I have finally updated my very old iPhone to the new iPhone4s as well as got an iPad2, so I needed to create a wallpaper for my iPhone and iPad backgrounds. I created a moody wallpaper of Marilyn, which I am sharing with anyone who wants it. The iPad has a different aspect ratio to the iPhone, so you have to use the right image for the right device to avoid black bars. If the fog looks a bit severe, don’t worry, with your icons over it, it looks fine.

I have also included a re-encoded (better) video of “Midnight with Marilyn”, and the already crystal clear HD version of “Igor Live” in the pack, both are iPad/iPhone ready. If you are only interested in the wallpapers, just save them from the wallpaper page.

To view wallpapers, go here: [Link]

To download iPack1 with the videos (also suitable for viewing on computer), click here: [Link]

iPack1 has also been added to the downloads page (see link at top of the page), so it can be easy to find in the future, as this page gets buried with older pages after future posts.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, I’ve been very busy with work.

This post is to show the results of some tests I did several weeks ago, trying to get hair to look realistic. I’ve had some success. It took some trial and error, there are no tutorials to show how to get hair to look realistic that I’ve ever found. The people and studios that know how to do it seem to keep the information to themselves. Anyway, I’ve worked out how to do decent hair now, it’s a bit tedious, but once it’s done for a character, it’s done. Hairstyles can be reused on other characters too, I could just change the hair colour.

I was testing on the blonde policewoman. the hairstyle is not the final hairstyle, it’s likely to be tied up. The policewoman is not finished either, I’m just showing the images to show the hair texture. I’ll have to redo all of the other character’s hair too, as I already knew I would have to. [Click here to see hair pictures]

Here is the first of the males, Henry, who is Ed’s gardener. Time has beaten me, my holidays are over and I don’t have Henry fully finished. He’s mostly done though, and so is the priest. I won’t have a lot of time for a while, so I’ll present Henry now as he is, and you’ll see what I need to finish. I’d like another couple of weeks to go over all of the characters I’ve done so far and do the finishing touches. I’ll do bits and pieces in the evenings for the rest of the year, maybe they’ll be polished by Christmas.

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I don’t have a name for this character yet, but she manages Ed’s casino. She is aged in her mid-40′s. If anyone knows how to make money for the casino, she does, and she probably takes a good deal out of the casino too, in her own back pocket.

I haven’t made her clothes yet, but she’ll wear something business-like with asian fabric. In fact, there are so few images online of asian fabric at high resolution, that I have bought some asian fabric from Lincraft to photograph and use. If only I can find my camera, I haven’t used it since January.

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I have created a witch who lives in a hut, in the forest behind Ed’s castle.

LittleB (my wife) informs me that witches are usually skinny old things, but I wanted to try modeling a larger size woman. Well, actually “reshape” more than model. Believe it or not, the witch is using the exact same mesh as the brunette policewoman. I just scaled everything out so that the body was overweight, and reshaped the face. The boots are the same as the police woman’s boots, except I deleted most of the mesh above the ankles and gave them a leather texture. Reusing models makes things go a lot faster, many times faster than starting from scratch.

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In this post, I would like to present Margo. LittleB named her Margo.

Margo is Marilyn’s mother, and Ed’s next door neighbour. Her character model isn’t quite finished, but enough that I can move on while I have the time to get on with creating other characters. The final touches for Margo can be done when I have got only a little bit of spare time here and there, and I’ll explain what things I’d like to both add and change. For now, I need to do the sort of thing that requires working for long blocks of time, at a time.

I didn’t reuse the body from the brunette police woman (other characters may). Margo is more slender in shape, she is a sophisticated lady who exhibits a finer level of fashion and style.

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I have some holiday time, so it’s time to get cracking and finish some new characters for the videos I have in mind.

I am starting with minor characters so that I can get as much experience as I can with organic modeling (as opposed to hard surface modeling which I find much easier) so that I am better at creating characters when the time comes to model the main characters. Already I have improved a lot since making Marilyn, I know I’ll have to go back and improve some things with her. I also know now how to make cloth work properly, so if I was doing Midnight with Marilyn again, her dress would move like cloth does when she walked.

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