1 hour ago
Angry Robot BooksChristmas 2010
I made the trip to Ohio for Christmas this year. Unfortunately I had to make it solo, circumstances were not with us and as far as family goes it was a mixed bag, both good and bad. The visit was very nice though. My mom likes to do her Christmas trees on a theme, this year was red. Coincidentally Joani picked out some red glass birds for her, they fit right in (she loves birds).
While I like the way the previous image came out and the bonus reflection in it, thinking the next one is better overall.
And now finally I attempted to capture the tree lit up in a dark room on my iPhone. It’s pretty so-so, but accomplished what I was looking for.
Before and After
A before and after the yard guys bagged the leaves in my yard. I played with the leaf picture using TiltShiftGen of course and then merged the two images using Diptic on the iPhone 3G. Those have to 80 gallon trash bags and there are 23 of them. Just the front yard and there are still leaves on the trees.
Another update to the Armor
Thinking I am done for now on modeling the armor, on to texturing it. I am gonna give the first go at texturing it in Lightwave. I’m more comfortable in Lightwave and have a feeling I am going to want to and more geometry details, which I know I can do in that environment. Maya sits on the drive waiting for me to play with it, but I can only learn one package at a time. 
Armor progress
Well, I had a couple of ideas for how to get this helmet worked out. Yeah, uhh none of them worked or I just made a bone headed mistake here and there. Ended up starting over 4 or 5 times. Finally came up with this version and it gets close to what I wanted to achieve. It is pretty close to the inspiration art. The rest of the suit should (crosses fingers) go quicker. I’m taking some liberties here and there, but liking it.
Another Bug!!
I’m sure the handful / couple of folks who view this blog are just thrilled to see another post with a bug in it. This guy was quite pissed. After discovering him on a fern which we brought in to avoid the potential for a freeze last weekend. I was checking the plant to make sure it was watered and noticed him on a leaf. Joani and I watered the fern and it was expressed that she found them creepy and mildly evil looking so his banishment was a done deal. I snapped a couple of shots while he was still on the greenery. Lighting was poor so flash was needed and I had no diffuser.
So we shook him off the leaves into a little container. Out to the front porch it went and onto the closest flat clean surface at hand. I kinda like the look of the graph paper and might take more like this. He was now very angry and kept turning away from the lense, but i managed to get a shot or two.
Side note. The camera sucks the juice out of the battery like mad when the internal flash is used. going to start using my external from now on.
More shots with the diopter filters
I usually break out the camera and try to find something interesting to shoot when we visit Joani’s family on the weekends. We had some rain recently so I was hoping for some mushrooms. Found some but they are gonna take some work in Photoshop to get anything worth showing out of the pictures I took. I did manage to salvage one of several shots of a lady bug. I am going to have to do some controlled experiments to find the best settings on the camera. Need to get a better depth of field if possible. It may not be possible with the diopters, but I need to learn more about the settings on the camera anyway.
New theme and a post to go with it.
I am working with a new theme, sorting out all that goes with getting it running and looking like something useful. This is a fairly customizable theme, which is both good and bad. There are bits and pieces that need to be installed with it, which also need to be tweaked and configured. One thing I am not thrilled with are the small summaries of posts instead of one full post with additional summaries below. Makes my image only posts look like shit to be honest. I guess that will force me to write more.
Bumble Bee
Posted a few images in my Deviant Art gallery and the consensus of wife and friends is that this one is worthy of note. I was surprised myself once I opened it on the computer instead of just looking at it on the iPhone with which it was taken. Cropped down to get rid of all the wasted space and low and behold a decent shot of the bee.
