Golem Rough

The name Golem (not to be confused with the character Gollum from Lord Of The Rings) refers to an animate creature in Jewish Folklore created entirely from inanimate matter. These creatures would be created to do the bidding of their masters, large, bulky, and powerful, usually they were mindless, took orders literally, and didn't speak. This started off as a quick speed painting, ended up being a little more finished than I'd originally intended, but I dug the composition and felt it deserved a little more polish.

4 Quick Silhouettes

Been doing some quick silhouette sketches recently, here's a few examples...





Also I've been playing with an experimental sketch program called Alchemy. Very cool app for getting those happy accidents.

Some New Abstract Paintings

Been playing around with some more abstract type speed painting, they're basically just exercises in color and form. Here's some examples, I have to say they're really relaxing to make, you just turn off that literal part of the brain and deal with pure composition.

SoulburnScripts Updated June 12th 2009

Max script update:

Created one new script:

bitmapPagerManager: The Bitmap Pager controls have been removed from the preferences of Max2010. This script gives you some of that control back, especially the ability to turn it off, which may speed up renders on 64bit OS's that have lots of RAM.

A bug fix to an old script:

modifierUtilities: Fixed a bug I introduced with the last update, now favorites should be working again.

http://www.neilblevins.com/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm

Thanks to everyone for your support.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated June 11th 2009

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm

* Added a new technique to Converting A Grayscale Image To Black On Transparent.
* Added a new lesson Chipped Paint Material.

My Gnomon DVD "Hard Surface Shading And Texturing" will be out July 1st 2009.

I have just completed an instructional DVD for The Gnomon Workshop called "Hard Surface Shading And Texturing". It contains over 5.5 hours of content. Here's the description from the website:

"In this 2 DVD set, Neil introduces his pipeline for shading and texturing hard surface models. The pipeline can be used for any highres models, such as models for photoreal fx work, animated feature films, ride films or videogame cinematics. In Part 1, he discusses reference gathering, how to make a visual details list, and common shaders. Then he outlines all of the major methods for placing patterns on your surface, their advantages and disadvantages, and ways of creating patterns, including procedurals, photo manipulation, and hand painting. He breaks up the lecture with practical demonstrations in Adobe photoshop and 3dstudio max using the Scanline, Brazil and mentalray renderers, and stresses how the theory can be applicable to your 3d application and renderer of choice. In Part 2, he uses the theory and pipeline from Part 1 to shade and texture a 2000+ object robot character and simple environment using 3ds Max, Photoshop and Brazil. With a focus on texturing thousands of objects fast and efficiently and theory that is useful in any 3d app or renderer, this intermediate level course is sure to add many new tricks to your personal arsenal."

The DVD should be out July 1st 2009, go here for more info, including a sneak peak at the final robot (more images to follow when the DVD is released).

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm

* Added a new pic in my Enhancing Bumps Through Rake Lighting lesson.
* Added more pics to my Flat Metallic Surfaces lesson.

And lastly, a big thanks to everyone who came to my talks in Utrecht last week, we had a fantastic time.

SoulburnScripts Updated June 3rd 2009

Max script update:

Created one new script:

uVFlattener: Lets you flatten a selection of UVs, or in other words aligns all selected UVs horizontally or vertically. The advantage of using this tool over the one provided in the Unwrap UVW editor is you can choose to align the UVs to the average, the min or the max.

Updated several older scripts, here's the major updates:

uVPlacer: Removed the average button, and replaced the functionality with a new script called uVFlattener.
parameterManager: Fixed a crash bug that would crash then script when trying to autodetect a list of maps. Now has a mode to modify the coordinates of maps. Redid the interface somewhat.
blendedBoxMapMaker: Removed the align option and turned it on permanently, as there's no reason not to have this on.
objectReplacer: Now the script won't crash if you are using max 2010's containers.

http://www.neilblevins.com/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm

Thanks to everyone for your support.