Translucent Tuesday Punch
December 31, 2013

I've mentioned the Translucent Tuesday Fight Club before and how it's basically translucent Minimates beating each other up. The guy behind it, Geohound, ran his own TTFC contest on the Multiverse. I was getting the animating itch again, so I created this:



You can see all the the entries here.
 Stained Glass Phoenix
December 24, 2013

I've wanted to try my hand at creating stained glass pieces for years. The color, the light refraction, everything about it just seems to hit all the right buttons. When the Minimate Multiverse put together the Marvel Minimates 10th Anniversary Masterpiece Contest (with prizes from DST), it seemed the perfect opportunity to jump in.

When starting something new, my first reaction is to go slow, experiment and learn how to do it right. I quickly realized that wouldn't win me any contests, so I went full bore with a roughly 14" by 14" Phoenix image with over 100 pieces of glass. Here's the result.
This is actually a scaled-back version. My original template had a much larger fiery Phoenix Force in the background. I do plan on finishing the full version in the upcoming months. Keep checking back.


Back lit on a bright, sunny day. Here you can really see the texture of the glass. I wish I hadn't used such small pieces for the sash. They really caused a lot of difficulties and detract from the overall look. Oh well, lesson learned.


Against the work room window. In these photos you can't really see the solder lines. That's the part that I'm least satisfied with. They are uneven and a bit lumpy.


Here's a big reason why I love stained glass. Refraction. It's so cool way the light bounces and flows as you move the piece. The way the different types of glass bend the light.

You can see all the anniversary contest entries here.
 Walking Dead Contest
December 10, 2013

Man, sometimes I think I only do this stuff to enter contests. I don't, I honestly enjoy creating this stuff. But here's yet another contest entry. Skybound, the publisher of The Walking Dead comics, created an animation contest to promote the Minimates line. I had figured out a good way to get Minimates to talk using texture maps, but hadn't actually implemented it. This gave me the opportunity to push forward.



The rules instructed you to send a link to an animated short featuring Walking Dead Minimates. I read the rules very carefully, there was no directive on the type of animation. However, every other entry was stop motion...


...and done by children.
 10th Anniversary Contest
November 28, 2013

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.
 Battle Beast Contest - Thundegaar
November 26, 2013

Yes, another contest entry. This one was involved creating your own Battle Beast. It was tough to decide which animal, but after many sleepless nights Thundegaar the hippopotamus took form.


Check out the link for many more images.
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 Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Contest
November 19, 2013

I know I've commented here about how contests are a good way to motivate me to create something. Here's another example. Diamond Select created a photo contest to promote the new line of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Minimates. They allowed software manipulation to create energy effects, so it was a nice opportunity to learn how to use my new Cintiq tablet.
I've been out of the video game world since the Game Cube replaced the SuperNES. So it was nice that this game features features a lot of the old Capcom characters I knew. Based on screenshots, I tried to replicate the Phoenix and Iron Man effects. The background was some Mega Bloks sets that were handy.

I was never really satisfied with the output, but there was less than two weeks to the deadline. More time probably wouldn't have helped, but I might have tried something more ambitious. Unfortunately the post with all the entries on the Art Asylum web site has been lost to the aether.
 World War Hulk Cover
October 23, 2011

The Minimate Multiverse Cover Contest made its return this year and I decided to take a stab at it and create a 3D entry using Blender. After some difficulty deciding on which cover to replicate, I settled on World War Hulk #4. It had five new Minimates that I hadn't yet converted to 3D models along with a few opportunites for special effects.


This is a fairly image heavy post that shows each step that I took to recreate the cover.
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 MMMV Hunt #3 - Part 0
October 1, 2009

There's no substantial update today for two reasons. One, I've been spending my Minimate-time shooting photos for the 2009 version of the MMMV contest hunt. You know that one I've been pimping for the last couple weeks. Here's a photo of my Hunt Buddy, Comrade Boris Tiltawhirl Girlieshorts.
Two, I'm running out of material. Chronologically I'm only a year back, and since then I've only done three or four Minimate projects. Once I've posted those, I'll have to make new material. Heaven forfend. :) Maybe I'll start just posting once a week instead of twice. Or perhaps one major project post per week and one little tease post like this per week. We'll see what happens.