Dot.

How amazing is this?!
My friend Rachel sent me this recently, and it was also reviewed in the May 2011 issue of Creative Review.

Science and Art go hand in hand

Stuff to do over Easter

Complete!

A silly little drawing I did in Corel Painter X.

Lego legs, 2

It's only one little thing, but here is what else i've done to the Lego Man, officially finished the legs now! I'm not going to add the two octagonal clips which connect the torso to the legs, primarily as you won't see them!

Lego legs!

Lego legs complete! Now for the waist, torso, head, arms and hands!

It's been an exciting past few days :)

These past 2 days have been incredibly exciting and productive!

Tuesday, 19/4/2011 - Release of the long awaited sequal to Portal, Portal 2. I got up at 6.30 am to play it, and finished at 11.30 at night. This was by far one of the most exciting days ever. Playing Portal 2 was just phonomenal. Valve have really pushed the boundaries and created a magnificent game. The grahpics were stunning and once again Valve had me baffled on solving puzzles using science and Portals. Playing Portal 2 has also inspired me a lot. Having wanted to work at Valve for a few years now, and it still remains to be one of my aims in life, I'm definately going to put in a lot more hard work and effort into my projects at University (and if I don't my tutors can shout at me for being an idiot). I'm going to really push myself next term to create so hopefully incredible pieces. I'm going to practice modelling a lot more and ask Georg my tutor for more help with it. 

Wednesday 20/4/2011 
Today I went out drawing into Birmingham again with my best friend, Harley. I filled around 3 pages of people within my homemade sketchbook, and have a total of 176 drawings of people in there. I'm super pleased with this, really pleased, this small drawing project I set myself over Easter has worked really well and got my act into gear with work. I have 4 pages left in the sketchbook now, so hopefully these last few days at home will provide me with plenty of drawing oppertunites. When I get back I'll also be asking friends and my tutors (primarily Kathy, our life drawing tutor) for critique which I can use to improve my drawings.

I've begun modelling again, my gameboy project fell to ruin. This time, I'm modelling a lego man. I'm working on the legs at the moment, this is what I've created so far:

I'm currently extruding the faces on the back of the leg so the curve fits nicely and looks even :) (also yes, I was listening to the ending credits of Portal on YouTube)

I'm making a note here, huge success

Also, shameless of me, but I think you should all watch this, then go buy Portal 2 :)

Now I'm thinking with Portals.

Bits and pieces.

I've been finding random drawing i'd done from the first/second term which I hadn't uploaded, so I thought i'd put them up seeing as i've found them.

Drawings

Sketchbook!

After making my new sketchbook, I've been taking it out pretty much everywhere I go. I've been drawing a lot of people in Birmingham City Centre, walking about, waiting at Snow Hill train station, in and around the Bullring, shopping (not that they like it, i've had some pretty nasty looks from people!) Mainly for the shape and poses people make. Then I've just been doing some general doodles here and there for practice :) I've also been drawing items around the house, I'm doing this within different rooms, so far I've done our bathroom.

In the Bathroom. 3/4/2011

Hand 3/4/2011

Outside my house 4/4/2011 - 22.50pm

On the train to Birmingham 5/4/2011

On the train to Birmingham again and around Birmingham City Centre 6/4/2011

Rachel Dare 8/4/2011

Leasowes Park, Halesowen 9/4/2011

Grandma & Pa's 10/4/2011

Other drawings...

Hunter from the game Left 4 Dead 5/4/2011

Peter Pan 7/4/2011 (Inspired by Bri-Chan's work on DeviantART)

The right hand had messed up, I'm still going to sort that out soon, hopefully :)

The Scout from the game Team Fortress 2 8/4/2011

I also had a dream I was a zombie, so I decided to document this by drawing it.

I had a dream I was a zombie 10/4/2011

Illustration in the top left is a portrait of myself by Harley Ross.

I saw the Finnish thrash metal band Children of Bodom live at the 02 Academy in Birmingham on the 8th April 2011. Totally inspired by this gig I decided to draw their main guitarist and singer, Alexi Laiho. I used reference from the photo on Wikipedia;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexi_Laiho

Alexi Laiho, Children of Bodom 10/4/2011

I also took one of my old plasticine models and turned it into a drawn character

 Ivar Ulf, the Viking 12/4/2011, (Plasticine model made in 2008)

These aren't finished yet, still a work in progress :) I'm going to add more emotion drawings and a few more stance poses.

A bit of Photography...

Just some quick shots taken in my garden and the woods behind...

Taken with a Nikon D50 SLR.

(I'm no photographer, so a lot of these are out of focus or blurry. It was just a quick mess about whilst the sun was out)

In the Garden; 

The next four are out of focus, yet I still quite like them. 

Taken in the Woods

My favourites so far;

Out of focus again, but still, I like it. 

All photos (c) copyrite of Laura's Animations 2011.

Experimental Project.

It's a bit late, nevertheless here is my Experimental Animation Final Piece from last term;

Maya Modelling - Self Set Project.

Over Easter, I've decided that every week I have to model at least 1-3 items from around my house. I found I really enjoyed modelling and want to get much better at it.  This week, I've decided to model my Gameboy Colour and Pokemon Red game cartridge. I by the end of the week colour and texture this and render it out to a high quality. The photos I've taken of my Gameboy are pretty rubbish, as they were taken on my webcam.

So far, here's what I've created...

A work in progress. By tonight, Hopefully I'll have the 'A', 'B', 'Select' and 'Start' buttons, along with curve on the bottom where the batteries are placed.

"Here's one I made earlier..."

I was in need of a new sketchbook, something small I could just carry around to do some quick scribbles in when out and about. I decided to make my own sketchbook, inspired by one my friend made me at Christmas.

I first folded some general A4 cartridge paper into two. I then stitched down the fold to create a small booklet. I did this three times, creating 3 A5 booklets. I gathered them all together and stitched them all together through the fold, connecting the three together to make a large A5 booklet.  After I had completed that, using some thick cardboard (I used the back of one of my old sketchbooks) I cut the cardboard slightly larger than the sketchbook, about 1cm on both the height and width. I also included a spine about 1cm thick. 

 

From there I found some fabric out.Placing the three pieces of cardboard together on it, I cut out a large border (around 4cm) 

From there, I glued the pieces of cardboard to the fabric. I pushed them closer together as well, leaving a gap of around 0.5mm either side between the spine and covers. Once that has dried, I began folding the edges in together and glueing these onto the cardboard. (This doesn't have to be neat, as it'll be covered with the sketchbook)

Here it is completed:

Now I brought in the sketchbook I made earlier. The first and back page need to be glued onto the two covers, like so:

Make sure that the sketchbook can open and close properly, then leave to dry. 

Once it's dry, you'll be left with something that looks like this:

Ta da! There's the basic sketchbook. You can leave it like that if you want, however I decided to add some decoration. Using small scraps of fabric, I made small bunting flags. Using a small needle I stitched these on (watch where you glued onto the fabric as you won't be able to stitch there)

For a little bit extra, I added two buttons. (I made the heart shaped one out of clay)

And there you have it! Your own sketchbook :)