The Longest Day Of The Year

Here's the avatar moving about with the environment -

This time round, I tried to make each of the heads have their own individual time to move in, so it gives the viewer space to see what each one is doing, rather than just a flurry of fluctuating faces. The Super Ego reacts in time with the Sun setting, keeping a watchful eye over it's environment. Once the Sun sets, this sends the Id wild, before the Ego calms them both down and readies the Vessel for another voyage. Meanwhile, the Soul keeps surveying it's surroundings with childlike wonder...
I'm also happy with using Stonehenge as the environment for the Avatar, because it holds multiple meanings for me. On a more scientific, universal level, having the Sun and Moon rotate around it shows the passing of time, and the Avatar remaining constant and whole through this process. It also represents a sacred site, one that is shrouded in mystery and obscurity, yet also a place of worship, and a mutual meeting ground to celebrate the longest day of the year. I really like the connotations of community, humanity, passion and achievement that Stonehenge brings, and, on a personal level this time, it has many fond memories attached to it. I used to live very near to Stonehenge, and as such it represents a part of the Earth that I spent many of my formulative years in, which is something I'm very pleased to be able to pay tribute to with my Avatar. Plus, many a good time has been had at the various Summer Solstices, watching the stars and dancing amongst the stones with all manner of glowing, positive people. The Sun and Moon and general blackness in the background suggest space, the galaxy, universe and infinity, which puts my Avatar and it's various aspects of self in perspective quite nicely.


The Ego -


The Id -


The Super Ego -


The Vessel And The Soul -


My Avatar -


Finally, here's a tiny tribute to the beautiful sounds that have guided me through tonight's work -

Fluid Druids

I had a go at applying textures to my avatar, and even though I quite like the results, I think they actually detract a little from my initial design.

I personally think I've mutilated poor Super Ego's beard again here, but the Vessel looks quite interesting, almost like it really is just a big floating patch of nothingness, but I dunno, something just doesn't look right about it. The Soul looks suitably shiny, but it's gleeful grin is lost amidst the glare.

Here's a vague idea at how the environment will interact with the avatar too. The avatar hasn't been animated yet, but I've tried to make the planets surrounding it follow some kind of orbit. For the little red one (the Sun!), this looks fine, but I'm not sure if the larger blue one (the Moon!) is moving too fast and/or irregularly...


Plus, I revisited good ol' Box Monkey, and added some pleasing wooden textures to his little home -

"Are We Gonna Do 'Stonehenge' Tomorrow? "

I'm just about getting the hang of textures, so I thought I'd start making an environment for my avatar.

At the moment the colours are a little full-on, and are more in line with an acid trip rather than a realistic scene, but I quite like that. I'll play about with it some more and then post the results!

Stinky Sphynx

Today I finally got a copy of 3D Studio Max for my laptop, so now I can work on the avatar from home in my underpants with the soothing sounds of King Crimson surrounding me, rather than being bathed in classroom light with nothing more than repeated clicking sounds to caress my ears. What a result!
To celebrate, I decided to take my avatar to Egypt, as a reward for having me tug it's various faces around for the past month or so.

I'm starting to notice the main problem with a lot of my designs is that without textures applied to them, they look a little drab (as evidenced by the sand on the floor in here). I still need to get my head round texture mapping, everytime I have a look at it it seems initially really simple, and then a few minutes later it hasn't done what I was expecting and seems impossibly difficult. I'll have a look through some tutorials and see if I can improve this.

Second Life At 2AM!

I've just had another wander about on Second Life, and this time was actually quite eventful. I started off talking to a guy who was, like myself, having problems with the controls.

Shortly after this, I started talking to two people nearby about a big crazy red object they were staring at.

Then one of them gave us loads of free stuff, like cars, houses, drinks, all kinds of bizarre stuff, including this rather charming Tool shirt -

She then proceeded to demonstrate several crazy tricks, including a flying car, big grey plates falling from the sky with a satisfying 'thud' sound, and this beautiful moment -
It was enough to bring a pixellated tear to my virtual eye...!

I thanked them for their help and then went for a little stroll. Utilising the ever so convenient power of flight, I soared off into a forest to try out some of the free things I'd be given (primarily, just to try and recreate the Mario moment).
I attempted to try out some of the vehicles, including an exotic magic carpet, but couldn't seem to get any of them moving (other than one of the cars, which I unfortunately crashed into the sea and got it stuck before I could nab a worthy snapshot). Amongst my vehicle trails, I had to fumble with a flying pig -
...and the world's largest pancake -
I've just signed off to take advantage of those blissful hours of unconsciousness known as sleep, but next time I'm on I'll have a further search around the free stuff, see if I can build a house and then watch it raining Italian plumbers from the comfort of my virtual back garden.

Head Bursting Glory

Today the work load took it's toll, and my head split clean in two -

Ouch, I'll need more than an aspirin for that!

Monkey Boxing

Today I had another go at designing the box for the second part of my avatar project. This box looks a little sturdier than the last, and almost looks nice and wooden too (I couldn't figure out how to apply the wood texture to the box, so it can still look better! I think some of the corners need chiseling down a bit as well). Instead of putting a poorly drawn version of myself in it, this time I opted to try and recreate that happy chimp on my mood board.


I also had a go at making a fairly basic environment, although not necessarily for my avatar as I'm still not sure where exactly a giant blob with 3 heads on stalks would call home... But here's my attempt at recreating a sunny afternoon on the planet Mars -

I also figured out how to merge two scenes together in 3D Studio Max, which is extremely useful! So, I stuck the avatar in Mars just to try this out and see what it looked like. The result isn't exactly what I'm looking for, but it''s not terrible either.

My attempt at making the avatar move about in this environment, on the other hand, is actually pretty terrible, heh! I quite like the idea of having the environment move with the avatar, but unfortunately I couldn't quite pull this off here -

Unfortunately, it's the older model of the avatar too, complete with the chunkier Ego and Super Ego's more exuberant beard, as I woke up late and in the frantic scramble to grab clothes, coffee and Weetos, I forgot my memory stick and could only access this older version.

Late Night Pencil Masterclass

Here's a sketch I just did of all the various parts of my avatar as individual avatars -