A-, Baby!

Esras stole the show. In an upset, the character I thought would only net me a C, won an A-! Well, okay, it wasn't competing with another student's character for the grade, but apparently this grade is the highest the teacher gave out. Other people got this same grade, so don't get too excited. Still and A- is an awesome grade for an assignment that I felt rushed and sloppy. Here's hoping my next character will turn out much better - Dr Arkeville!

Transformers Animated: Transwarped

I recently was able to watch this due to the vigilence of an unnamed Transformers fan on Youtube and I've got ot say I wish I was able to see this show on television. Youtube does not do it justice! I'm not going to write a huge review on it here, but I do want to give me thoughts on a few things.

First, I'm so disappointed with Hasbro over their possible treatment of this great series. If they do indeed decide to end it after this season, they are doing a horrible injustice to the fans. I know they are not all fans of it, the vast majority I have seen do indeed like the cartoon and will miss it a lot if it goes away. It's sad to see it only last three short seasons when stinkers like Energon and Cybertron go on for 52 episodes.

Second, this movie had a lot darker aspects to it than previous episodes have. Considering Sari's relationship with her father and the changes she goes through, along with Shockwave's actions, this episode deals with more mature material than almost any other Transformers series has. I know Starscream's sacrifice in Armada was supposed to be touching (I've never seen it), but I find it hard to imagine that it would be as heart-wrenching as this. And it was a lot worse than any death in previous series because of how cold and gruesome it showed Decepticon could really be. I do want to point out that no matter how bad it was, I do suspect (and really hope) it is only temporary.

Third, it was really great to see all the new characters show up, even if their screentime was minimal. Strika, Cyclonus, Spittor, Blackout, Rodimus, Hot Shot, Perceptor, Wheeljack, Red Alert, Mainframe, Highbrow, even Alpha Trion - All homages going back from G1 to the recent movie and everywhere in between. Oil Slick was the only character I saw that was created strictly for Animated. Bonus points for even getting Judd Nelson to come back and reprise Rodimus's voice (but points taken away for Perceptor's Hawking imitation).

Overall, this movie was incredible, filled with a respect for the past, a more mature storyline for the older fans, and a ton of potential for the new season. Let's just hope it's not the last.

Change of Plans

Thanks to the extreme generosity of a friend, I should be getting a fantastic upgrade to my modeling/animating library; Lightwave, Vue, and Bodypaint 3D!  Thank you so much, Rich!

Anyway, its got me thinking about my the Prototytan Project vs my demo reel.  If I really want to get into the PP, I'm going to have to use Lightwave, primarily because I'll own a full version of it that I can upgrade and installon any new computers I buy, instead of Max, which is a limited version I got from my teacher at school.  So the PP is going to go on hold until I get the new programs. 

This obviously leaves me in a bind with my demo reel.  No Prototytans severely limits my plans, you know!  But I figured this morning that I'll go with my favorite animation from my previous class.

Obviously, this animation will need some major overhauling - there's editing errors galore and I want to improve on a lot of the efects in it.  I also need a much better render of it, since this one got mangled in Premier Pro.  But it saves me a lot of time in modeling and it's a chance for me to get one of my favorite animations to the highest quality it deserves.

Finished!

Mapping Complete

With only one more week left in my Character Modeling class, I've finally finished mapping out my guy. I found out what I was doing wrong last time - I was listening ot the teacher! For some reaosn he was telling me to do things way beyond what I needed to do and confused the crap out of me. But I've got it fixed and this guy is looking... well, okay. Hey, I said I only had one more week to go, so I had to put a rush on him.


Anyway, I gotta say I'm not very happy with this guy. I know there's no one to blame but me (except maybe my teacher), but I just don't like him. I wanted to give the character a certain watercolor appearance and I couldn't figure out a good way to do that. Granted I didn't spend a lot of time looking either. I also wanted to render him cel-shaded, but I don't know how to work that either. All in all, I'm pretty disappointed in myself. I'd say I don't care because I'm not hoping to get into character animation, but that's not entirely true since I'll be applying textures like this to anything I model.
Unfortunately, I've got skinning to do next. And I have no idea how to do it. Most of it looks pretty difficult and I've heard it's the most tedious part of the job. I've got the bones mapped out, but I'm stuck trying to link the chains from this guy's belt to his arms. I think by the time I finish this project, I'll have to delete the chains completely. It doesn't help when I ask the teacher how to do it and all he says is "I'm not sure, I'll have to get back to you on that." We'll see how it turns out next week. I'd just better not get docked points for missing details. Well, those missing details, I'm fine with them on the rest of it.

Mr and Mrs

Well, you're officially talking to a married man!  I got married this weekend to my fantastic fiance and fellow Transfan, Carey, and I even got to sneak Transformers into the wedding itself!  With us both being cartoon fans and everyone knowing it, we created a mascot for the wedding with Transformers and Carebears (her favorites) which showed up on our save-the-dates and our invitations.  Carey built about 100 favor boxes out of plastic canvas and yarn with the Autobot and Decepticon insignias and Carebears. She even got me some awesome Autobot and Decepticon cufflinks for my tux!

Legends

I'm not a huge Transformers collector - I don't go out and buy every figure from any of the lines and I'm generally turned off by Hasbro's insistency to repaint every figure they've made. Before last year, almost every Transformer purchase since G1 has been a Megatron (and I still didn't buy every one they've released - stupid Titaniums). This last year has changed that a bit because I'm engaged to a special girl that's latched onto my collection and picked up most of the main Animated line - except the repaints, of course.

But since the 25th Anniversary, I've found myself rabidly collecting the Legends class. I even got the Target exclusive 5-packs. The toys are cheap and really well done for their size (most of them at least); they usually have decent articulation and more elaborate transformations than just flipping the chest over the head and the legs up. Some of them are better designed than others (I'm looking at you Vector Prime/Scattershot), but I'm surprised to say my favorite so far is Wheelie. That's right, that same little guy we all used to hate, with the giant flip-up face cover and his gangly arms has evolved into an awesome figure. He may not have the best articulation or the most involved transformation, but he certainly has a great balance of both of them. He has a transformation similar to Legends Brawn, but without the letdown of his legs visible on the roof and his feet sticking down below the tires. His feet fold in for vehicle mode. It's amazing.

So Wheelie's come a long way and, in truth, the 25th Ann. Legends line has done the same for a lot of the Minibots from over 22 years ago. I would have liked to see a few more of the first wave get updates (Specifically Huffer), but it's certainly nice to see those little guys get some big love.