Well, I have been distracted. I was working on the dragon slayer animation, but got kind of frustrated with Carrara's inflexible NLA keyframing. Long story short, I got distracted by a techno song that I found on Newgrounds. Its called -strikebeam- and it was made by an independent artist on Newgrounds named Waterflame. I wanted to make a music video for it, and it has been such a fun project. I have been able to just go and experiment with all kinds of abstract stuff that just looks cool. This is what I enjoy most about graphics and I think it is turning out pretty well. I am almost done now. I've been so busy, I neglected to post when I started the job. I should have it finished soon and posed here and on YouTube for all to see.

I also have some still renders at high resolution that I will post first. Let me know what you think!

Well, I have been working on character design for the Dragon Slayer animation.  You can see my character turntable here.  I have already improved it beyond this, however.  I have put better textures on the armor and belts.  Also, I added shoulder plates and a shoulder harness, which is important for her to carry her shield and scabbord on her back.  I have not modeled any of this.  They are all free models so far.  I am thinking of modeling her shield myself, though.  It needs to look special, and a shield is so geometric, that even an amateur like me should be able to figure that out.

Her dynamic hair is working great so far.  After I added the shoulder plates and harness, I re-draped her hair, and it fell on top of the new armor exactly like it should.  Very cool!  I must say that I am very happy with Carrara 6.1's dynamic hair.  Now I just need dynamic cloth.  Actually, I am a starting to think that maybe I should have gone with Poser, since it has dynamic cloth as well.  Oh, well.  For now, I'll just avoid anything that would be long and flowing, like a cape.  If I need to animate a flag, maybe I'll use Blender 3D to do it.

Well, now that I have Carrara, I feel like I have all the tools I need to produce a serious animation. I am thinking seriously about starting my first big project, and opening it up to online collaboration here on AniDev. That would make my project the first to use AniDev's online collaboration features. I am a little hesitant to do it right now, since I don't have much time, but I am really interested in doing it now, so I don't want to wait until my enthusiasm fails.

My idea is just a simple dragon slayer story. My recent picture Encounter in Dragon Cave was a scene from the story I had in mind. I suppose I need to write up a script and storyboards before asking for help from others. I want to do it right, if I am going to do it. Well, it does not have to be just right, since it is my first such endeavor, but I don't want it to be a disaster either.

Hmm... Lots of work.

I finally upgraded to Carrara 6.1 Pro. It was such an amazing deal after the upgrade price, the sale, the discount from 3D World Mag, and my Platinum Club discount. I am excited about getting into it, but I have not had much time to learn. I've been pretty busy recently.

Oh, yes... I joined the Platinum Club too. Probably just long enough to get a nice little library. It was totally worth it for the discount on Carrara and Aiko 4.

Hopefully I'll have some good stuff up soon.