Gerry

Ken and David, thanks for your advice, great help and great pointers. Hi Rodney! it's nice to be back here and working on some AM stuff again. I'm starting a new job next Monday as a one-man art dept. for a casino games designing and marketing co. where I'll be doing a little of everything, sketching, lo-res game graphics, web work, promotional design and some 3D modeling, and I wanted to get back in practice. They're not choosy about what software I use and though the guy I'm replacing used Lightwave, it's his software and he's taking it with him. I've already told the boss that AM is my preferred package and buying a copy will be a first order of business. Actually, on this subject, I will need to convert some of the existing Lightwave models into a format that AM can work on. Can anyone offer advice on this?

Check this out David, I've added the eyes and reduced the splinage. For some reason the eyes get all weird in the modeling window but they render just fine in a chor. Thanks for your advice. It's already looking better.

You can see what I've got so far in my WIP thread on this new model. I've been wondering how detailed to make the inside of the mouth, teeth, tongue, etc. I'm working on the eyes now. Yes, it's a very cool tute and if I don't like one eyeball I just trash it and build another one goshdarn it! Takes five minutes.

Here's a model I'm working on from my Bugbots comic. Some of you have seen other work on this project, and I had a whole website at www.bugbots.com but I recently lost my free webspace so it's on hiatus. However I've been meaning to work on modeling Skarab, the main character, and here's my work so far. I'm going to be doing the eyes based on Dave Simmons great eyeball tute on the ARM. It's so simple and so effective I can't believe it! However I'm concerned that the eyes will look too "real" compared to the skin. I still need to work out some of the angularity in the splines and I'm open to suggestions for tweaks. The character is half insect and half human so I want the skin to look a little hard and shiny (and I would really like to solve this with a procedural texture) but I don't think it's there yet.

This is great work David, like John said, maybe exaggerate it to a level more in keeping with its cartoony appearance. But it's meticulous especially the tongue movement. I just spent some time yesterday looking at your eyeball tute and I'm going to use it on a character I'm modeling. Great work and I appreciate the time you put into putting the tute together. I look forward to your additional work on this lipsync test.

Harper - Don't be shy, this is a great group of folks and you can learn a ton just by asking! Also check out any and all online tutes you can find. Vern's ARM is a good place to start. Your wireframe looks a little denser than it needs to be. I'm having the very same problem in a thing I'm working on now. maybe someone here can post a link or an example of just how light the wireframe can be in AM. The less dense the mesh, the better and smoother the model. I wish I could offer more concrete advice, but you are definitely in the right place. Keep posting progress reports.

Pengy - Great work, great thread, I'm really enjoying this! Not going to crit, since everything I would have said has already been covered. Besides, all these others guys are so FUSSY!

Ha! Doug, funny misread! Doubly funny because I've specialized for years in doing paintings of people's houses and always had to be careful to say "I'm painting a portrait of a home" and NOT "I'm painting someone's house"!!

Doug and anyone else interested in the lone printed sample of "Bugbots", I've finally found them while unpacking. It's an 8 page, b&w version of chapter one online. Also came across my stash of Bugbots postcards. I'll send one of each to anyone who wants 'em. Just e me your snail mail address and they're yours. Haven't done much more on modeling Headlouse as I snagged a pretty nice day job about three weeks ago, and also started painting some of the awesome scenery surrounding us here in Catawba County, NC. When are they gonna perfect that cloning stuff we keep hearing about? I need two of me! Gerry

Yeah, it looks more like smoke than fog. Maybe lighten it a little and less tonal variation. Gerry

Nice looking pooch. Seems like he should have some fur on his ears and probably tail too. Great personality coming through. Gerry

Yeah, really nice. I clicked through about four or five of them and enjoyed them all. Must be great practice so when the real work needs to be done you can just take it in stride. So to speak. Gerry

Actually it's not keeping me from working. I wondered if this was a problem with my modeling (always my first assumption!) or some odd software behavior I should be aware of. I thought splines were by definition continuous. When I selected that first cp I expected to be able to comma-select a cross section spline of the top "blade" of the helmet and adjust it.

Here's a link to some screen shots showing what my problem/question is. I couldn't seem to attach the image in the post. comments welcome!! Headlouse screen shots

I'm having an odd problem with this one spline, and I know it's probably my modeling. I'm trying to post some screen shots but it doesn't seem to be working; may be a firewall here at work. I'll try to post it from home later. It's not keeping me from working, I'd just like to understand it. Gerry

Jeff - I tried a gold texture from the materials library but when I really heightened the reflectivity, all the adjacent elements (the "snorkel", the eyebrows and the edge of the helmet) all reflected right at the edges of the eye lens and kind of worked against the roundedness. I think you're right about the reflectivity but too much of it didn't look like what I wanted. I think I'm explaining this clearly. If you want to suggest a better way to get the effect, I'd be happy to hear it! What about an environment map? Gerry

Doug - it's hard to "read" the beak. Can you post a slightly turned image? Also looking a little muscular in the chest for a bird (unless it's the bird that's up in the sky with the plane!) Gerry

Here's a progress shot with a bunch of procedural textures slapped on. I think to really get this to shine I'll have to decal most of it, the procedurals only go so far. However I also have a slight problem with a couple of hooks causing gaps. I'm posting a screen shot. I have a feeling I shouldn't be hooking to a curved spline. Any and all suggestions welcome. Gerry

Doug and Rodney, thanks for the comments! We do have a black and white "ashcan" of issue #1 and if I knew which box they were in I'd send you one. We're in transition and most of our stuff is still packed up. I had a plan to really publish a couple of years ago but the money and logistics of distribution quickly get huge, so that's on hold. Even the basic work was a major project, as the color files I created for the web comic need to be completely recreated: super high res for the line art, separate black plate, cmyk... There was nothing from the web comic I could repurpose for print. I would have had to do everything twice. All things considered, I'd rather be working in A:M!

Like I said up top, this guy is from my online comic, Bugbots: The Mansect Rebellion!

Mike- just cause you ended with a laughing smiley, don't think I won't! I was playing last night with some procedural materials for the eyes and got a *pretty* good combiner to suggest the comicbooky reflections. I'm going to try to keep the combiner and notch up the reflectivity to get the glassy look. Or something like that!

Hey Rodney, I definitely consider the comparison to Dave Cockrum and Bob Layton a compliment. I was first familiar with Dave's fan work before he went pro...a zine called "The Yancy Street Gazette" I believe. Funny thing was, he signed his work DEC and there was another fan artist named Alvin Grinage who signed his work AUG. Not that funny but you can see how it looked! Dave and Bob started working for Marvel just prior to when I stopped reading comics, so I'm less familiar with Bob's work, but you'll see on Bugbots I was consciously trying for that Marvel "look". Long after the characters were created, I realized that, with Skarab, Centipete, Midge and Friar Blowfly I had UNconsciously recreated the Fantastic Four! Mike, I've started reducing the splinage and the difference is noticeable and positive. I'll be posting more progress shots shortly. Here's the full figure of Headlouse:

Mike, thanks, I will definitely give this a try.

Yeah, nothing for you to apologize for here. Nice work! the detail in the modeling more than makes up for the simple color and texture.

Thanks everyone. Mike, you're right about the eyes, I've been struggling to get them smoother and more bulbous and they're not exactly right yet. Where would you suggest hooks?