sleepinginmyhead

my cat...

... has taken to lying on her back, it's quite disconcerting.

man vs machine, or pen vs pixel

A fair while back, i posted a sketch of a pod-racer fishing boat on sleepinginmyhead. Here's the same sketch:

Recently, i have been fortunate enough to have a bit of downtime to brush up some of my design skills. I needed a tough compound shape to practice my Solidworks surface modeling, so began drawing a jetboat (again). I decided to move away from the fishing boat style and move towards an offshore powerboat typa kinda thing. Was a tough job too, boats are tricky things to break down into simple geometry, but a fun challenge nonetheless. I've nearly finished it now, and there's a few rough screengrabs below.

Now whilst i like the pre-render images, i have to say the hand-drawn picture above is far nicer to me. The ellipses are all wrong (drawn on the train), perspective is all screwy, and you can see how i've built it from simple blocks, but it's got a soul. There's just something too perfect with CGI, i believe they call it the 'uncanny valley'. Once the geometry is constructed it's a great asset to have, from rendering to animation and modelmaking, but when it comes to illustration, i think there's still nothing to beat pen and paper, if you want your viewers to engage properly. (click images for full size)

stop browbeating me!

I was watching TV last night, snuggled up on my sofa with a glass of wine, watching a film on TV, and feeling quite content. Then came the adverts. I tend to just let them wash over me, rather than flip channels, but something has happened to British TV which had me reaching for the remote. Firstly came this ad:

Tough going eh? Kinda put a dampener on my mood. I appreciate it's important, and if i ever exhibit the symptoms shown in the ad, then i'll be glad if someone paid attention. But then came the next advert.

Now I know the purpose of TV is to entertain and educate, but we were watching True Lies, a comedy romp of a film, and i was in a good mood before the ads. I felt like ending it all once part three started. Life's tough enough at the moment without the government freaking me out during a pleasurable escapist evening.

datamoshing

really nice glitchy video for chairlift's 'evident utensil'. Thought my broadband was playing up again.

what i learned today...

when you take fish fingers out of the box, make sure you leave enough in there for a decent sized portion next time.