Updated Gallery: New Apartment 2011

Updated Gallery: Various 2011

Added New Gallery: My first car!

The jump was scheduled at 18:00 that Sunday, and Kjell, Sindre and I drove almost two hours to Trøgstad in Wolvoline (that would be Kjell’s Volvo). After some minor troubles finding the place, we found the people and I got dressed and prepared. I met my tandem partner, and another guy was also scheduled to do a tandem jump in the same ride. When we were dressed and ready we all drove a couple of minutes to someone’s garden (!), where the helicopter was ready. A few more instructions about the jump and landing was given and the four of us, and the pilot, were placed in the helicopter and we flew off.

We flew for only a few minutes in the helicopter which was fine by me since my ankles’ naked skin were completely exposed and got pretty cold. I couldn’t see much either because I had the other tandem couple between my legs. Suddenly the two of them started to irk forwards, and disappear completely. My tandem partner and I started to irk forwards, but I couldn’t see anything else except for the helicopter roof, since I had to maintain a certain position when jumping out. I felt a slight movement, we tipped over and suddenly we were in free fall, looking at the world far far below me. And we dropped fast. Very fast. After a few seconds the parachute was pulled out, and things got way more comfortable.

We had maybe a couple of minutes flying around. I got to steer some, and my tandem partner had fun going in circles making me feel like I was in a rollercoaster. But the view was the most amazing thing. There was nothing between you and the world, and everywhere you look, you can see land far far away. It’s quiet and there’s nothing to distract you from enjoying the view.

Suddenly we were approaching the ground pretty fast and just like that we had our feet on the ground again. And that was it. I couldn’t stop smiling until some hours later when I was in the car on the way back home, too exhausted to keep my eyes open. But I don’t think I’d dive in a parachute again – once was enough, really. But riding a helicopter again, without the cold ankles and blocked view? Yes please!

Photos from the jump:

AcornArtwork blog launched

<Shameless self-promotion> … Engage:
A couple of days ago I launched a new blog on my portfolio-domain, Acorn Artwork, integrated seamlessly with its design. I did this mainly to separate content and post topics, making it clearer and easier for visitors to one place or the other. This blog remains a more personal blog including gaming topics, while all artwork, design, portfolio and related topics are posted in my AcornArtwork blog. This way Acorn Artwork becomes a centralized place for showing off my work with related blog posts that may be interesting for portfolio-visitors.

Since I’ve recently completed a long education and am currently looking for a job, I finally have time to do what I love: drawing and designing. I also plan to dive back into the world of 3D modeling and texturing, but I’m currently focusing on developing my web design skills since I’m looking for a job within that field. At the moment I have several projects going to keep my brain busy, for example creating a Griddler game using PHP, JavaScript and jQuery.

And so, if some of my few readers are more interested in artwork and design related topics, stay tuned on my AcornArtwork blog. I have a strong feeling I’ll post more frequently at AcornArtwork than I do here.
</Shameless self-promotion>

Finished Master’s thesis

My thesis is about computer games, more specifically to which degree a quest game with a linear story can support meaningful choices for players, using the Xbox 360-game Fable 2 as an example and subject for analysis. (One thing’s for sure, I will never play Fable 2 ever again!) It was quite a new experience writing a long theoretical analysis when I both am more practical and have studied in a much more practical way. I feel that most of the thesis’ work was done in the last few weeks, and that I could’ve done more. But I bet everybody who has written a thesis most likely feel the same way. I was lucky to have kind people to support me, proof read and in general calm my nerves. Especially Sindre has been remarkably patient with me and endured my stressful mood.

When the thesis’ hand-in day finally had passed, I was suddenly free to do (almost) anything I wanted. I spent some weeks catching up on sleep and life. I could finally dig up my dear Wacom tablet, which has been missing me so much that it whimpers for my attention hoping I’d surrender and scratch it behind its ear with the pen. It was a great feeling to finally have time to draw and design web sites again! I redesigned my (so far) modest and limited portfolio, AcornArtwork.com, and hope to expand it and improve my drawing skills. I also plan to teach myself more in web design, especially JavaScript, Ajax and perhaps .NET in order to get more meat on my bones when applying for a job.

I’m now in the process of looking for and applying for a job. A very exciting and unknown road lies ahead!

Acorns, or oak nuts

Thus it was about time to get myself a new name to go by. I wanted a new domain for my portfolio, and needed a more professional name or label. After some doodling and thinking I arrived at “Acorn”. Acorn could simply mean the funny-looking nuts that grow of oak trees, but in my case there’s also a play on words. My first initial is A and my last name is (edit: was) Kern, which becomes “Akern” which is pronounced almost as “acorn”. So there it is. The domains “Acorn Design” and the like was already taken, so I decided for Acorn Artwork. I bought the domain, redesigned my portfolio, created a logo (yes, with an acorn in it) and moved it there. For now I plan to keep this blog and my CI blog at this domain, lillarosin.com.

Acorn Artwork logo (I predict it’ll be seriously
revamped in the future)

I’m also introducing web designs in my portfolio, after rediscovering website design a while ago. I have created web pages with HTML, PHP and CSS from the age of 14 or so, but lost interest a while. However in October I was asked to help design elements for Nesodden kommune (a municipality that lies south of Oslo) new web site. I gave some advice of design, and created the header image, portal buttons and digitalized the Nesodden logo. That reignited the old web design spark. With my current Photoshop skills creating web design became much more interesting. I have not done much web designs yet, especially original or noteworthy designs, but more to come when I have time.

Maybe one of you, my two blog readers, starts thinking: “hey, isn’t she supposed to finish her Master’s thesis, how come she spends time to do all this?” To answer that I do designs or draw in my breaks, inbetween writing, and little by little a little something emerges. My thesis is due February 1st 2010, but I am by no means relaxed about it or slacking. Currently I’m sitting at home with swine flu (oink oink), so spending my half-functioning brain and body on my new portfolio seemed like a good idea.

The jump was planned October 10th in the morning and we told our friends, a chauffeur was arranged, my parents calmed and my excitement built up. When the big day arrived, it rained. The jump was thus postponed to October 17th. Cue arranging, telling friends, calming down my folks and building up a greater load of excitement. To my delight that Saturday morning was a beautiful, sunny day with no visible clouds in the sky. I got up early (I hate that), did my morning routine, got dressed in warm clothes and a permanent grin started to develop on my face. Sindre made coffee to bring and packed his backpack with his camera to take pictures. About 20 minutes before our chauffeur, Kjell, was arriving we got a call. The jump was cancelled again because of too strong wind. *sigh*

Sad couple: Parachute jump cancelled again

We came to the conclusion that we had to postpone the jump to Spring next year, sometime during March or April. The winter’s coming in fast (well, it’s Norway) and it gets too cold to mess around at 10 000ft in November. But I am gonna get my jump!

People say a picture is saying more than 1 000 words. So here it is.

Skeikampen

Sindre and me

Kjell, Sindre and I spent almost a full week at a cabin at Skeikampen, July 12-17. The cabin was great, but unfortunately the weather was not. It rained every day, stopping us from taking walks outside, especially up to the Skeikampen itself. Sindre’s brother Robin visited us a few days and one evening Robin, Sindre and I visited some relatives of Robin and Sindre “close by”. But we didn’t let the bad weather ruin our spirits, we played a lot of Monopoly and cards and took trips whenever the weather was fit.

View the photo album for all 43 photos.

I’d never tried creating anything in 3D nor tried any 3D-software until about six months ago. It was just one of these days I decided to seriously look into something, and I aquired the two most used and attractive 3D softwares at that time, Autodesk’s 3Ds Max and Maya. I threw myself onto countless online tutorials, forums and even boughts some books to learn. The softwares were more complex than anything I’ve ever encountered in a computer, and they were admittely a bit scary at first. But starting with detailed tutorials with a lot of images or even videos, really helped in learning to create my first 3D models and animations.

My very first 3D model:
“The Scientist”

After a few months I created my first full character in 3Ds Max, “the Scientist”, following a long but good video tutorial. I’m still at the pure modeling stage, so no textures (other than normal materials) are applied, and I’ve not used any other software for further detailing (e.g. Zbrush or Mudbox). I haven’t learned much about lighting either. It’s coming, it’s coming! I’ve also made some short animation movies, but they are too noobish to show to anyone. Hopefully I’ll improve my modeling and animation skills, and eventually learn to create and apply textures (UVW mapping), rigging, lighting, compositing, (properly) rendering, and creating details and texture on my models using the digital sculpting softwares Autodesk Mudbox or Pixologic ZBrush.

At the moment, I’ve decided to take some official education within 3D modeling/design after I’ve completed my Master’s degree at the university. I’m considering two schools, Noroff and Idefagskolen, whereas the first one uses 3Ds Max and is mainly focused on games, and the second uses Maya and is mainly focused on film-making. I’ve still not decided which one, but at the moment I’m more comfortable using 3Ds Max. I still have a year left to decide, and much time for practice on my own.

If you’re interested in 3D forums, I’d recommend the Norwegian forums dedicated to 3D, 3Dhue and Det Store Dyret. Unfortunately they are not as active as the larger international forums, but they cover discussions about 3D stills and animations, feedback, some 2D, educational matters and job offers. In English, CG Society and game-artist‘s forum are both forums covering several art-topics such as 3D, animation, rigging, 2D, painting, some scripting, film-making etc. They run excellent and serious modeling, animation, texturing and more challenges at all times, which I’m too noobish to participate (yet), but find very interesting to follow.

Hopefully I’ll update my portfolio with 3D models and perhaps blog some of my advancements in 3 dimensions.