KirkD

Freebies

Kirkd — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:11:58 +0000

A few months/years/whenever ago someone made a glib about my sites ‘tutorials’ section only containing one tutorial. As most of the other stuff I have written in the past for things like AE are all out of date I have now scrapped the tutorials section and replaced it with a freebies section in a rather misguided attempt to give something back to the creative community, upon who’s teat I’ve been suckling on for a rather long time. I will add new things now and then as I upload them in the meantime here is the starting lineup.

http://kirkd.co.uk/resources.html

Finished Jezail

Kirkd — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:47:07 +0000

Finally finished this guy. I’ve not had a lot of time for mucking around this year but managed to squeeze a little time in on Saturday/Sunday and cracked him. The hardest part was probably getting the base done as I had no idea what to do other than I wanted something to hold him in place. What I finally ended up doing was blocking up the wooden base with some Das modeling clay and then adding detail to the base. I found an interesting tutorial on how to create scenic bases at xenite.wordpress.com which involves sand and sculpey. My first attempt came out more like a road surface but I’ll try this again sometime.

Another trick I found was painting patina on metal. As the tank on his back is supposed to be bronze I had a look for ideas and came across some painting tips on Games Workshops site about just what I was looking for Painting Ogres – web style This is done with a turquoise wash over the bronze and then tidied up in places.

After some weathering, mainly with ink washes applied a touch too liberally, I am calling him done. I should do some proper photography of him to get some moody shots but for the moment I’m putting him to rest in the cellar and getting ready to tackle something new once I’ve finished a few bits I need to do over the next month.

A full collection of images showing the start to finish process are in my Picasa gallery

Days cycled to work: 17
Days driven: 0

Vinnie Jones and the toast

Kirkd — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:45:48 +0000

Ahhhh Vinnie Jones, legendary nutter. hes doing the rounds again because of some videos for the British Heart Foundation but around half past 2005 I was working at AWC and was working as a video editor. One of our clients at the time was Bosch and they had Bosch blue which is big powertools, they had secured Vinnie Jones to be the face of their big butch man tools for a year and it was nice to work on something which wasn’t Jewson related for a while. The original idea dreamt up called for Vinnie to be using the tools to be building a coffin and if you didn’t use the tools he would put you in it. Mr J was required to turn up at some location for filming and also for photography for the magazines, ads, brochures etc that had been planned. Allegedly he turned up late, demanded toast, swanned around a lot then they got on with it. I can’t confirm this as I didn’t go to the shoot but the creative director and one of the designers (not that i’m mad about it) did. The photographer did a good set of shots but when it came to the video he got out some crappy low cost mini DV cam which was like a home camcorder and no audio gear. As it was shot in some huge hangerlike affair there was a butt load of echo on the tape when I got it and spent most of my time banging my head against the desk while listening to it.

I did a first edit and we originally edited the video without the voice at the end but Bosch said it was too dark and sinister so we added the voice to add some comedy and rather that get someone in or pay for a VO it’s my voice at the end. Yes I star in a video with Vinnie Jones… well star is a bit of a stretch but I’m in it ok. Good enough for me.

Vinnie was becoming famous around this time and X-Men 2 was due out, we had some mad plan at one point to turn up at the premiere wearing Bosch stuff but nothing much happened with that.

What made me thing of this is all the stuff about Vinnie Jones doing the BHF video and I edited a number of BHF videos while at AWC.

Here it is with me at the end in my staring role.

Days cycled to work: 4
Days driven: 0

2012

Kirkd — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:09:22 +0000

This is the year we all die in some Mayan apocalypse, so is it me or is the moon getting bigger?

I’ve been playing with one of my new toys I got for Christmas and it allows me to attach my DSLR to the telescope and take piccys. I think my lens need cleaning as there are a lot of blemishes on the original but this is one of the first I’ve managed to get.

Days cycled to work: 2
Days driven: 0

last post

Kirkd — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:57:15 +0000

Its probably the last post of 2011 so heres the final state of this chap. I’ve not had a lot of time to work on him but this last evening its been wind down time so i’ve been working on him a bit. The colours are all in place and hes nearly done. All that left is to tidy up the final bits and then think about the base. I’m going to see if i can find some interesting bits of rock over Christmas to base him with.

All thats left is to say Merry Chrimbo to all one of you reading this and roll on 2012 to see what high jinx i can get up to.