BananaKing

I actually sense the reunion of the Strawhats as a filler then perhaps the long awaited journey to fishman island with a battle along the way to demo the Strawhat's new individual talents. The crew has been separated long enough and I'm sure Oda knows how his fans must feel. The story is its best when the Strawhats are together, sharing fun moments and fighting alongside each other like true nakama

It restarts next week

Uh, she kind of already did in order to let him train with Rayleigh. I still say the Thousand Sunny is the Tenth crew member, or rather the spirit of the ship is the tenth member I'm not sure how much about Haki Ivankov knows. Sanji is learning about food, not fighting. He's being taught a type of cuisine that'll keep the crew at top vigor and improve their power.

Yeah its supposed to be a big film and media arts school. Yeah have a look

I think I know where Ryuki is talking about, I almost went there for my animation degree. You're referring to that big media arts school in Vancouver right? If it wasn't for the cold, I'd be there XD I'd guess you'd need a passport but I don't know enough about foreign traveling to say anything about the Visa. My brother goes to Canada all the time since he lives close by and all he needs is his passport, but then again he doesn't live there.

I'd love to say Florida to hang out with the King, but my real guess is MA?

Well I don't have max, I have maya but it may not matter. Well I have several models, all of them got better with time. When I make my next gallery installment I'll post some of my older models for you

Its always funny, when you make anything whether it be a drawing or a 3D model, you always love it when you're making it thinking it to be perfect. Then when its done, you see how bad some of your decisions were and how many problems the finished problem has. (This isn't true all the time) I knew going in the head was going to be the most troubling thing. I'm a big picture kind of guy, I lack both the technical skills and patience to create detail in my drawings and 3D work. I think part of it has to do with a short attention span, but at the same time that is counteracted by my good work ethic. I can get the basic shape down relatively quickly, its always with the detail that my skills lack and they always show for it. I could go on and blame that "Well I was just following the edge-flow guides we were given" but I'd only be making excuses. Really at this point, you need to take a good look at what you're modeling and decide just how much geo you really need. There's no doubt in my mind that if I had to make another complete character model, I'd know how much geo I'd need to make the model effective. All over the model there's unnecessary edges that give no shape, and looking bad, I know how to get rid the edges and make the model both easier and make the geo work for me. Btw, how long did it take you to make that rough head; a few hours? Cause that detailed head took me only 2 days, but I prioritize like that. If you wouldn't mind I would like to keep that model on file so in my next modeling course I can use it to help my modeling process.

Oh, well thank you Mrs. Chaos! As promised Ryuki, here's both the wireframes and low res versions. I took pictures of the model and the clothes separate so their geometry wouldn't interfere with the other. I also took some pictures of the rig, but since its no longer in T-pose like the model is, I'm not sure how much it can help you. I don't know whether you used 3dsMax, Maya, or some other program but if you do have a copy of Maya I can also send you the 2 files for a better look. Archive.zip- its around 40pics so be prepared

Why thank you Mr. Chaos! As always I appreciate the comments. Ryuki, I haven't forgotten your requested wireframes, give me another couple of days and you'll see them

That's the joint weight system working against me.

Well I just know there's more to the weight system than we were told. I don't like it if someone is asked to produce a certain quality work and they aren't told how to fix complications on a system they've never used before. In my case, I never worked with the weight system and when I asked if there was a way to take away weight from certain joints, I was just told "Nope, you've just got to deal with it"....yeah that's what I want to hear when I pay you and your boss $75grand. I'm sure its something they'll address further in the later Rigging course.

I'll get on it in the next few days, the whole weight system brought too many problems and created some very annoying geometry. The back of the posed figure has his "flat" ass sticking out of his pants. We weren't informed on how to do the weights system, so I was stuck with the bad geo. The posed figure was extra credit anyway. I can provide both a wireframe mesh and a lose res version in the next few days. As for character design, my paper design isn't at good quality. I don't feel comfortably posting it since it doesn't reflect my ability the way I wished it would. I put more time on the char model than his design.

If you're going through the trouble of coloring the images, might as well go the extra mile and take your own spin on it and show your creativity. We all know what color the gigantic is, but how do YOU color the gigantic? And shadows are created by taking shades of the selected color and experimenting with them. Example: human skin is a tint of yellow-orange. To create realistic human shadow ontop of skin, you'd need a shade of yellow-orange. For those who didn't take color theory class, a tint is any color mixed with white, a shade is any color mixed with black. For completion sake, a tone is any color mixed with grey. That is your color theory lesson for the day.

So not much of an update but I do want everyone to see this. Shichiro Zetsumei Character Design and Creation Maya 2011 So I've been working this past month on this 3D character which is also a character for a story I'm writing. This was my first time doing any kind of character modeling and clothing modeling. I think his headband came out really good and I love the pose I put him in. I'd love to know what you all think

Not bad dude. Next try experimenting with some shadow-play that way you can add another dimension of realism to your colored images

My brother and I strongly believe the tenth member of the crew is the Thousand Sunny. They treat their ship like is part of their crew. Now I do disagree about Chopper stronger than Franky. I say Franky is #4 of the crew solely because he actually beat Monster Point back at Enies Lobby. Granted, Monster Point was REALLY exhausted and he just shot him into the water, but he did still beat him. And Nami stronger than Ussop? Ussop is both really smart and cunningly strong. On top of that, he built Nami's Climatact, don't you think he knows its weakness? And don't get me started when he buts out the Sogeking mask, then Ussop goes Super Saiyan!

If you recall when the strawhats fought the Flying Fish Riders, Brooke used his music as a means of fighting. Brooke hasn't seen that much action anyway, he's more of a comic relief character than a fighter. We haven't had a real good chance to see the extent of his abilities. The only real fight he's had was the fight with Ryuma, and most of that fight was off camera. The only real attack he seems to have is that Notch Arrow Strike, otherwise he's got nothing. I like him though, he's funny and cool. Back in senior year in high school I made a 7ft tall figure drawing of him and glued it onto a big foam board cut-out. It was soooo cool, but the when the art department was cleaned out, the school got rid of it without telling me...I miss my Brooke drawing.

Ussop shooting Haki stars, now that would be awesome and hillarious. True everone does have haki, it doesn't mean that everyone can use it effectively and frequently in battle. I think zoro may be able to use haki in the same way that luffy does, you know that "King's Disposition" thing the Kuja called it. When he almost cut Charlros (sp) at Shabondy, I think he showed a small sign of it. The rest don't seem to show any signs of knowing how to tap into their haki, and unlike luffy and possibly zoro, have no means of being taught how to use it.

Zoro maybe, but I have my doubts on anyone else from the strawhats being able to use it. Luffy's the only member with confirmed Haki and is being trained to use it. Mihawk may show zoro how to use it with his sword but I'm just not to sure if that will happen

I have faith in the series, no question about that, I'm just concerned that if Oda Sensei does this two year gap and maturity thing the wrong way, the series will take too drastic of a turn in character. Btw, you don't consider Zoro and Luffy to be the OP members of the group? We all know that zoro could definitely beat Sanji. I mean he was actually able to cut a small slice into Kuma, sanji nearly broke his leg hitting the behemoth.

Well the way I see it, the death of Luffy's brother has called a serious change in his personality much like Robin's situation at Enies Lobby did. His Gear system isn't cutting it anymore, he isn't strong enough to defeat the people that stand in the way of him protecting his friends and family. Remember how powerless Luffy was when Kizaru and Sentamaro nearly destroyed his crew? For the first time in their history Luffy told them to just run away; you know how much it must have hurt luffy to do that? Its not a matter of pride, but a matter of his own weakness. He couldn't protect his friends when they're were facing enemies that were trying to kill them; it must have torn him up something bad. Luffy knows that he needs to be able to get stronger, his gear system got him through one milestone, now he needs to exceed another. With Rayleigh's help he'll be able to...what I don't like is this 2 year gap in story...a lot of things can happen in two years, and if not done right, this gap will just feel stupid, pointless, and may create a very awkward transition back to main story.

So the latest chapter...I don't know how to feel about it...

So here's the promised update. I went and took some pictures of a few of my other Al Held style drawings for you BBD, since I know you're interested in them. I'll point out which one is more closely to his style for you. So a bit of a disclaimer here, unfortunately I don't have a digital camera of my own; so I'm forced to take whatever pictures I can't scan with my small scanner using my laptop's camera and the quality on some of these pictures kind of sucks. I do apologize and hope you can still apprceate the art. Without further adieu, lets continue the show! Repeated Simplicty Pen & Colored Ink Made in Expressive Drawing First up we have what my professor called the "Repeated Unit" project. We basically had to take either a single object like a plant, telephone, etc or a small composition of man-made objects and repeat a contour drawing of them at least 16 times. What we did from there was our call. I was fiddling with some of the prinicpals of design at that point in school, and anyone who isn't familiar with the POD; they're basically what you can achieve using the elements of art. The EoA are simple things like contrast, shape, texture, etc. So I decided by changing the color of the line in a pattern I'd increase the composition by creating unity and variety and both a pattern. I like the look of 3D so I chose both red and blue. The black line is there to draw more attention to the red and blue. Clutter Pen & Colored Ink Made in Principals of 2D Design So we have another Al Held drawing but this one has both organic and mechanical lines. I took a whole bunch of random objects in the art building and bunched them together. I do like the contrast of shape created by having all of the poles in front of the tire. It isn't one of my favorites, but the art department at my last school wanted to keep if for their gallery, but I knew that if they liked it, that it would best to keep in my portfolio. Unseen Maze Pen & Colored Ink Made in Expressive Drawing So as promised BBD this is the Al Held style piece closer to the true artist's style. He liked more abstract compositions so when we were first introduced to his style, we too had to create our own abstract piece. Now the quality of the picture may not make it visible, but there are smaller mechanical lines creating contrast of line thickness. Now my professor loved to hammer an aspect of art that doesn't really have an official name: "Wholesale, Retail, and No-sale". Basically, a Wholesale is something all across the art piece, a retail is something spread not as heavily as a wholesale but is very prominent in the piece. Finally the No-sale is something special that is "not for sale" and is unique. My professor "Doc" pushed us to make no-sales in our art and in this piece the no-sale is the small spots of orange. Since they're aren't very prominent in the piece, they stick out far more than anything else and create their own focal point. Volcanic Eruption Intaglio Print Made in Printmaking 1 So an intaglio print is basically a print made from etching a composition into a copper or zinc plate (since zinc was cheaper we used zinc), then printed on printmaking paper. So in order for you to get that irregular border you'd have to etch and file those edges like CRAZY, unless you have access to special acid that eats through non-chemically protected metal. As you've guessed, I placed special chemicals on the body of the volcano and let the acid eat the rest of the plate for about 18hrs. I wanted to make the plate feel like it was being caught in the eruption of the volcano and being melted by the magma. It created this awesome look and complimentary feeling. The Human Poison Mental Ray Maya 2011 Shading and Lighting So this was my final project for shading and lighting where I had to choose from a couple of separate scene files and create my own mood and feeling. I wanted to go for dank depressing bathroom that looked like something out of a psycho horror movie. We weren't allowed to have any blood or anything hinting towards blood in the piece so already my piece was stifled. The small amount of lights make the piece feel like the lights are either broken or don't work as well as they used to complimenting the already dank textures. Now for those that don't have super vision the mirror reads, "Cast in the name of god, YE GUILTY!" Now those who know their anime know that line come directly from Big-O, and the whole scene is actually an homage to and episode where a killer android murdered people and wrote "Cast in the name of god, YE GUILTY on a nearby mirror in the victim's blood. It made for some really cool scenes in the episode and really built up a very creepy killer. C'mon, a murdering psycho android, what's scarier than that?! Well maybe a 50ft invisible murdering crab monster made of brocoli...no that can't possibly exist...[emote=monkey]think[/emote]

Again thank you for the wonderful compliments guys. I will post more art soon, within the next week give or take a few days. I'm just finishing a project as we speak and when I get it done, the gallery will receive an update.