Here's the featurette video highlighting some of the work done by Kara aka Electric Lady. It was great working with her at the various locations we explored around Seattle and I'd be happy to do it again. Will I be doing "featurettes" for other people? Possibly, it primarily comes down to the cosplayer and whether they are willing to invest the time and effort required to fulfill something like this. Our efforts are summarized and compiled into the following final video:
I believe releasing this video also marks the beginning of the end, with my intention to; take a break / retire / go on a hiatus / sabbatical / etc. The length is as of yet unknown and is being done for a few different reasons. If I manage to attend another convention, hopefully it will be one where my Spectre is debuting. See you then!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Sakuracon 2012 - 02
2nd and final Sakuracon coverage (montage) video follows:
Will upload the cosplayer feature video tomorrow morning.
Will upload the cosplayer feature video tomorrow morning.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Sakuracon 2012
Yesterday concluded the year's Sakuracon event at the Washington state convention center in Seattle. It was another great year with amazing weather--cool days with clear skies. Since this year's Sakuracon was nearly a month earlier than last, the event actually coincided with the Sakura blooms around the city. While there aren't many Sakura trees around the actual convention site (that I know of), the overlap allows for good opportunities to go off-site to take pictures or do video, etc.
I met up with a lot of cool people and had a great time at this year's event. However, security was quite a bit more obnoxious.
This year I wanted to be a little ambitious and try a few new things with regard to video. While I made some attempts, the outcome wasn't very successful so I won't be able to provide immediate results. Looking at my post from last year's Sakuracon I can say that I'm probably as well versed in the culture / scene as everyone else and it's interesting to see that I managed to pull 3 videos from 20 gbs of raw footage. This year's tally hovered around 32gb of video and I'm aiming to release 2 videos and 1 short feature.
I had the pleasure of getting to work with Electric lady who came out from Arizona and she likewise agreed to participating in my lofty / insane ideas which I greatly appreciated (most people are unwilling to invest their time and energy, though with possibly good reason). I took a few teaser photos from our adventures, here's one:
It took some time but I managed to crank out both my first video from Sakuracon and the feature video I did for Electric lady. However, I'm saving the latter video for the final release. In the meantime, take a look at release #1:
I met up with a lot of cool people and had a great time at this year's event. However, security was quite a bit more obnoxious.
This year I wanted to be a little ambitious and try a few new things with regard to video. While I made some attempts, the outcome wasn't very successful so I won't be able to provide immediate results. Looking at my post from last year's Sakuracon I can say that I'm probably as well versed in the culture / scene as everyone else and it's interesting to see that I managed to pull 3 videos from 20 gbs of raw footage. This year's tally hovered around 32gb of video and I'm aiming to release 2 videos and 1 short feature.
I had the pleasure of getting to work with Electric lady who came out from Arizona and she likewise agreed to participating in my lofty / insane ideas which I greatly appreciated (most people are unwilling to invest their time and energy, though with possibly good reason). I took a few teaser photos from our adventures, here's one:
It took some time but I managed to crank out both my first video from Sakuracon and the feature video I did for Electric lady. However, I'm saving the latter video for the final release. In the meantime, take a look at release #1:
Monday, April 2, 2012
Spring update
Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Drift Doctor has arrived!
The very first post of this blog nearly 3 years ago was titled, "Birth of a drift doctor." The term seemed a bit vague but this post brings everything full circle as the Drift Doctor has finally arrived!
Just waiting for people before starting my exam.
Trying to show that my work left a lasting impact in my field.
A few days ago I passed my final defense after a grueling four and a half years and graduated with my PhD. This blog isn't intended to be concerned with that. However, it helps to clarify why the blog is titled the way it is. So while I've legitimized the doctor part of driftdoctor.com, I've kinda fallen away from the drift aspect which stems from my love of cars, speed, and driving. In the future I hope to correct this deviation and get back into the car scene.
There weren't any updates last week as my attention was diverted to passing my exam. Now that I seem to have a bit more time on my hands, hopefully I can make some progress on the projects I've been working on.
Just waiting for people before starting my exam.
Trying to show that my work left a lasting impact in my field.
A few days ago I passed my final defense after a grueling four and a half years and graduated with my PhD. This blog isn't intended to be concerned with that. However, it helps to clarify why the blog is titled the way it is. So while I've legitimized the doctor part of driftdoctor.com, I've kinda fallen away from the drift aspect which stems from my love of cars, speed, and driving. In the future I hope to correct this deviation and get back into the car scene.
There weren't any updates last week as my attention was diverted to passing my exam. Now that I seem to have a bit more time on my hands, hopefully I can make some progress on the projects I've been working on.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
SC2 Spectre Cosplay: Helmet
The good stuff starts now.
Probably the most interesting part of the spectre is its helmet--the real deal has a multi-piece visor that pops out and swivels and does all sorts of craziness. While it would be nice to be able to do all that, it's a bit beyond my skill level at this point in time. However, there are lights galore, which definitely will be added later for effect. The helmet is locked in the closed position which may be disastrous in terms of airflow, etc. but I'll figure it out as I go.
My bff across the country in NY managed to produce the base form-work of the helmet from which I'll be building upon to eventually finish. He did a great job up to this point, but time has eluded him so I'll be taking over now. It started as a nicely detailed pepakura model which was scaled from a life-cast model of my head. The pep model was affixed to the cast head and expanding foam was used to fill in the gaps. The outer pep surface was then smoothed out a bit with bondo and a few details were added with apoxie sculpt. Right now the helmet is permanently bound to the head casting. This means that once the helmet is finished, it will need to be molded and slush-cast or roto-cast to yield the finished, wearable shell.
After working with the leg and shoe models in previous updates and having experienced the never-ending perpetual add-material-sand-repeat process--I'll be experimenting with a different approach for the helmet. I picked up some Monster Clay which is a professional grade modeling clay used for creating masks, props, replicas, and other wild stuff. It seems to be a popular medium used by those in industry and Hollywood--it should fit the bill I think. I essentially coated the helmet with monster clay and will next spend time adding details and trying to "sculpt" the surface. After working with it for a few hours, my impression is that this clay is pretty great. Monster clay has zero tack which is absolutely crucial for achieving perfect surfaces and textures. Apoxie sculpt is great too but it has a decent amount of tack which is really annoying when more material sticks to your gloves than the surface you're working on. Another great thing about monster clay is that it's incredibly rigid at room temperature. This requires you to heat the clay (microwave / oven) till it's pliable, add material to your surface, and then when it's cool the clay is firm enough to allow more precise sculpting and the adding of details.
However, I must add that I'm not a sculptor and have not really worked very much with clay, so it's going to be a learn-as-I-go experience. Right now the helmet looks pretty ugly with my shoddy clay-forming skills but hopefully it'll begin taking shape with future updates.
Probably the most interesting part of the spectre is its helmet--the real deal has a multi-piece visor that pops out and swivels and does all sorts of craziness. While it would be nice to be able to do all that, it's a bit beyond my skill level at this point in time. However, there are lights galore, which definitely will be added later for effect. The helmet is locked in the closed position which may be disastrous in terms of airflow, etc. but I'll figure it out as I go.
My bff across the country in NY managed to produce the base form-work of the helmet from which I'll be building upon to eventually finish. He did a great job up to this point, but time has eluded him so I'll be taking over now. It started as a nicely detailed pepakura model which was scaled from a life-cast model of my head. The pep model was affixed to the cast head and expanding foam was used to fill in the gaps. The outer pep surface was then smoothed out a bit with bondo and a few details were added with apoxie sculpt. Right now the helmet is permanently bound to the head casting. This means that once the helmet is finished, it will need to be molded and slush-cast or roto-cast to yield the finished, wearable shell.
After working with the leg and shoe models in previous updates and having experienced the never-ending perpetual add-material-sand-repeat process--I'll be experimenting with a different approach for the helmet. I picked up some Monster Clay which is a professional grade modeling clay used for creating masks, props, replicas, and other wild stuff. It seems to be a popular medium used by those in industry and Hollywood--it should fit the bill I think. I essentially coated the helmet with monster clay and will next spend time adding details and trying to "sculpt" the surface. After working with it for a few hours, my impression is that this clay is pretty great. Monster clay has zero tack which is absolutely crucial for achieving perfect surfaces and textures. Apoxie sculpt is great too but it has a decent amount of tack which is really annoying when more material sticks to your gloves than the surface you're working on. Another great thing about monster clay is that it's incredibly rigid at room temperature. This requires you to heat the clay (microwave / oven) till it's pliable, add material to your surface, and then when it's cool the clay is firm enough to allow more precise sculpting and the adding of details.
However, I must add that I'm not a sculptor and have not really worked very much with clay, so it's going to be a learn-as-I-go experience. Right now the helmet looks pretty ugly with my shoddy clay-forming skills but hopefully it'll begin taking shape with future updates.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
SC2 Spectre Cosplay Update
Weather has been bad lately, too cold and too rainy, so I haven't been able to think about priming the legs. I continued sanding the shoes a bit more, and more sanding and smoothing is needed yet still...
Soon in the future I'll likely begin working on the helmet bit as well.
A link to the pep file for the legs / shoes can be found here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?i5f64w5vj64eoaj
Soon in the future I'll likely begin working on the helmet bit as well.
A link to the pep file for the legs / shoes can be found here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?i5f64w5vj64eoaj
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Perfume - Japanese Daft Punk
I've featured some Japanese music groups before such as the always-entertaining Genki Sudo, but another group that I enjoy, which I guess you could describe very loosely as "Japanese Daft Punk" only in the sense that both have an electronic sound, is パフューム or Perfume.
Perfume is a pretty big-name electronic pop group in Japan with a pretty unique and upbeat sound while not being a "cookie cutter" girl group. Their music is only half the story though. While not quite the same style or caliber as Genki Sudo, Perfume's choreography is entertaining and fun.
Their music is featured in various commercials and movies, including in Pixar's Cars 2.
However, while huge in Japan, Perfume like most Japanese music groups has only niche followings in other parts of the western world. That's fine, but it would be cool to see them branch out into other non-Asian markets. *hint hint*
A sampler vid is below:
Perfume is a pretty big-name electronic pop group in Japan with a pretty unique and upbeat sound while not being a "cookie cutter" girl group. Their music is only half the story though. While not quite the same style or caliber as Genki Sudo, Perfume's choreography is entertaining and fun.
Their music is featured in various commercials and movies, including in Pixar's Cars 2.
However, while huge in Japan, Perfume like most Japanese music groups has only niche followings in other parts of the western world. That's fine, but it would be cool to see them branch out into other non-Asian markets. *hint hint*
A sampler vid is below:
Sunday, February 12, 2012
SC2 Spectre Cosplay: Legs 11 + Shoes
I'm making very slow progress as usual--I'm pretty much limited to working on the project during the weekend as by the time I get home from work during the week, it's pitch black outside. Temperatures are still on the cold side so that's going to hinder the painting process. Hopefully things start to warm up soon... California cosplayers probably don't appreciate their amazing weather enough.
Anyway, smoothing of the "leg bits" continues, they're pretty much done I believe--the next step(s) should be to give them a coat of primer if weather permits. I'm pretty excited to see what the legs will look like when they're a uniform color, although surface unevenness will be amplified.
The shoes are also going through the slow "build-up and smoothing" process and are slowly making headway. It seriously looks like I haven't done anything in the picture below due to the ugly patchiness, but I insist that it's a lot better than it was last week. Baby steps, to be continued...
Anyway, smoothing of the "leg bits" continues, they're pretty much done I believe--the next step(s) should be to give them a coat of primer if weather permits. I'm pretty excited to see what the legs will look like when they're a uniform color, although surface unevenness will be amplified.
The shoes are also going through the slow "build-up and smoothing" process and are slowly making headway. It seriously looks like I haven't done anything in the picture below due to the ugly patchiness, but I insist that it's a lot better than it was last week. Baby steps, to be continued...
Sunday, February 5, 2012
SC2 Spectre Cosplay: Legs 10 + Shoes
Tried smoothing out the detail bits on the legs but apoxie sculpt is pretty tough stuff to sand down, takes a lot of passes to level. It's coming along fairly well though. I think the legs are nearly done and ready to be primed and cut.
As far as the shoes are concerned, the body filler / sanding process is currently underway and the process is pretty terrible (dust EVERYWHERE). It'll take a few goes at it before it starts getting somewhat uniformly smooth. I'm not sure if I'm going to leave the Sintra exposed or if I should coat it with a thin layer of something. The easy way out it to leave it as it is, but part of me thinks I should cover it...
As far as the shoes are concerned, the body filler / sanding process is currently underway and the process is pretty terrible (dust EVERYWHERE). It'll take a few goes at it before it starts getting somewhat uniformly smooth. I'm not sure if I'm going to leave the Sintra exposed or if I should coat it with a thin layer of something. The easy way out it to leave it as it is, but part of me thinks I should cover it...
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