Ostrich U A Merry Christmas

Hey everyone! I've seen an animal rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" going round that made me laugh, so I made this. More Zbrush & Keyshot shenanigans. Played with fibermesh for feathers, and I've been reading up on how Zbrush fibermesh systems can be exported as Maya fur, so maybe I'll be able to animate this guy one day! (when I get back to the land of broadband and can watch tutorial videos) :)

Ermagerd, Christmas!

Ermagerd, hert cherclet with mershmerlers! Barkley is enjoying the ugly Christmas sweater party very much, he just has resting growly face. Since I'm away from my desktop, this was rendered on my Surface Pro tablet in Keyshot, I had to reduce the fibermesh from Zbrush down to 2 sided just to get him to export! Grooming brushes in Zbrush are cryptic, but fun to play with.  Hope you're all enjoying some good times, holiday cookies and "hert chercklit" right now!


Bonus fun fact: To cut down on render time, I removed the fur from his backside, LOL!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Finally got my workstation set up at my new place.....and it's cooled off enough to work without frying my PC! Did some Halloween Zbrushing, I call this'n "Unlikely Friends." I like the idea of a scarecrow that digs crows.

Crows always get the whole "bad omen" treatment like black cats, but they're really fun to watch. If you got no love for crows after watching this roof surfing crow, you've got no soul, haha.

Here's the crow without the fuzz, cause it's kinda funny to see....:D

 Hope everybody has a happy and safe Halloween!

Furiosa

    

Welp, I suppose I should preface this post with a "spoilers ahoy!" warning....if you haven't seen Mad Max: Fury Road, then maybe go hop in your spike covered desert buggy and catch it. Oh, and bring some water ;)
Ok, everyone else still reading that's been to the box office and back......

OH MY GOD CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT FURIOSA NOW?

     Holy crap.
I'd been looking forward to this movie for quite some time. The trailers were amazing, the reviews were solid, and I was happy to see a lady thrown in there, as an added bonus she didn't appear to be in 6 inch heels and a metallic bikini, so, yeah.... cool, cool.
     About halfway through Fury Road I realized just how low my bar had been set for female action heroes, trained by years of either stiletto-ed eye candy, or a female character who overcompensates masculinity so that the "like a man" seal of approval implies toughness and strength. Two stereotypes that both end up kinda boring, one dimensional.  Imperator Furiosa is neither of these things. She's a human being, and something Hollywood has failed to give viewers in a very long time. Furiosa has the dichotomy of vulnerability and strength that makes a heroes journey interesting. Would Indiana Jones be interesting if you hadn't seen him freak out over snakes, or seen the whites of his eyes every time he's hanging from a ledge? It's these types of things that make the danger seem real, it causes us to empathize with the hero. If he'd yawned and read a newspaper while flying down the rails in a minecart, he'd have come across as a douche. Yet that's what most female action heroes are written like. Why? Perhaps the faulty logic is in play that fear (or any emotion really) is attributed to weakness, so writers and actresses err on the side of caution when using it for female character development. Through the course of the movie, we see Furiosa experience fear, we see her visibly tear up at loss, we see her put on her "game face" when initially bluffing her crew, when negotiating passage through the canyon, and we see what's beneath all that when she's with the Many Mothers. She's the perfect foil for Max, who trusts no one, and his situation reflects that. I believe this movie is intelligent enough that the contrast is deliberate. One could argue that Furiosa's "people instincts" are her strength. She's a risk taker, but an intelligent one, and in the end that's what saves them all. There is no doubt she is a fully realized person existing within the Mad Max universe, there is no magic here, no waif with the strength of a linebacker. Her fight with Max is one of the most brutal and compelling bits of fisticuff choreography I've ever seen. Both parties use every tactic available, including assists from bystanders. I've seen plenty of movies where villains fight the hero, and politely wait in a single file line to do it. Yeah, that rule gets broken here, by both parties...and the fight is all the better for it. Yass. Please do more of this movie fight choreographers, it's awesome.

When Furiosa reaches the Many Mothers....well that was shock number two. I have never seen the likes of this in scifi, action, fantasy.....ever. Grandma snipers on motorcycles bragging about headshots is what the world has been missing. Old broads are the first casualty in all fictional universes, and this movie shows what a shame that is. I would have been less surprised if they had come across a herd of unicorns in the desert and completed the movie riding them back to town. I've just grown accustomed to this... movies & games where the crew is always a spectrum of all ages for male players, but the one token female is a 18-23 year old. We're living in a world where Maggie Gyllenhall is told she's too old to play the wife of a 55 year old, and I know this isn't going to change overnight, but come on, stop crafting universes where the female spectrum of existence is missing after 30. It's kinda creepy Hollywood, just stahp.
     The massive box office success of Mad Max: Fury Road proves marketing departments across America wrong. You're underestimating the male audience. It isn't that male audiences wont accept female protagonists....they just won't accept poorly conceived ones. Stop pandering and get on board. What a lovely day that will be....................

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 This is Clover, the lucky St. Pat's Day dragon :D 

Born with a gold coin to guard until St. Patrick's Day, lucky clover dragons (unlike those stingy 'ol Leprechauns) really want to be found, cause they cant fly with that heavy coin! While waiting out in clover patches they get kinda bored, and like to pass the time nibbling ridges around their coins. So, go on out and start looking for 4 leaf clovers today.....good luck friends!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Happy Mardi Gras everybody!

HULK THROOOOWWWW!!

SWEEETDOOOOOOOM!

 I started  on Valentine's with one bonbon and ended up with this, um...Braveheart kilt lifting scene re-enactment a day later because I wanted to play with Keyshot and new stuffs in Zbrush! Why? Oh, I don't know....it just kinda happened :P Happy Day-After-Valentine's-When-You-Can-Buy-Mountains-Of-Cheap-Candy Day y'all!!!!

Happy 2015!

I suppose it's still new Year's day for some folks, so here's to a happy 2015!

    Even though its the year of the sheep, this New Year's my mind drifted to thoughts of the pig. I've read that as pets, pigs are super clean, but when penned up where they cant get under a nice shady tree, they'll roll about in the mud to keep nice and cool. Seems like an excellent attitude for 2015. 2014 was chock full of mudholes...but mudholes can serve their purpose for the resourceful. May all your mudholes be cool and refreshing, and, in time, may you find you're rolling in a flowerbed, my friends :)