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Saturday 21 December 2013

Buckbeak Bows



one of several 'live' animatronic features at the Warner Brothers Harry Potter studio tour, the griffon/gryphon from...well, whichever one it was in. Went for a visit there yesterday with a couple of friends for one of their birthdays.

Whatever you think of the whole Potter phenomenon, the tour thing is really quite an experience - granted I'm pretty biased by way of being a sculptor/modelmaker, but - so. much. stuff! - six hours and didn't feel like we'd taken it all in - massively impressed with how much practical stuff is still involved, and how much of it goes unseen, but also with how the practical is tied in with the virtual.

And the enormous 'Hogwarts' model...oh my effin' g. I nearly wept...

- eyeballs are still aching from trying to see everything that was there. Really well-organised layout, no time to get bored in between exhibits...the people-wrangling was very well handled, didn't seem to have to wait any great length of time even for having a go on a broomstick (be warned, there *will* be video of a Brum on a broom!)

...image quality a bit grainy here, had the settings a bit stuffed after several readjustments throughout the tour - looks ok though I think.


I mean hippogriff.

Sunday 8 December 2013

Cthulhu Wars roars

 - well, somewhat belatedly after the finish-date of the funding process, a quick blurb on the CW kickstarter: it was successful, to say the least – the Green Eye Games folks were hoping to raise $40,000 to produce a prototype of their game, with which to approach all and sundry to try and draw on further funding for full production of the game.
What actually happened was that the $40,000 was achieved somewhere within the first couple of hours of going live, and it just kept going madly onwards from there, to the astonishment of everyone involved. Certainly none of the GEG crew were expecting to achieve the $1,403,981 that was raised by the time the campaign came to its end! Needless to say this is going to allow them to pretty much do everything and more beyond their original plans; it’s going to take somewhat longer because of course a lot of extra stuff got added along the way with the achieving of stretch goals and such, adding more and more to the sculpture pile for those of us doing that side of things.
Anyway, good on ‘em, glad it all went so well. I’m just about coming to the end of the last couple of bits I’m sculpting for it – I’ll soon be able to put my feet up – for about ten minutes – before getting started on the next batch of figures for the next Kickstarter that Fenris been asked to be a part of after folks have seen the success we helped to bring about with CW and GEG; I think there are one or two others besides who’ve asked us to do some stuff too, and indeed there are rumours that GEG might be doing something else as well once the Cthulhu stuff is done and dusted.
busy, busy, busy…
 - anyway –
Cthulhu Wars at www.kickstarter.com/projects/1… and/or greeneyegames.com/
Fenris Games at fenrisgames.com/ You can also find both on facebook

scale size stonehenge










- a couple of pics of a series of models created for the soon-to-open new visitor centre at Stonehenge, showing its progression through the ages: first, about 3000 BC, and before the commonly-known henge has appeared, a circular ditch enclosed a series of stones or wooden uprights known as the Aubrey Pillars, the entrance to the site fronted off by the larger ‘heel stone’; by 2500 BC most of the Aubreys have disappeared but for a small number of station stones, while the heel stone has been moved to intercept the line of the solstice. The henge proper has materialised by this stage, the main circle housing an inner ‘horse-shoe’ formation of larger trilithons, as well as a series of smaller so-called ‘blue’stones; by 2200 BC, most of the circular earthworks are greatly diminished, while an ‘avenue’ has been demarked to either side of the heel stone, leading to the site’s entrance.

The second set of pictures shows the original model made for moulding, along with the bronze-effect casting produced from it. This piece represents the modern situation of the stones at the site. All four pieces will be housed in sequence on display at the visitor centre: http://gu.com/p/3y2mf/tf

 - I’ve rattled off a making-of thing, the subtitles don’t seem to work properly on all platforms, but here ya go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxrW-rs0WWE