New piece: "When Suddenly, MUSHROOMS!!1!" Plus This Month's Scrap Roundup

Holy crap. I just sat down and worked through the most productive 4 hour graphic making session that it feels like I've had in YEARS! It all started while I was laying in bed trying to wind down for the evening, when suddenly this awesome image popped into my head. I don't think I'll bother explaining what it was, because for the first time in a long time, I was actually able to capture my idea while it was fresh enough to be able to pull it out of my head and put it onto my screen reliably! I am SO happy with how this turned out!

"Once upon a great time ago, there was a Question Mark Box that was so large, its gravitational forces pulled back on the Sun significantly enough that the Sun's orbit was altered! The Sun's orbit had been SO altered, that the whole solar system was careening out into the farther reaches of the Galaxy!

When Suddenly, MUSHROOMS!!1!

This freaking italian plumber had come along and head-bashed this box from the underside, and BLAM! RAINBOWS AND MUSHROOMS AND STUFF!! EVERYWHERE!!1!"

Yeah, that was the worst story ever. I needed sleep very badly when I wrote that. Anyway, here are some large desktop background sized images for any of you interested in using them on your own machines.

Fortunately, at the time that I created this piece, I was also brain enough to open my timelapse screen capture application before I started, so after a little work selecting pieces from my music library that I thought would match the cheery disposition of the image, I was able to put together a timelapse video of myself working on the piece, from start to finish. You can watch the "making of" video in HD on Vimeo, if you care to. (You should care to!)

When Suddenly, MUSHROOMS!!1! Timelapse from Admiral Potato on Vimeo.

This is a timelapse video of me creating a 3D image titled "When Suddenly, MUSHROOMS!!1!". I used Blender and Photoshop to create this, and all in all, it took about 3.5 hours from start to finish. I am fairly pleased with the work.

Also, because I like to share, I'm posting the Blender project file that I used to create this. I used Blender 2.55 Beta (build 33164) to make this, so you'll probably need at least 2.54 in order to open this and have it work for you. Information about the Creative Commons flavor that I'm releasing this under is at the bottom of the page.

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This Month's Project Scraps Roundup!

I also worked on a lot of other small personal projects this last month(or two!) that I still need to finish. Below is a list of them that I felt like sharing.

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Space Oddity

Created on November 15th and 16th.

This quick little project may or may not ever see a more complete state of execution, but I thought that it was cool enough to share. This scene really had no story or main concept behind it when I created it. I was just laying sleepless in bed one night, when I had the idea that "Hey! I bet I could make a pretty good looking eye texture using nothing but gradients in Photoshop. I wonder what kind of a random creature I could create that I could apply that texture to just to complete the idea."

To me, this creature's first incarnation(above) looks way better than it's second(below).

Looking at it now, I pretty much hate this version of the creature. If I ever create a more final version of this, it will not be humanoid shaped at all. The night I was working on this version of the file, my friend Trent Call asked me if I could animate the eyes. Yes, but I'm unlikely to do anything more with it until the creature's shape sucks less.

While the eye texture did look pretty good with nothing but gradients going on, I did eventually decide that it should look a bit more organic, so I added some Filter->Render->Fibers and made them radial.

This is when I discovered a very interesting bug that Skype's red screen sharing border overlay causes with other applications...

And this is a quick shot I took when I thought that one of Simon Page's beautiful desktop backgrounds looked a bit like an iris.

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Giant Enemy Crab - Character Concept by Ben Hickling

Preliminary model created on October 11th, revised model worked on on October 25th and November 9th.

I've started working on the beginnings of a new toy! Sometime near October 11th, I was searching for an inspiring new piece to work with, and I came across Ben Hickling's online sketchbook. I was happy to find a piece inspiring enough to start working on a basic 3D model of. After spending a few hours creating a preliminary concept model, I decided to share the concept piece with Ben and suggest the idea that I'd like to work on a few toys with him. He seemed to be a fan of the idea, so when I find the concentration to work on this piece again, I will most likely finish it and get something up on my Shapeways store. Here is the preliminary image and turntable rotation animation.

Ben was kind enough to take the time to provide a front and side view sketch of his Giant Enemy Crab for me, which totally rocks my socks. Remembering a promise that I made to myself earlier in the year that I'd post more timelapse videos of myself working on new pieces, I started the piece over again with the new sketch, this time recording my work so I can post a video of it all later. That will have to wait until I've finished the work though. ;) Anyway, here is Ben's sketch, and some screenshots of the model new as I've been working on it.

Ben told me that what he had provided was only meant to be interpreted loosely, and I had all the creative freedom that I wanted with the piece. So as I was working on the piece in it's latest states, I realized that the back side of the crab was looking a little boring. When a piece that I'm working on looks boring to me, I throw in things that are extremely awesome. Like in this case, a Jet Pack. So that's where the "JET PACK ON A CRAB!!" and "ROCKET CRAB!!1!" shots come from. Ben seems to think that they compliment the design, so chances are, the newly added Jet Pack will become a key feature in the finished toy. :)

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Sup - My first animated pixel art

Created on October 18th.

There's not much to this one, but after playing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (so much awesome!) for a few hours, I had the inspiration to create a basic animation in the same 'World' as I had created my original self representing avatar. My original avatar(created in 2003!) had been inspired a great deal by the levels in the original Super Mario Bros. NES levels, World 3-3 and World 6-1. (Thanks, ian-albert.com)

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Naked Dude with Shorts - Character Concept by Trent Call

Piece started on October 13th.

This is another piece that I'm working on with my good friend Trent Call. I've been doing a timelapse recording on this model as well, so when I find the concentration to work on this piece and finish it, I'll make sure to post that video as well. Anyway, below are trent's character sketch and the model in the state I got it to that night.

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Well, that's enough for now. If any of this has inspired you in any way, let me know what you think! I will work hard to make my next post will be a bit sooner rather than combining all of my latest works into one huge megapost, but I'm usually posting all kinds of updates on my Twitter account if you're interested in checking that out. Later!