Thursday, March 31, 2011

3D - Wine Table scene

Got around to playing around with this scene a bit today.  threw on a quick bread and cheese texture to get a sense of color / look.  Updated the wine labels and created a new one.  And to top it off real quick I just threw a random background from Google in there to see what it looks like with footage in the back.

Still needs a ton of work. The grapes texture needs to be worked on more,  the wine bottles look very plastic as of right now which is not what I want.  The bowl and bread board just has a flat shader for now which will be changed.  The wine glasses need to have their UVs layed out and textured.  And my wife Amy says the bread looks like 'bread lips'... so I'll see if I can fix that... ?? Quite a bit still to be done!

Monday, March 28, 2011

3D - Wine Table II

A little more progress on the Wine table scene.  Not much more.  A little bit of texturing and setting up textures as you can see with one of the wine bottles.  Not the final product but more so to get a sense of the colors. and what the label could look like.

Added a few leaves in the grape bowl and 2 wine glasses for now.  I did a quick playblast of a pan test just to play around with how I want the final pan to look. Still needs work.




Wine Table Camera Pan - Test from Jimmy Kounios on Vimeo.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

3d - Wine Table

3D modeling for the day.  Had done a first version of grapes last week but redid them today. Modeled and layed out the UVs for everything else most of this morning and worked on it a bit more in the afternoon.  Version of the first set of grapes included.  The render of the table shows the UVs spread out and checked with the checker texture of course.  Still a few fixes to be made to minimize stretching but it's getting there.


Saturday, March 19, 2011

Concept Art - Zombie Girl + Speedy

Zombie Girl has been sitting in my 'WIP' folder for a while and I thought it was time to finish it.  The speedy was done before I worked on the zombie as a warm up - just a 10 minute paint.  Process of zombie girl included.



Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Random - Make Mine Marvel!

About 2-3 years ago I took a job in Saskatoon to work on the kids show  "Wapos Bay" .  While there I made some really great new friends and contacts  - and more specifically it was there that I met Andrew Forbes who shared the same love for comics  as I have .  We talked about everything and anything comic book related  and even spent almost a full day laughing at the 40 worst Rob Liefeld drawings. (Link: http://progressiveboink.com/archive/robliefeld.html).  Anyways, I told him about my 'letter' and he wanted to see it so eventually  I managed to dig it up from the depths of my storage facility to show to him.

Fast forward to the present day.

Currently I'm working on a comic book  of my own.  It just so happened that Andrew was in town for  "The First Days" plate shoot and we were reminiscing about Wapos Bay....and comics came up again.  That night I couldn't sleep and stayed up until 3am looking for the letter that I  had once again misplaced.   After a good two or three days it was  located in one of my  many  boxes I had left at my parent's home.   Don't worry - I  am now  framing it so I never lose it again.  This letter represents everything that has inspired all that I have done, I will do, and will never stop doing.

The story goes like this (from what I can remember):

16 years ago. September, 1995.

I get this awesome idea for a character called 'Acid Man'  - very original, I know.  I don't have the drawings anymore and I know I had drawn several villains to go with the set but those have been lost forever.  Acid Man looked very similar to Captain America but in yellow and red, and had a giant 'A' on the forehead of his mask.  He also had a cape - something Capt. America did not so you know... that made mine original.   Anyway,  I remember what the drawing looked like - just a simple line drawing, no shading, on a white piece of printer paper.  I had notes all around the sides and possibly a mock up of his vehicle. It was pretty bad ass,  in my humble opinion.

I don't remember where I got the envelope from, but I remember getting the address to the Marvel Comics studio from one of my issues of Spider-Man - I believe from the Maximum Carnage series.  My parents worked beside a Bi-Rite Drugs (now a Shoppers Drug Mart) and  I got my  Dad to send the letter out for me.

My wife,  Amy, brought up an interesting point the other night  -  what if my Dad had told me it was stupid and didn't send the letter out? What if he told me not to bother?  I'm a firm believer in things happen for a reason .   So at that point when I was about 13 years old I would have easily been convinced to do something else and everything would have been different.  This letter plays a huge part in my life's journey.

So the letter is sent and a month later I receive a response ....it's a rejection letter enclosed with my returned drawings.  I don't remember why I kept it or where I hid it to keep it in as good condition as it is today but I am very glad I did.  I know I was disappointed and felt defeated but that never stopped me and I'm very glad to be where I am now with my beautiful wife Amy, my 3 lovely boys.. err cats   and on my way to having my own studio.


And so here it is ... the letter: