So I made this cardboard hat.

Last week my roommate acquired

A shipment box which I admired.

The size was close that it could sit

upon my head, if it should fit.

And so I searched the internet

for pictures of a good helmet.

I found success in history

when Romans wore this mystery.

I set about with board and blade

and soon my project was half made.

My camera was thus tossed aside

as I carved the box with pride.

Though the reference didn't show it,

I already did mostly know it.

My imagery was not the best

but I set out to make the crest.

As ancient scissors cut the notches

They resembled cardboard swatches.

So top heavy in my hand

I trusted it would make it grand.

Inserted fully, held on top

Without so much as one drop

Of glue or tape within my reach:

A rule I would not dare breach.

So, hows it fit? Not very well,

unless my head begins to swell.

Which wouldn't be so hard to do

since cardboard hats protect like poo.

Figure Drawing streams

Once again, I'm making effort to show the process here. I'm the guy who's always watching the 'how it's made' part of the dvd, where I'm always wondering how they achieved whichever effect on Disneyland rides.

I even was able to get my computer to capture video of photoshop, so I've got some of that at the bottom. Featuring music of Explosions in the Sky, and music from Halo ODST. Quite the range.

So to start, here once again are the terrible horrible 'gestures'. About halfway I changed up, trying to get the overall shape instead of a hyper-rendered thing.

We jumped straight into tens after this. None of that slow-building up today.

Of course interspersed with breaks now and again. These next ones I think were twenties. Starting not to hate them...

One more twenty, our penultimate pose.

This last one here was done as two sets of twenties. TBH on the second pose, the wrinkles got better on his pants so I was able to render out some really nice shapes.

And finally, the promised videos!

Life Drawing, + Completely Unrelated Animations

I decided to show some more of my process. Until I figure out fraps or something, screenshots will have to do.

3 min Gestures

 These were fives & 10s.... Once we moved to tens, I tried slowing down, but ended up doing so far too much and didn't get more than a head and shoulders in. Lou (the instructor) came over and showed how I could do it differently, and then I had this bright one in the middle.

Once we got to 20s, I finally got to really get some good value in there. There was another one but the face took waaay too much of my attention, and for not a lot of payoff. 

Construction on this one was weird enough that it existed more as just a value study than as a figure portrait. Also probably the most NSFW-ish drawing of the semester.... But I had a lot of fun with light, shadow, and the cloth material.

But I said I would include animation, right? The Turkeyman LIVES! Once again, modeled, rigged, and posed by yours truly. Thought I'd share my reference on this one too -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x-7v3PJ6Eg

And a jump. This is the "Norman" rig. It's providing a good outline of what I should include in rigs I try to construct in the future. Baby steps, baby steps.

Boas Boas All Around

So it looks like I only really update with life drawing studies lately. I should branch out and show everything else I'm doing. But anyways, it's the time I get to relax in between the much-more-stressful-but-oh-so-rewarding Maya & Max work.

Started with gestures as usual, these were my faves once we moved into about 5 minute poses.

A while later, we hit tens and twenties. 

And my favorite from the day! Not just because I skipped drawing the face. Scored right away with the construction and kept the momentum going the rest of the way.