Endless Ocean.... is endless....

Last week I finally had the chance to use Endless Ocean on the Wiii with my Literacy set. For those of you who don't know Endless Ocean is a diving simulator where you go around looking at sea life and collecting objects. It is a very chilled out game and has a really nice sound track. It is really hard to buy though, but Endless Ocean 2 came out recently so that will provide a similar experience though isstill hard to find in your local shop.

The aim for my work was a precursor to a school trip to the London Aquarium. The first day we went diving and looked around the environment. About 6 children had a short go and the rest of the class where encouraged to make notes of what they saw. Then we looked at writing a description of the dive they just took. On the second day we had the task of creating our own sea creatures. We played the game again and this time focused on finding new creatures and reading the description that come up as you learn about the things around you. We read about 5 or 6 examples and discussed what information was included. Then the children where given images of various sea creatures and asked to cut them up to create their own creature and then write a description in the style of the game. The descriptions of the creatures where great, they where imaginative and really detailed a great success. I only wish I could have spent more time with the games and do more.

Look at the images below of the work they produced.



Check out the video below for some game play of Endless Ocean.

Moddler

I just noticed that John over at Moddler is using the Dictator model I made for Khurasan on his splash page.
I let myself get a little tickled over this because John has some real talent from other artist, ala-Zbrush, in his portfolio pictures and I'm pleased I made the cut.  Jon over at Khurasan should have this monster available soon, so keep your eyes on his web page.

Just a bit about, the man who makes my 3D models into real world objects:

John Vegher does all my 3D prints, he offers great service at a great price.... I know because I have shopped around. In John's last career, he ran a Emmy winning visual effects house and was a founding member of Giant Killer Robots and Pixel Liberation Front.

If you ever need a 3d model made into a real world object, I recommend you put Moddler on your short list of service providers.

Leviathan Crusader Head

I never got a chance to post pics of the Crusader head, so here you go...

Here are a couple of shots of the Vulkan Cannon with ammo belt and accessories.

And here is a shot of the torso. The hydraulics are not in place but it should give a good feel of scale.

Here is a shot of the arm components. Note the key design so you can remove the arms and change out the weapons.

Super Mario Fan Fiction - Cleveland J - Year 6

A few weeks ago I started a club aimed at motivating Year 6 boys with their creative writing skills. I had a group of 10 boys who didn't enjoy writing and after speaking with their class teachers i found that getting 10 lines out of them was an achievement. So my aim was to getting them excited about writing again. My first post on the first lessons about Wordle can be found here

So after the first lesson of using Worlde to gather descriptive words for different worlds and levels we moved on to the characters. Now if you are not familiar with idea of Fan-Fiction stories is good to know that they are the perfect way to blend various "universes" together. For example Mario can meet Sonic or even Ratchet and Clank within the Fan-Fiction. This allows for the pupils to add their favourite game characters from different games. The one thing i wanted to keep the same through-out their work was the setting which was going to be the Mario World.

So like the level Wordle creations we created we moved to creating verions for the characters. Below are a few for Yoshi, Bowser and Mario.








So we had a catalogue of good descriptive words for worlds, levels and characters so moved on to the story set-up. I asked them to brainstorm and see what adventures their characters could be involved in. They came up with:

Super Smash Brothers competition
A boxing match between Toad and Bowser
Mario Kart racing
Mario Team vs Sonic Team at the Olympics
Mario saves the Princess Peach

A lot of these ideas came from the other Mario titled games they had played at home which they all related too. So we now had our characters, levels & worlds and our scenarios. Some pupils worked together and others on their own and for 3 weeks we had 45 minutes of writing and dedicated the last 15 minutes to play Super Mario Brothers Wii. This worked as nice little encouragement factor but also with their familiarity with the game characters, we watched the cut scenes in the game and they found out that some of them had accents or different characteristics they could use in their stories.

Below are some of the pupils work, although some never finished their work due to time constraints the work they created was a huge leap for these boys. I even had other pupils ask to join what was essentially a Literacy booster class, which never happens.

Super Smash Bros Fan Fic


Mario Kart Fan Fic


Mario Kart 2


Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics


I hope to continue with this project and push it out to more pupils who are interested when September rolls around.

Simon White - Cleveland Junior School

Mortal Kombat (2011) Gameplay

Added link: Senji Studios

Pat does some quality work! go check out his site. Senji Studios

Mortal Kombat is back for sure!

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and NetherRealm Studios are preparing for the return of Mortal Kombat.
The newest chapter of the iconic fight franchise marks a triumphant return to the series’ mature presentation and a reinvention of its classic 2D fighting mechanic. Driven by an all new graphics engine, the fan favorite Fatality is back and presented in more gory detail than ever before. In addition, Mortal Kombat introduces a number of new game-play features including tag team and the deepest story mode of any fighting game. Players can choose from an extensive lineup of the game’s iconic warriors and challenge their friends in traditional 1 vs. 1 matches, or take on several new game modes.

The game will be released in March 2011 for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 systems.

I have also edited a little bit the NetherRealms logo:


Your opinions?

Leviathan WIP

I just had to send out a little tease....

Here are some rather blurry shots of the model. I really need to get a new camera. I have taken better pictures with a phone :)

These shots have the Reaper head in the chassis. everything is just dry fit so please excuse the gaps between components but you can get an idea of the scale of the torso compared to the wonderfully sculpted but poorly shot MERCS mini.

When I get a chance and a better camera, I'll throw up more pics.

MERCS minis

The gents over at MERCS were kind enough to comp me a set of figures. I did the cad work on the weapons for these bad boys.

All I have to say is AMAZING! the pictures just don't give them the props they deserve. The dynamic poses, the level of detail are just mind blowing. I have seen ForgeWorld minis up close and they are quite nice, but they are also resin, and resin is more capable of capturing the fine details. These minis are all metal and so detailed that I doubt my painting skills are up to the task.

Hats off to all the boys at MERCS for some incredible minis!

I must thank JBR for having the opportunity to work with this client... I know it must have pained him to pass on the job.

Mortal Kombat Rebirth Teaser

A highly suspect, but extremely well produced video was uploaded to YouTube, under the account MortalKombatRebirth, yesterday featuring several Mortal Kombat characters in a live-action scripted scene. Questions are abound as there are absolutely no studio credits at the end or beginning of the video. WB Games has been producing cinema quality "viral" videos to promote their games, namely F.E.A.R. 3. Could this be a similar promotional video for Mortal Kombat 9?

Edit: Actress Jeri Ryan of Star Trek: Voyage fame appears as Sonya Blade in this trailer and she says "Okay, so... Mortal Kombat," she tweets. "It's not a game trailer. Actually was made for the director to sell WB on his vision for a reimagined MK film."
(info from kotaku.com)

More details about this can be found at the TRMK website HERE

Khurasan Tribal Class Spacecraft

Jon just posted up some great shots of a 15mm craft I did for him a few months back. Link.

He has a lot more pics of the painted model on his blog... so be sure to check out the link!

Punic War Project - stage 2

I've been lazy this past month (I've only painted 50 figures, but based up 800), and time is moving on. I've fought my first battles and 'recruitment' is required...........

I've completed stage one of the project - Trebbia at half scale - and it is time to start stage two: Lake Trasimene at full scale.

The figures required to fight this battle comprise Hannibal's army at full scale and the equivalent of two Roman legions. This stage's to-do list is as follows:

Additions for Hannibal's army:

4 units of Libyan spearmen (96 figures)
4 units of Spanish Scutarii (96 figures)
5 units of African skirmishers (40 figures)
8 units of Gallic foot warriors (176 figures)
2 units of Spanish cavalry (16 figures)
3 units of Numidian cavalry (24 figures)
6 units of Gallic cavalry (48 figures)
A few extra command stands - mainly Gallic

Additions for Flaminius's Roman army:

2 'Legions' of Roman allies each comprising hastati, pricipes, triarii and velites (144 figures)
1 'Extraordinarii' command comprising velites and hastati (48 figures)
4 units of cavalry, including those for the extraordinarii, (32 figures)

I think this will occupy me until November at the latest. More than any other stage of the project this is the one I want to finish most. It breaks the back of the project. When it is done, 1400ish of the 2,300ish figures will be done - and it's always nice to have less than 1000 to do!

After stage 2 I'll be finishing whole national groups, starting with the Romans, then Gauls, Spanish and African / Carthaginian in that order. As each is finished I can say 'DONE!' with more pleasure and satisfaction than you would guess at. The pace I've set for this project, with the November 2011 deadline set in stone, is very gruelling.