some spheres as stand-ins for eyes. I am still not satisfied with the ears, but there is enough geometry and in the correct place for me to fix with morphs. I think I made the shapes within the ear too sharp and the connection between the front of the ear and the side of the face too abrupt. I did a morph to open the mouth just so you don't think everyone in the future depends on telepathy. There is enough geometry around he eyes to open and close eyelids. The head will still need all sorts of things, including uvmapping, texturing, eyes, teeth, eyelashes, eyebrows, hair,...
I am going to get away from the head for a while and concentrate on the hands and feet. Pace may be slow but I feel like I am making steady progress. Each version of the Brash model has been a lttle bit better. If Daz ever gets its 3D printing available for custom figures, I'd order myself a Brash Lonergan figurine for Christmas.
Most people don't look directly at the ears unless asked to. In this case, if anyone decided to look directly at the ears, they'll see ears. Nice ears.
I'm not saying to NOT try and perfect them to your own satisfaction. I'm just saying that I think they look like ears. They really do. My ears have some sharpness to the inner shapes too. Don't yours?
Dart, Should Brash ever need to visit a Doctor for an ear exam... I wonder...
Hey Diomede,
I like this idea you have and you are doing some great modeling.
Figure or character modeling is difficult but rewarding at the same time.