Kung Fu Panda

I was lucky enough to see Kung Fu Panda at the IMAX here in Melbourne (actually my first IMAX movie!) experiencing 90 minutes of awesomeness. I bought the Art of KFP book earlier, so I was pretty familiar already with what I was going to see, but it was still good :)

If I were to pick gripes, It did seem a little too brief in the story department. Some parts were a little rushed, which seemed to strip some of the deeper meaning, and create a few clashes in the characters. Master Shifu and the Furious Five required some getting used to. Maybe I didn’t like the tone of the celebrity voices, but it just seemed to switch between ‘cool Kung Fu movie’ and ‘kids movie’ from time to time.

That being said, it certainly was a pleasure to watch, with sweet animation and visual style. I can recommend the Art Book also for some excellent drawings of Nicolas Marlet, which includes plenty of great character designs, including the ones who seemed to miss the bus.

Robokill

Take a look at Rock Solid Arcade’s top-down shooter Robokill - Titan Prime, a classic arcade shooter web game with RPG elements (there’s a shop, items and inventory). You basically have to clear out rooms, shooting robots, collecting the wads of cash and items that fall out when they die. It’s simple and fun. The presentation is fantastic. Try it out!

The Happening

I had some ‘out of nowhere’ expectations for this movie and, well, lets just say, it worked for me. It was a pretty simple ‘idea’ movie, which didn’t seem to take itself too seriously. Thats to say Mark Wahlberg didn’t take it too seriously, with the most annoying ‘I’m an eager Science Teacher’ voice ever. The best bits of course were all the death scenes, but, unfortunately, the trailers probably ruined the half the fun for you.

Not everyone thought it was OK though, Grace hated it, and so did Metacritic (aka everyone else), giving it a 35 last time I checked. But hey, it might be worth the ride for you. Although, as a friend at work pointed out, you might not be too enthusiastic about M. Night Shyamalan taking on Avatar: The Last Airbender anymore…

Harvest

Do take a look at the very awesome Harvest - Massive Encounter for your strategic pleasure. The game basically has you mining resources, managing energy distribution and positioning laser towers and other defenses in the path of incoming flying saucers. They look cute, and I’m sure they just want a hug, but you’ll have to kill them. It’s simple representation shows it’s strength when your base design flaws are exposed by your deceivingly slow enemies.

I like to play at double speed :) but I can’t seem to get past threat level 56!

Attack of the Pyramid Squid Monsters!

This has been a little lunch time project of mine for a few days. I know there's a bunch of perspective errors and the brush work is at times a little too many scribbles, but I'm trying to keep my workflow nice and fresh. Drawing the tentacles was a pain, I think next time I will work with vector masks for areas like that.

See in Gallery

The Orphanage

This movie is very good, and is a great guide for efficient movie making! Nice work to director Juan Antonio Bayona and no doubt producer/presenter Guillermo del Toro. The house in this movie did a fantastic job too.

The movie is basically a haunted house story, and is full of creaky hallways, metal clangs, and ghosts. I jumped on several occasions; its the children. I think my memories of the alien in Alien 3 running on the roof kind of mixed with the creepy characters of The Ring and The Grudge, and now I’m just terrified of children in the dark. I think real blood makes me a little wheezy too… I’m so tough!

The Blue Girl With Green Eyes

I was playing with some brush settings in photoshop, and thought I'd follow through with this one. This was a bit of fun! I'm working on a tentacle monster project in the background at the moment, and this kind of gets me back into the swing of things! I actually spent a bit of time on the line work here - although it's still quite messy. I need a better way of controlling the shape of the lines, rather than fiddling over it with the eraser. I like the colours though!

See in Gallery