For the second year running I was invited by Hand Turkey Studios to join their 48hr Film Project Team. We entered in the Richmond 48hr Film Project competition. Unlike last year, we actually finished this time around. Mostly because the team was littered with some of the most talented Blender 3D artists in the world. It was a great honour simply to be asked to take part, and once again great fun!
I’ve been asked to give a one hour talk about Blender 3D at the new Video Art & Electronic Music event Sideseen in Rotterdam on friday May the 15th. There are also people there form the SAE Institute talking about 3D animation. After the talks there are lots of DJ’s/VJ’s and what looks like heaps of fun. Perhaps even a drink or two.
A side project of mine that I’ve wanted to do for over a year, has just now gone alpha. That means it’s online, but still being developed, so not completely finished.
Writersrecommendations.com is a site where you can find books recommended by your favourite authors. There are still lots of features that need to be added, and there’s an immense ammount of data to find and enter. But its there and the big stuff works. You can already register, and help out by submitting information. I’ll be spending a lot of time in the library this summer, looking for blurbs.
Sam Brubaker was kind enough to send me a scan of this April’s copy of Mechanical Engineering magazine. Shapeways once again made the news, and the magazine put Petunia on the page rather prominently. Once again there’s proof that giving away things is cool!
Right after I finished my stint at the art academy in 1999, I spent a few years in my studio working on a first series of oil paintings. A number of them have been sold in the meantime, but I still have a few. Since the light was quite nice in my appartment today I decided to take some photos, and put them here on my website.
A while ago I put a selection of my old music recordings online at alienhelpdesk.com as mp3′s. Since quite a few people seem to enjoy the tracks I decided to upload all my albums to Jamendo.com. So now the songs can be downloaded more easily as well.
Naturally the license is also Creative Commons By 3.0 just like everything on this website. That means that you can use the tracks for whatever you want, as long as you give me credit for creating them.
I will lead a two day workshop at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne Germany. On thursday and friday we will explore character modelling, rigging, and the basics of animation. As a special treat we’ll spend saturday having an open lab experimenting with the institute’s new motion capture equipment.
Once again shapeways has made it into the news. This time on the rather well known dutch website nuzakelijk.nl. On the page is a small video, and if you really pay attention you can see Petunia standing in the background in a couple of shots.
At this point in time I am studying the life, and work of MC Escher. To really understand what he did, and learn the lessons he learnt I am not just reading books, but also creating a series of works using his techniques, and ideas. Hopefully I can find the time to also visit a few of the places that inspired him. It is not my goal to copy what he has done, but to learn, improve my skills, knowledge, and take pattern design as a whole to a new level.
You can find the first two designs of the new series amongst my patterns.