hocuspocus

Love Kylie Minogue's new ad campaign for Tous handbags:

Speaking of Hocus Pocus, does anyone remember that movie? I used to watch it over and over as a kid, even when it wasn't halloween and I always wanted a Thackery Binx of my own. Also strange to go back and see Carrie Bradshaw play an airheaded witch.

Anyway, happy weekend!

Speidi Surgery Surplus

Every gossip magazine in the country is covering the Heidi Montag plastic surgery overkill story, and it looks like her hubby Spencer Pratt is wanting to cash in on the publicity Montag has generated with her previously reported 10 procedures.

Pratt has released statements to media outlets expressing his interest in chest implants, but sources close to the couple are also stating that he will also go under the knife for a rhinoplasty and liposuction.

Looks like the plastic surgery bug is contagious at their house, who�s next I wonder�. Stephanie Pratt or little Enzo?

Three things I love Thursday: February 18, 2010

1. These chandelier prints from Ish and Chi's etsy shop:

2. This dotted-Swiss lace eyemask designed by Dita Von Teese for Moschino. At first I gagged at the $130 price tag, but at least 30% of proceeds will go to AIDS charity amFAR. I'm torn. It's beautiful and I love Dita...

3. SMITTEN MITTENS!!!

How am I only now finding out about these? They are made for holding hands when its cold out. My boyfriend would kill me in my sleep if I tried to get him to wear these in public, but they are quite adorable.Found at the etsy shop Love Driven.

Random images I like today

Texture Tuesday: February 16, 2010

J. Crew jelly flatsModCloth dress
Prada purses

Research & Inspiration

Here i will be detailing my design ideas and what things have given me inspiration towards my animation and its features.

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#Intro Scene
For my intro scene I wanted the camera to pan down through the trees of the forest, passing objects along the way (maybe even an owl sitting on a branch). So I thought about how this could be done and how it would look and chose to base my idea on a piece from one of my favourite PC Games - Dawn of War 2.

Dawn of War II trailer

The Game trailer begins with the camera pan down effect im looking for and it helps alot to see how this looks when used. (There is also a forest-environment present! - perfect)

This effect can be seen at: 0:04 - 0:14 secs in the movie

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#Character theme / Design
The Characters featuring in my animation need to be simple yet but effective in the way they portray feelings, thoughts and interaction with one another. I'm a big fan of the wallace and gromit model designs and thought this would be absolutely perfect for a children's animation.

The models show a large about of thought and emotion in their faces, mainly the use of the eyebrow line and mouth.

Bat Modelling - pt. 1

My first character in the fable is a bat, so this will be the model i will start with.

I started off by researching some good images of a bat to craft with and found a suitable 'morphology' view of a bat that I have chosen to base my model on. this is a particularly good reference image as it shows all body parts and how the wings work. To begin, I created a simple plane with dimentions matching that of the reference image and applied the image as a material using the material editor and assigning a bitmap image.

I have become quite proficient and comfortable starting off with 'planes' to model my pieces, therefore I will be using the same technique here for the bat. The image demonstartes the first stage of the 'plane-modelling', where the body is covered with a plane that has been set as 'see-through' under the object properties settings. This allows me to carefully edit and mold the plane to get the desired shape to work with.

I covered half of the bat's body with the plane, then applied a symmetry modifier to get the exact same shape on the other side - as the image shows, this allows a nice, neat finished plane covering the bat's body.

After the plane has been shaped to fit the bat's body, I continued to expand the plane by selecting relevant edges and cloning the selection, to create a new section which covers the next area. As you can see in the image above, the plane has been extended and shaped to cover one of the bats arms.



Once the entire arm of the bat was finished using the edge / clone expansion technique. I did the exact same for the bat's lower leg and feet. The next stage of this modelling process will be to clean up any edges that are not aligned or shaped properly and finally add another symmetry modifier to mirror the plane on the other side to save time and get a good, simple base-outline to work with.