I find that whenever I try something new, I use the iconic Wave 2 Spider-Man as a basis. First 3D model, 3D animation, t-shirts. I had actually planned the stained glass to feature Spider-Man as well but I didn't know if it would look good enough to win that contest. Here's his venture into watercolor. I considered adding webbing, but I was afraid of over-detailing. I feel the limited black works just right. I really love how this came out. I'm looking for a local shop to get some prints made, but I have no idea what I'm doing in that arena. Click the image for a larger version or here for the 1920x1080 version.

Here's a contest entry that wasn't a contest entry. With the 10th Anniversary of Minimates, the Minimate Multiverse ran a contest that featured a lot of San Diego Comic Con promo material. I had a great idea for an entry but I didn't need any of the prizes for my collection. So I made the entry anyway and just excluded myself from the voting. Everything apart from the cake and the candles were in my model library. So other than the difficult frosting this was really quick to put together.

Time for another Minimate video. Like all the others, when the idea for this popped into my head I figured it wouldn't take too long. And like all the others, I was wrong.



When I started it was an excerise in deforming a model with shape keys. I just wanted to see what it could do. How it got from "Can I hinge the torso?" to the final video, I'll never know.

I had to recreate all the Spider-Man image maps because they didn't have a high enough resolution for the closeups. Now they're all up to 4096x4096. The table texture took some work as well. It's the most realistic wood texture I've made.



I love that keyboard and surprisingly it wasn't difficult to model. Once you create one key the rest are either simple duplicates or duplicates with a bit of stretching. The front row did need some rework, but it was quick. Look for this model to reappear in later projects.



The pen is what ate up most of the time. The modeling was simple, but the rendering and material tweaking just about broke me. I had a problem where I couldn't get the transparency clear enough, yet still visible. After a long back-and-forth series of tweaking and test rendering I discovered the problem wasn't the transparency but the reflections. I gave it a slight mirror finish to catch reflections of the desk and Minimate. Foolishly, I also applied it to the interior surface of the tube. All of the inner-reflections clouded the tube and caused much frustration. It also added to large render times.



Please don't go cutting open your Minimates looking for the eyeballs. I still hear the screams.

Well unfortunately, I didn't get the large rendering project done before Comic-Con like I had planned. As penance, I threw together a couple new turnarounds using existing Minimate models, both Spider-Man. The first is the basic Spidey from the Day-O Dancing Animation.



The second is 'tron-ified' Spider-Man from this post.



I'll have a work-in-progress version of the long teased 'large rendering project' at Comic-Con. If you're in the San Diego area and interested in seeing it, just ask. It should be easy to pick me out from the other 130,000 con-goers, right?

When Disney bought Marvel it seemed inevitable that worlds would collide. With the upcoming Tron sequel, Marvel is producing a series of variant covers with various heavies reimagined in a Tron world. With my love of all glowy things, I decided a Minimate version of Spider-Man was in order.
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Not only does the Blender community want to share their work, they want to share their knowledge. Many people take it upon themselves to produce tutorials (text-based and video) to demonstrate how to accomplish a particular task. I used a couple of these to figure out the best way to 'unwrap' and flatten a model so I could apply the Spider-Man texture. After unwrapping, I copied the layout and sent it to GIMP (an open source image editing program) where I re-created the familiar red and blue webbed suit.







It's not an easy process, but I'm sure as I create more textures I'll get better at it.

I guess I have a knack for biting off more than I can chew when learning something new. My first attempt at stop motion animation was rough and undisciplined so I was eager to make the next project more memorable. Since Spider-Man is arguably the most iconic Minimate figure, it was an easy choice. Check out the full video in the link below.
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All the world's best and worst philosophies have been expressed on t-shirts. Peace and war, hope and despair, toasters and kittens. So why not Minimates? Well, for starters, DST doesn't make t-shirts. (Apart from the Hunt contest t-shirt, ahem.) It's probably due to some licensing restriction or something. Maybe they wouldn't sell? That doesn't stop me from using a print-on-demand shop to slap my images on a quality garment.
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