PHH: Taxidermy Room

Taxidermy Room. Its perhaps not as crooked and cartoony as I want to go with the project eventually, but the process of painting it helped me figure out some things about the house and its purpose.

The Taxidermy Room is a rather small room just off the main corridor in the Right wing of  the PHH. In its heyday it would have been used as a lounge and meeting area for the men of the house.

The vast fireplace  joins the  taxidermy room to its neighbour, an innovative piece of architectural planning which allowed a single fire to heat both rooms at once..though over the years, the space between the two rooms has grown unnaturally distant, and even the most fearless ghost hunter would not advise you attempt to crawl through it..

Progress

The final did a bit of a U turn from where I started. In the digital version, I wanted to make sure the ominous fireplace was the main focus of the room, and portray an isolated, abandoned atmosphere.  Adding  big props detracted from this – perhaps to the detriment of the overall concept of what the room once was, as the final image isnt as playful as what I started out with.

Custom ‘creepy monster’ carpet pattern

Basic version in 3DS max – I do intend on fully texturing it and populating it with a few props, for now its not my priority..however this was a handy way of testing different lighting situations.

PHH: Taxidermy Heads

A collection of goofy taxidermy heads for my October project- suitably Halloween themed- More to come +details later on in the month :)

Zephir & Zippy Adventures – (Flash/UI)

[Flash Movie]

Zephir & Zippy Adventures – (Background)

Zephir & Zippy Adventures – (Zippy)

Went towards a ‘floating traffic cone/siren’ design, suggesting that Zippy was once a gadget used by the emergency services who has been ‘liberated’ by Zephir. Zippy is part weapon, part PDA – a sentient bot who craves more exciting adventures, and has the enthusiasm of a child- but still occasionally reverts to a more authoritative tone.

Zephir & Zippy Adventures – (Zephir)

Recently I did a test as part of a job application.  The requirements – a Flash movie featuring  two characters ( Zephir, an alien bounty hunter, and Zippy, his sidekick/mascot ) walking across a scrolling background, an action button which causes Zephir to fire his weapon, and a score counter for each time the weapon is fired.

Zephir went through many iterations. I wanted to give him a mercenary/authoritative look, so that it was obvious he was someone who could handle himself, but with a soft silliness so he wasn’t too scary.

At first I pictured him as a friendly alien who has honourable intentions with his bounty hunting, someone who is a little too independent to land a job as a space cop. An aspirational geek whose dream job is catching the bad guys , Zephir spends his spare time building new gadgets, collecting ideas from the planets he visits and helping out people who need him.

This version of the character could be an interesting twist, but it wasn’t really vibrant enough for a protagonist in an action based setting. Visually he was too bland, and looked more like a police cadet than bounty hunter.

To rectify this problem I gave him a power mullet and bandanna, instantly giving him attitude, and simplified his colour palette to make it more ‘heroic’.
The newer version of Zephir is more of a ‘bro’. He is confident and friendly, but isn’t afraid to be tough, and is good at thinking on his feet. He is a thrill seeker, and got into bounty hunting as an excuse to adventure. He loves the action of a good hunt- from space shark infested waters to the dizzying heights of the tallest buildings, Zephir shows no fear ( that’s Zippys job! ).

Zephir has more of a ‘bash it til it works’ approach to gadgets than his previous iterations passion for technology, but is aided by an ever so helpful Zippy, who can download new information when it becomes available- a possible game play element, as weapons could be upgraded with new and more powerful features when Zippy receives new knowledge about how to modify/use them. ( Not that that would stop Zephir from using an unsafe/unfamiliar weapon…)

Team CHOW 2 Highlights

I’ve been busy the past couple of weeks doing some work in flash, so havent had a chance to update. Lets start things off with some morsels from Team CHOW 2-

Team CHOW 2

Its been a busy month so far, so i’m behind on my updates.  I’m taking part in a high fantasy group character design competition on top of the real life things which are popping up, so come check out the progress of The Happy Little Trees  at conceptart.org.

And heres a little taster of whats going on over there..

Also, My Where the Wild Things Are character won the poll with 72 votes!

Wild Thing

ROUND #168 :: Where the Wild Things Are

” It might be sacrilege to even attempt it this week but imagine a new monster for Max (the central little boy of the story) to meet. They have a very distinctive look loosely based on Mythical Creatures, and of course the style of Sendak is what appeals, but don’t try and match his technique. Use your own and design a new one with his used as inspiration. This is for fun, and although they are ‘wild things’ they are somehow warm and friendly so perhaps steer away from anything gorey. I think the only requirement is yellow eyes!”

(“Where the Wild Things Are” is the property of Maurice Sendak and Harper and Row.)

DSG 1497- Alien Shores

DSG 1497: Character • JOHNNY CABOT, OTHERWORLD SAILOR, APPROACHES FANTASTICAL SHORES
.

[ Is a Sci-Fantasy riff. ]

[ Focus on the character, but tell the story of the approach to an alien shore. ]

[ Literally, not figuratively, alien. ]

Cabin Fever

A taste of the kind of thing Snow Yellow will encounter in the ghost town. It is likely that i’ll make a 3D version of one of the thumbnails below- These are more your  rustic ‘log cabin’/holiday type buildings.

Some exploration and rejected variations-

And a couple of examples of ‘Trailer park’ style residences. -

Snow Yellow

Tis a strange tale, that of Snow Yellow. Snow – named after her birth mothers favourite dessert-  was a scrawny child, one who hung with the boys but never got to kiss them. To her step mother she was repulsive, more of a second son than the girly girl daughter she craved.

Never out of trouble, Snow ended up in Juvie once she hit 13.
When she emerged many years later as a voluptuous beauty  , she fast became the talk of the town- to the dismay of her evil stepmother.

In a jealous rage, the former pageant queen spent $100 on a new fabulously fluffy power mullet, then demanded Barry-Joe – her most loyal  bike-gang brother- take Snow and dispose of her in the wilderness.

What happened when poor Snow awoke from her roofies and moonshine hangover to discover herself alone on the outskirts of  a crumbling ghost town? That, my friends, is what we will discover shortly…