Toy Photo Page Updated Apr 29th 2012

WWRp Bramble MK2.5 Heavy National Guard Shoot 2
5 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629885446735/

Here's a sample...

Soulkiller Webzine Metal News for the Week Of Apr 23rd - Apr 29th 2012

Visit http://www.soulkillerwebzine.com for all the latest metal news, release dates and reviews...

• (04.28) Obscenity have finished recording their eighth full-length album, "Atrophied In Anguish", for an August release via Apostasy Records.
• (04.28) The title track from Gojira's new album "L'Enfant Sauvage" is available for streaming at Pitchfork.com.
• (04.27) Go here to see the cover artwork too Nile's new album.
  
• (04.26) Go here to listen to another new track ('The Unknown') off the forthcoming Shadows Fall album "Fire From The Sky".
  
• (04.25) Dream Theater have started writing music for a new album.
  
• (04.25) Here's what Trevor Perez of Obituary had to say about new album plans: "It's pure Obituary, you know. It's what every fan would expect from us — fast, slow, in between, brutal… John Tardy going [imitating growling sound]. He added, "We're actually in the middle of writing new stuff now. We've been, actually, writing for probably a year. We've got a bunch of songs. When we get home from this trip, we're gonna record three songs, and we're probably gonna release a seven-inch two songs, and then one song is probably gonna be digital release only, through our web site. We're talking to Century Media about possibly doing a deal with them. That's still in the works. Hopefully by the end of the year we'll have the full-length album out."
• (04.25) The Amenta will release a new EP called "Chokehold" mid-May via Listenable Records. The EP features two brand new songs from the band, the title track "Chokehold" and a cover of the Godflesh track "Christbait Rising". The EP also features two live tracks taken from the bands 2011 "V01D" Australian tour as well as a remix of the track "V01D".
• (04.25) Go here to get a preview of a new Fear Factory track off the new album "The Industrialist".
• (04.25) Nile will release their new album "At The Gate Of Sethu" on July 3 via Nuclear Blast Records.
• (04.24) Gojira will release a new DVD/Blu-ray, "The Flesh Alive", in Europe on June 4 via Mascot. The three-disc set (including one CD) will chronicle the making of the band's 2008 album, "The Way Of All Flesh", and the touring activity that followed the CD's release.
• (04.23) Meshuggah drummer Tomas Haake is featured on the cover of Drum! magazine's May 2012 issue #191.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated Apr 22nd 2012

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

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

* Added a new tutorial discussing my Wirebundler script.
* Added some new info to the Ptex and Ptex Use In Mudbox 2013 tutorials for those of you using mentalray in maya or using vray.
* Updated my Blended Box Mapping tutorial with some extra bits of info, mostly centering on choosing the correct box map method for your situation.
* Updated my Contrasts In Composition tutorial to contain another example of visual detail and visual rest.

Toy Photo Page Updated Apr 22nd 2012

First off, a custom Ankou EX, I was sad to see the Med-Ex's bags go from brown to white in the final production toy, so I went ahead and made plans to make them brown again like in the pre-prod toy. Bags dyed by Bubo, and I weathered them.

Adventure Kartel Custom Ankou EX Brown Bag Medic Shoot 1
40 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629466076062/

Here's some samples...





Popbot Bot Head Mortis A Intruder Shoot 1
16 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629510276238/

Here's a sample...



Popbot Nabler A2 Straight Red Shoot 1
10 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629874635385/

Here's a sample...



Popbot Nabler C3 Frown Black Shoot 1
14 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629874665325/

Here's a sample...



Popbot Group Shoot 2
5 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629874683787/

Here's a sample...

Soulkiller Webzine Metal News for the Week Of Apr 16th - Apr 22nd 2012

Visit http://www.soulkillerwebzine.com for all the latest metal news, release dates and reviews...

• (04.20) Fear Factory will use Mike Heller (Malignancy, System Divide) as their new touring drummer.
• (04.20) Slayer will release a 3 or 4 song EP of new music before they go in to record their next full length album.
  
• (04.19) Added a review to the Enochian Theory's "Life... And All It Entails" album.
• (04.19) Added a review to the Job For A Cowboy's "Demonocracy" album.
• (04.19) Go here to see the cover artwork to Gojira's new album "L'Enfant Sauvage".
  
• (04.19) "Demonocracy", the new album from Job For A Cowboy, sold 4,900 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 87 on The Billboard 200 chart.
• (04.19) Behemoth is slowly working on new material, but they state it's still very early on.
• (04.19) Mnemic's new album will be out June 8th in Europe.
  
• (04.16) Devin Townsend's new album "Epicloud" will tentatively be released Sept 24th.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated Apr 14th 2012

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

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

* Added 2 new Ptex related tutorials. First off, the Ptex tutorial is a general discussion of what Ptex is, and then the Ptex Use In Mudbox 2013 describes the various things you can do with them in the latest version of Mudbox. If you're tired of UVing objects, then these tutorials are for you.

Toy Photo Page Updated Apr 14th 2012

WWR Bertie Mini Dark Shoot 1
36 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629797423159/

Here's some samples...

Soulkiller Webzine Metal News for the Week Of Apr 9th - Apr 15th 2012

Visit http://www.soulkillerwebzine.com for all the latest metal news, release dates and reviews...

• (04.14) Go here to see the cover artwork to the new Tesseract EP.
  
• (04.14) Dream Theater will be performing at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco on July 1st.
  
• (04.13) Vocalist / guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) has left Bloodbath. The band has a new as yet unnamed vocalist. Here's Mikael's statement: "Bloodbath, for me, was never a serious project, it was just something I did for fun. We did a few songs on the last North American tour, we did two songs at the very last show because we were touring with Katatonia, so the whole Bloodbath band was there. It's still fun, you know? But I think that some of the other guys in Bloodbath want to take it to the next level, which I don't really want to do because I'm so busy anyways. He added, "It doesn't really have to do with anything with my screaming vocals, it's just that it's not a progressive project for me. It's just paying tribute to death metal and I've done it for such a long time. And when it stops being fun, I don't really want to participate. We do things so rarely it's always been fun. The shows we've done have been fun, but I don't feel the need to do it."
• (04.12) Go here to listen to the song 'Ammunition' off the new Prong CD.
  
• (04.09) Go here to listen to the new Dying Fetus track 'Subjected To A Beating'.

Wallpaper Of One Of My Toy Photos

One of my robot photos has been chosen for the RadToyReview Wallpaper of the Week. Get it here:

RadToy Review Wallpaper Of The Week

New Rough Painting: "Grunt"

I am a big fan of the Halo games, so did this piece of fan art for fun. The grunt characters are some of my favorites, not only do they have tons of personality, but overall I love the design. Since I own several of the McFarlane Halo Grunt toys, I did a little photoshoot, and used the photos as the basis for the character's pose. Painted in about 3-4 hours, the last couple of hours were mostly subtle color corrections, usually I start off with a pretty strong color scheme in mind, this one ended up coming together at the end of the piece.

Toy Photo Page Updated Apr 7th 2012

WWR Square MK1.5b Bomb Shoot 1
26 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629764643525/

Here's some samples...

Soulkiller Webzine Metal News for the Week Of Apr 2nd - Apr 8th 2012

Visit http://www.soulkillerwebzine.com for all the latest metal news, release dates and reviews...

• (04.07) Arsis have recruited Shawn Priest as the full-time replacement for recently departed drummer Mike VanDyne. Priest, who has toured with the band in the past, will be behind the kit for the band's upcoming fifth studio album.
• (04.07) Go here to listen to the new Job For A Cowboy album streaming in its entirety.
  
• (04.06) Added a review to the Meshuggah's "Koloss" album.
• (04.06) Jim Marshall, who invented the Marshall amplifier, has died at the age of 88. So many metal artists owe him a debt of gratitude, as a Marshall owner myself, I can't say enough great things about his amplifiers. His contribution to the metal world is huge, and he will be missed.
  
• (04.06) The new Deftones album is now scheduled for an Oct release.
  
• (04.05) Gojira have set "L'Enfant Sauvage" as the title of their fifth album, due on June 26 via Roadrunner Records. That's french for "Savage Child".
• (04.05) Mike Van Dyne, drummer and founding member of Arsis will be leaving the band. He's decided to focus on his career fulltime.
• (04.05) "Koloss", the new album Meshuggah, sold 18,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 17 on The Billboard 200 chart. Their last CD "obZen" opened with 11,400 units to debut at No. 59. And "Catch 33" sold 7,000 copies in its first week of release to enter the charts at 170.
• (04.02) Buy the latest issue (#226) of Total Guitar for an interview with Dream Theater's John Petrucci and Periphery's Misha Mansoor about each other's music, and their Wembley Arena show in London.

SoulburnScripts Updated Apr 1st 2012

CG Wishlist update:

So on my website I have an official Neil Blevins CG wishlist, which are featured I'd like to see added to many of my favorite 3d apps such as 3dsmax, mudbox, photoshop, etc. Autodesk started last year an official 3dsmax wishlist, the idea is you entered your wishes into their database, and then users vote on which ones they'd most like to see added, then the top ones get considered for future versions of max. So what I've done is I've entered most of my wishlist into the official Autodesk 3dsmax list, and provided links from my pages to the official list.

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/cg_wishlist/cg_wishlist_max.htm

Feel free to look around, and if you agree with any of my wishlist items, you can follow the voting link to vote for it on the official autodesk list. You can also add new wishes to the official list, and vote for other people's wishes that they've already entered. Regardless of whether you vote for any of my wishes, or you add your own / vote for other people's, hopefully you'll have time to participate, so we can all work together in providing autodesk with a more accurate view of what their users really want out of their software.

Max script update:

Updated 2 older scripts:

objectPainter: Fixed a bug that occurred if you renamed your Paint With object. Now you can specify an initial size multiplier for your Paint With objects.
putPivot: Fixed a bug that caused groups not to work properly.

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

Thanks to everyone for your support.

Soulburn 3D Education Page Updated Apr 1st 2012

The Soulburn CG Education Page has been updated:

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

* Added a new mentalray tutorial called Massively Instance Geometry With Proxy Objects.

Toy Photo Page Updated Apr 1st 2012

World War Robot Group Shoot 51
16 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629347901874/with/7033818207/

Here's some samples...





Popbot Heavy TK Kato Shoot 1
16 Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soulburn3d/sets/72157629347891128/

Here's a sample...

Soulkiller Webzine Metal News for the Week Of Mar 26th - Apr 1st 2012

Visit http://www.soulkillerwebzine.com for all the latest metal news, release dates and reviews...

• (04.01) The Deftones will enter the studio July 9th, and hope to have their new album out by the end of the year.
  
• (03.31) Tesseract's "Perspective" EP will be out in Europe May 21st.
  
• (03.30) Go here to see the cover artwork to the new Fear Factory album.
• (03.30) New song 'Fire From The Sky' off the new Shadows Fall album is available sttreaming here.
  
• (03.27) The new Shadows Fall album has been pushed back to May 15th. Go here for the cover artwork.
  
• (03.27) Go here to see the cover artwork to Dying Fetus' new album "Reign Supreme", and here for a 1 minute teaser for the album. It will be released June 17th.