Headshots From The Heart

Who doesn't like playing video games?

Who doesn't like donating to needy and/or sick children?

Who hasn't stayed up all night (at least once) wondering how in this age of computers and horseless transportation that they could save even a moment of their time by combining these two noble ideals into one, beautiful fulfillment?!?!

WELL QUEST NO LONGER!

Headshots From The Heart, the wonderful, twenty-four hour, gruelling butt-numb-a-thon returns this year to help raise money for Child's Play. As with last year's event (where they played through the original), players will play through as much of Borderlands 2 as possible before their eyes start to bleed and fingers grow numb. Every head shot they secure gains them donations, and along the way they will be auctioning off amazing prizes, hosting live interviews, and giving the audience a chance to sit in a rotating chair and try their hands at eliminating the bad guys, one brainpan at a time!

They're still looking for volunteers, looking to fill the LAN party, and looking for general support, so pop on over to the website linked above and see what you can do. It's a good cause, and you know your momma says you should do it too ;)

For the second year running, Intelligent Designs is stepping up as an official sponsor, providing the creative team behind the event as much graphical support as possible. Things like banner ads:

Various logo designs for side projects:

As well as concepts for their achievements! These are super cool: the audience can actually contact the players AS THEY PLAY and pledge money to the cause in exchange for the characters performing and achieving certain goals, such as:

I could go on about how awesome it all is, but you really should check it out for yourself :)

As always, thanks for reading!

Project - Mass Effect Valentines

To wrap up the massive Valentine's Day card rush I had this year, I've been working on a Mass Effect themed card for a client whose boyfriend loves the game franchise.

I was looking for an excuse to try something new with this project (as I normally am with each new venture) and my client was very open to any idea I had. I opted to attempt a coded message style screen, like the old books you used to buy with the special glasses? You know? Yea, you know...

Overall, I'm very happy with this project. I learned a little bit more about 3-dimensionalizing objects and building them out of parts to a new, final project. As this was the first time I tried one of these secret message, I also experimented a lot with the transparencies and realize now that when you create a .pdf, it flattens them :P

Anyway, I hope you enjoy as much as my client! Thanks for reading :)

Blender Update #2

The design is done, and I caught a tutorial on how to turn it into a MagicEye, although that process now is turning a little wonky :P

Thanks for reading!

Blender Update #1

The program is fun. Intuitive, but with a steep learning curve if you want to dive right in. Some wonderful Youtube tutorials help, plus I'm the type of person to just sort of go with it and look up questions when I get stuck :P

10 points to Gryffindor if you can tell what I've spent two days building ;)

Thanks for reading!

Wanna Build And Render A Heart Using Blender...

Watch is spin around in a beautiful oblivion....

I know you now have that song stuck in your head. You're welcome ;)

Something I've wanted to do for a long time now was create 3D models. Just sort of adding it to the laundry list of little niche skills I want to have.

This isn't really coming out of left field either: always wanting to push myself and try something new, I had a brief period there where I wanted to create special occasion cards (as I often do) with Magic Eye. So I went and found the program online that allows you to add the image to it, but you have to have a 3D image to start with. Reason #1.

A little while after that I got it in my head that I could create a cooler looking model for King of Tokyo than the card ones provided out of Sculpty. That was fine and dandy until I become more acquainted with 3D printing. So then I was totally down with that method, but you have to create a 3D model for the program to use. Reason #2.

Oh, and Carla wants to make some keychains :P Reason #3.

Off the hop, it looks like a beast of a program. Not difficult I'm sure if you know what you're doing, but I just sort of dove right in. Now I'm taking a step back and looking at some tutorials. I'll keep you posted ;)

Thanks for reading!