Straight out of nowhere-ness.

Holla holla. I'm back, all the way from the 5th Circle of Hell. Oh man, it was horrible, between almost drowning and fighting with a real angry bloke I had a load of uni work to do and a ma-ha-ssive hangover. Seriously, it was a doozy. My brain felt like two sizes too big for my skull. Thankfully, I managed to hitch a ride out of hell on a passing skiff so I'm counting my blessings this time. Not sure if I'll be so lucky next time. I'll never drink gin again.

Anyway, I've come on to give you a heads up on the uni work I managed to do while there. I finished my first client project: the insect spray one. It turned out really well. As soon as get it ready for Bloggimus Time I'll post and evaluate it. And if you're lucky, I'll tell you how I fixed my printer too. In Hell.

Another thing, having both a PC and a Mac now, I'm becoming educated between working with files between both. Particularly video files and codecs. I'm hoping to give a brief chat about that on here. For my own reference if anything.

So, I'm still alive. Just. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate means lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate okay?

More scans. Even less waffle (lie.)

Here is my final working idea. Grown from the pain and suffering I've endured from the earlier work.



Here they are to save the day! These pair of exterminators are the insect repellent in human form. Known as Pest Extermination Super Team (P.E.S.T.) they follow their client 24/7 or 'til the money runs out. I wanted to have a buddy/slapstick style in the characters. And, most importantly, they aren't character insects!



I had issues with the smaller exterminator. For some reason I didn't like the look of him so I went and drew him 'til I liked him. The final choice, seen fully drawn, came to light because his simplicity and classic comic book style appealed.






And this is the early storyboard. There are parts missing, particular the end and the pack shot, but that is because I know exactly what is going there so I don't need to waste time drawing them out. The joke is that the insect pests aren't actually harmful. The real pests are P.E.S.T. because they're bad at their job. Or at least, they love the job so much they go overboard. Adding to the fact they wanted to be soldiers but weren't allow into the army, things kick off whenever the chance arises. (Notice the change in the smaller exterminator to his final design in this storyboard.)


I'll let you soak all of that in now. Mmmm.

Scans of work. No waffle.

Here's my promised scans. They're not the highest res for internet reasons but they should give the general idea. It's an abridged collection of my stuff so don't go thinking this is all I've done.



One of my earlier drawings, from the beginning I've always wanted to avoid drawing the insect as a character. It's something I've explored before, see Me, Mothy & The Bear, and it's something I feel is quite obvious to retreat to when making a comedy insect repellent.



Here's my visual take on a brainstorm. It featured two story ideas. One being a man who fascinates over his insect spray and goes crazy when a fly steals it. The other would have been a back 'n' forth between two human-like flies, only to be blasted by spray at the end for no reason. While I liked the comedy potential of each, I didn't follow these up for various reasons.



Part 2 of 3 of an early storyboard I did featuring, yes, flies as characters. It is about a war on a cake between humans and flies and... and I can't bring myself to talk about this; I hate it. Move on.


This was one point were I tried to attempt to make a fly character look that I like. I got away from the 'Mothy' design well enough but at the end of it I realised I definitely had a problem with comedy talking fly idea as a whole. I quickly moved on.

Enough talk... HAVE AT YOU!

Oh man. I just saw an awesome sight. At the front of my house is a veritable Serengeti, home to squirrels, cats, dogs and the odd wino. And all of them are always up to something. Something suspicious. Anyway, I was fortunate enough to watch a tortoise-shell cat creep up on a squirrel.

Having a great view, I noticed the kitty had got his eyes on something. Given the amount of squirrels on the wilderness plains in front of my house, it was obvious a squirrel was due some serious smackdown. Checking to see if the squirrel had noticed, I'll call him Nutsy from now, it was clear he hadn't. He was going about his happy little business looking for nuts. Little did he know, death was edging closer to his bushy tail.

Rat-crusher, the name I gave the cat, moved with such stealth. Moving with perfect form, stop-starting like a VCR player. He focused on one thing and one thing alone; the kill.

At this time, I had noticed that another squirrel had seen Rat-crusher. Like a gentleman, he had ran up a tree to safety and wiggled his tail a bit. Clearly, he had no intention of warning Nutsy of the impending doom. What an asshole.

The moment to strike was upon us. Rat-crusher braced himself. THEN, I noticed, all this time, I myself had been closely watched by a fat wood pigeon in a tree close to my window. Stupid thing. I gave it a violent wave and it flew. Problem is, this alerted Nutsy to some trouble. Rat-crusher was as still as statue.

Nutsy moved with anticipation now. He knew some bad moves were going down. Not that he'd seen Rat-crusher yet. By luck, however, Nutsy positioned himself behind a tree obscuring Rat-crusher's view. BAM! Rat-crusher panicked, and ran for the kill. Mistake. Nutsy was up the tree before Rat-crusher got close.

Rat-crusher became instantly bored and walked off like nothing happened. I guess that kind of attitude makes a real winner. Though Nutsy was having an awful time running up and down the branches. That'll teach him to look for food.

Sorry if you were expecting death at the end of this story. I'm as disappointed as you. If it makes you feel better, chances are, Nutsy will take one for the team when he runs in front of a tram like they usually do.

I'm trying... to be heroic.

But what is a hero!? A miserable little pile of secrets. And I have a little pile of secrets ready for Bloggimus Time, yes I do.

By the end of the day I'm going to scan in a load of images from my pre-production/production work for the 1st client project. It'll include storyboard and character designs. I've also got a post that needs doing for RefWorks and my literature review though that might be done later. 'Before Thursday' if the word later is too vague for you, you vulture.

In the meantime, I want to mention another student's blog (THAT'S RIGHT, I READ ALL YOUR BLOGS MULTIMEDIA!) Lauren's scene is relevant to my own because she is doing a kitchen scene. And, dear God, her kitchen shows mine up for the miserable little pile of polygons it is. I'll shall try extra hard next time I step into 3Ds Max.

I'm coming along quite nicely with 3Ds Max by the way. Still trying to get my head around this third dimension or whatever it is called but, yeah, it's going good. I'll try get a progress report in pictures for this lovely blog.

Other developments in my life currently, I bought a orange skull candle for 18p from Asda the other day. I've also started using a pressure cooker. Ballin'.