Two for the Price of One

Hello world,

Just like the loveable characters of gold man C-3PO and his best robot mate the R2D2 but not like them at all; today I’ve drawn the down to earth mechanics of the Nostromo spaceship, Mr Parker and his best bud Brett. With these two last pictures drawn and done this now completes my series of pictures of the Nostromo crew from the amazing alien horror film, Alien…or does it?

Stay tuned for something else made by me coming soon.

The end.

Flight of the Navigator

Hello world,

The next picture in my series of pictures I’ve made of the crew of the Nostromo in pixelated form is hysterical bottler and lady female, Lambert…No not the popular cigarette brand Lambert and Butler, or star of the hit film Highlander 2: The Quickening; Christopher Lambert, or lady song voice Miranda Leigh Lambert, but the navigator of the Nostromo spaceship, from the film Alien.

Even more pictures tomorrow.

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You Have My Sympathies

Hello world,

If the Hollywood has taught us anything, it’s that you can never trust a robot. From Hal-9000 in 2001 Space Odyssey to Evil Bill and Ted in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, clearly the message of these masterpieces is that given enough time, all robots will eventually go mad and try to kill you until you’re dead, yes even C-3PO. With that in mind the next picture that I’ve made is of Ash, the mysterious science officer on-board the Nostromo (made even more evil because he was English).

The journey continues tomorrow.

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Get Away From This Blog, You Bitch!

Hello world,

Believe it or not, today I’m posting a picture I’ve made of Ripley, yes that Ripley from the fantastically scary alien space film, Alien.

More tomorrow.

The end.

Excuse me sir, but you’ve got something on your face

Hello world,

I’ve got some work to do today so the blog is plopping out relatively early. But what's today's blog about? I hear you cry. Well to quote rap superstar Kano, from Labrinth’s hit musical rhyme and beat tune; Earthquake (All-star remix), “Today I'm doing Kane but not the brother of Undertaker”.  Yes that's right; as a follow up to yesterday’s picture of Dallas, today I’ve got a picture I've made of Kane, no not the biblical son of Adam and Eve, or the guy from the hit computer game series Mr Kane and Mr Lynch, or even the Citizen Kane, but the Executive Officer aboard the Nostromo, from the hit alien space film Alien.

Come back tomorrow to find out which of the Nostromo crew I’ve drawn next.

The End.

Welcome to Dallas

Hello world,

Today I’m posting a picture I’ve made of Dallas, no not the long-running American prime time television soap opera from the 80’s, or the ninth most populated city in the United States of America, or the amazing?...R&B vocalist, producer and writer of the hit song “Get It Girl”...but the laid-back captain of the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo, from the hit space film Alien.

The regular reader of my blog will undoubtedly be aware that I’m a massive fan of Ridley Scott’s unbeatable film, so it was inevitable that I’d end up drawing some pictures from my favourite film. As a change from my normal style I decided to make the picture all pixelated like it’s from the golden days of point and click adventure games. Then, as a bonus treat, I’ve added a mini character profile taken from the Alien 20th anniversary DVD, which is written in a lovely green BBC computer style font.

Check back tomorrow for more drawings of the Nostromo crew.

The end.

It’s not every day you blow up a planet.

Hello world,

It’s been over two months since I first got the idea to do a little project involving a spaceship narrowly escaping an exploding planet. Over that time I’ve designed, modelled, textured and animated two rusty spaceships. Got heavily distracted by making some time consuming, but neither the less nice looking fly-bys, and started to really learn how to use After Effects. Now, at last, I can say that my project is finally finished…I think.

I must add that none of this would have been possible without the fantastic tutorials by Andrew Kramer over on videocopilot; he’s like some kind of crazy After Effects god or something. Anyway watch the video below and witness just what happens when an unemployed animator has far too much time on his hands. My next on-going project will be a series of basic animation exercises to help strengthen my animation skills, it may be less glamorous than blowing up a planet, but hopefully it will help me get an animation job.

Exploding Planet from Stephen Craner on Vimeo.


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Starships were meant to fly!

Hello World,

Oh blimey! I’ve only gone and made two blogs in a week, I’m going to need a lie down. Well here’s my spaceship flyby test video in all its Starship glory. The quality is a little more pixelated than I’d like but it seems this is as good as I can achieve and still have a workable file size. To enhance the film I added what I consider to be the best piece from Marc Streitenfeld’s Prometheus soundtrack and for no extra cost a smattering of Saturn from Gustav Holst’s Planet suite. Hope you like it.

Spaceship Flyby Test from Stephen Craner on Vimeo.

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We're Gonna Need a Bigger Ship

Hello world,

Well once again I’m found guilty of neglecting my little blog but hopefully you’ll understand why. Over the last few weeks I’ve been delightfully distracted with making this rather large space(transport)ship. Keeping with the intent of designing a “used worn look” I free styled (not recommended) the design of the ship which kept getting bigger and bigger.  I’m busy rendering out some spaceship flybys now and once that’s done I’ll hopefully get down to animating my original spaceship scene of the ship(s) escaping the doomed planet.

PS. To enhance your viewing pleasure of the pictures below I've found it helpful to make some super space noises in your head or out loud. The choice is yours.

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More of the Same Really

Hello World,

So you’ve gone and designed, built and textured a bloody great big space ship, what do you do next? Make a video of it slowly rotating 360 degrees so everybody can see your hard work of course. So, for your viewing pleasure, here’s my ship slowly rotating around in moving picture form with bonus spooky space soundtrack.

 

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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Rocket Ship

Hello world,

Well I've been busy bee UV mapping and texturing the fourteenth fastest ship in the galaxy and I'm happy to say that it's finally finished (I think...). With that done I can now move on to the fun part of my little project and start animating the ship escaping an exploding planet.

Style wise I was going for a used worn look as utilized in films like Stars Wars films and Alien, but I thought it would also be fun to produce some extra textures of the ship all new and shiny. So below are a few comparison pictures of the ship looking nice and new and old and decrepit. I think I'm quite happy with how it's looking...I think.

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It’s the Fourteenth Fastest Ship in the Galaxy…Give or Take a Few

Hello World,

Well I’ve got a whole heap of pictures to show today of my non textured spaceship.  I’m fairly hopeless when it comes to modelling in Maya (especially if it’s something organic), but even I’m quite pleased with how it’s looking; now all I need to do is start the long process of texturing it.

 The End.

Space my Ship you Mother

Hello world,

It's a nice sunny day so I thought I'd post a concept picture of the spaceship I'm building in Maya for my little space experiment. Hopefully it conveys the dirty used feel that I'm aiming for and a touch of Star Wars thrown in for good measure too. Pictures of the model/textures will be coming soon.

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Space is Ace

Hello World,

After being inspired whilst watching one of Andrew Kramer’s fantastic After Effects tutorials over on Videocopilot, I think I’ve come up with a neat little scene that if I manage to pull it off should spice up my showreel nicely. As homage to Star Wars and my geeky love of Sci-Fi, the little scene will involve a spaceship escaping an exploding planet just in the nick of time.

Below is a very rough storyboard of the ship escaping from the planet, I’m hoping it will look better than this.  Now I just need to model the ship, texture it, animate it, before finally learning just how I go about destroying a planet. Hmm maybe I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

The end.