I am finally on vacation from the day job. And true to my usual pattern I am still plugging along getting stuff done, just at a slightly less frantic pace and with a little more goofing off
thrown in the mix. I’m not very good at the sit on the porch or the couch and veg out type of vacation. I prefer to have something to do, that I want to get done. Which is a good thing for you because it means I will still have something to write about.
So far, in the few days that I have been on vacation, I have managed to finish painting the walls of my music room. Or at least I have deemed them to be finished. I’m pretty sure the tan color is bleeding through still even after two coats. But I’m tired of painting walls for now and having my home all a disaster so they are done. And I have started putting guitars back in there. I think they look much happier with the blues than they did with the tans.
I have also managed to finish the Gibson guitar head stock painting. I know you probably thought it was done the last time you saw a picture of it. It was close. I did go back and do one final layer of really tiny black. It evened it out and filled everything in nicer. I brightened and tightened up the lettering. That made a huge difference. When I started on it, I was just going to see if I could get the lettering color mixed up. I didn’t expect to have time to actually do the work. I did though and was still able to get to my class on time. So here we are now. It’s basically complete, it lacks only a third and final coat of varnish before calling it totally done with nothing else to do to it.
With the Gibson painting complete it’s time to decide what to paint next. I’ve chosen two. And I have even prepared their canvas boards. Here’s a view of the boards and a peak at what I’m planning to put on them.
So I’ve also got computer art that needs to be worked on and I’ve made progress there. I finally decided on an idea for the Holiday card for this year. I know, I was planning on Halloween this year and I’ve totally skipped over it. I may yet get it done, just maybe not as early as I had hoped. Anyway, back to the Holiday card. I’ve decided to use one of the ornaments, the glass ball type that you put on the tree, and show a reflection of the Snowman in it. At least that’s what I think I want to do if I can make it work. So I loaded an ornament into a new 3DS Max scene and then created a cylinder and gave it a material so I could see how well it would reflect and so I could tell if the lights and the camera were at the right angles. That was a real challenge. Trying to get the light just right so that the specular highlight didn’t wash out the reflection of the object, and also so that the color of
the ball still showed. Here are a couple of picture of the testing process. I made a tweak to the material for the glass ball on the second one and it made the reflection a little more clear so that’s the one I think I’ll use.
Now that I know roughly how to make the scene work it’s time to actually put it all together. I know I want the Snowman in the reflection, I’m not sure yet if I will have him holding the ball or not. I probably should because otherwise it is sort of creepy and disembodied type of thing and that’s not really what I’m going for. I guess I’ll figure it out once I start putting all the bits and pieces together. That should be fun.
As you can see, so far the vacation thing has been pretty productive. I have few more things I want to work on in addition to finishing up the Holiday card. I do have an idea for a Halloween card that I would like to get worked on and maybe even completed. And there are two new guitar paintings to start. And of course there is the Worm Guy and a squirrel and a squid. I should be able to stay out of trouble for the next few days while enjoying the opportunity to ignore my alarm clock. Yes, I did leave my alarm set just so I could have the satisfaction of rolling over and turning it off and going back to sleep. I think I’ll go do some of that goofing off for a while before getting elbows deep in the next adventure.