DRAGON HUNTERS

Here is a great 3min segment from the upcoming French CG movie 'Chasseurs de Dragons' AKA: DRAGON HUNTERS...

I really like the look of this, a welcome antidote to the poison that was Shrek. Can't wait to see it, here is the Trailer...

 

http://www.ivernel.com/

 

Pan and Daphnis

In Greek mythology, Daphnis (from Gk. daphne, "laurel" or "bay-tree") was a son of Hermes and a Sicilian nymph. A shepherd and flutist, he was the inventor of pastoral poetry. A naiad (possibly Echenais or Nomia) fell in love with him, but he was not faithful to her. In revenge, she either blinded him or turned him to stone. Pan also fell in love with him and taught him to play the pan pipes.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnis)

 

(Above)
Marble statue of Pan teaching Daphnis to play the pipes.
2nd century CE. Roman copy of a 2nd century BCE Greek original.
Archeological Museum, Naples.

(Above) Pan Seducing Daphne - looks like he's about to get a sandal wrapped around his chops.

Pan and Maenad ( http://www.ancientsculpturegallery.com/ )

 

(Above) Pan Raping Goat - He gets himself about (No information found)

 

“I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend

Everlasting world without end!

Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man,

In the might of Pan.”

– Hymns to Pan (1929)  Aleister Crowley

Appleseed: Briareos Model Kit

This must be one of the most impressive models I have seen... The finish quality of the model is superb. I would love to have seen the final tool of this before it went for mass production.

The Poseable Model Kit from Hot Toys is the cyborg Briareos from Appleseed - Ex Machine, the popular Manga & Anime. I aint read the Manga or seen the recent (2006?) Movie and I can barely recall the first feature, but I have always loved Masumune Shirow's design of the cyborg character.






http://www.sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=6363#jpgs

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT

Wow... this is looking like a great project, I heard about this Batman Anime a while back but it slipped off the radar till now...





official site: http://warnervideo.com/batmangothamknight/

The Right of Spring

While on the Dinosaur topic, I found The Right of Spring chapters from Disney's Fantasia on YouTube so I thought I would post them here...

GENESIS



EVOLUTION



EXTINCTION

DINOSAURS

I have a child-like obsession with dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals just now. Ignited anew by my research into Human Anatomy and also Comparative Anatomy; the function and evolution of the Vertebrates. The Evolution of the planet and it's life forms, sitting in the vast cold space of the Universe is the most humbling and fascinating subject.

Any how... I plan to make a couple of Dinosaurs to roam around my desk here (watch this space) so I ordered some Schleich dinosaurs to play with, errr... I mean for reference, along with a couple of books including the utterly absorbing: Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs.

This Month's Imagine FX (issue 29 April 08), and 3d World magazine (issue 102 April 08) both have great Dino features including tutorials from Weta artists Greg Broadmore and Steve Lambert and an article on Dinotopia creator James Gurney....

http://www.imaginefx.com/

http://www.3dworldmag.com/

I went on a hunt around the internet to gather some reference and discovered some cool dinosaurs on YouTube.... check this workshop for the Waking with Dinosaurs Live experience...

And a clip from the ludicrously grand TV show Walking with Dinosaurs...

What Next...

The course ended a couple of weeks back and since I have stepped away to get some perspective on the past months.

I started this digital journey in September and have fallen for the process. The control over the character is the greatest asset of ZBrush. Utilising Layers many alternate versions of the character can be contained within a single tool.

ZBrush still has many features which remain either unused or barely explored. ZBrush combines the disciplines of drawing, painting, modelling and sculpting... and it does all well. Very well.

For now I will continue with the Minotroll, making his arm in Maya. The next step is to begin to build a libary or 'graveyard' of characters and tools. When you have many assets it is easy to steal parts from each... hands from this guy, legs from here, this old head... Frankenstein modeling, or kit bashing it is known as - it basically helps get the base mesh of your character together quicker.

So I plan to:

1) build a base mesh.

2) Adapt this to get a male and female form.

3) From these two meshes adapt each further to make three specific but still basic body shapes. Which will represent the athletic, thin and obese forms. From these I could develop any amount of humanoid characters. These will give a good base of assets to begin with for further projects.

The three ideal forms are based upon the somatotypes (endomorphic, mesomorphic, and ectomorphic) a simplistic classification of body types, developed in the 1940s by American psychologist William Sheldon.

Below is an example of somatotypes from the book: Figure Drawing without a Model, Ron Tiner. David&Charles (27 Feb 1992)

Available from: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Figure-Drawing-Without-Model-Tiner/dp/0715397850/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204412976&sr=8-3