Avventura Tragicarotosa

By Luca Olmisani

Un mostro misterioso minaccia le fattorie dei topolini di Murya. Per proteggerle Alexander ed i suoi amici si tufferanno a capofitto in questa nuova avventura escogitando un nuovo paino. Una nuova storia dei piccoli animali fantastici del magico mondo di Encanthia.

Avventura Fantasmagica

By Luca Olmisani

Alexander ed i suoi nuovi amici dovranno risolvere uno spaventoso mistero. Qualcosa o qualcuno sta rendendo poco sicure le strade che attraversano la foresta e si avvicinano alla palude. Ai nostri amici serviranno molto coraggio, ed un buon piano!

Avventura Inattesa

By Luca Olmisani

Nel magico regno di Encanthia, vive Alexander un topolino dei dentini che studia per diventare un mago! Questa è la sua prima avventura.

Zx Spectrum Next - Game study

A new project started following Jim Bagley's live sessions.
It is a jump back in the past programming on Spectrum some simple games-like stuff.
The above is an example written in ZXBasic that is full of great features for making simple games.
Let see if we will port some of this in machine code, at least this is what Jim is trying to do....

8-Bit Invaders: phase 2

 

And here we are:
digital versions of the hand-drawn sketches are now ready... and do not want to stay into a pc all the time!
Some fresh air is required and so...
I suspect you have already guessed what is going to happen as next step!

Creating a brand

 

Now is time to explain who is this strange guy!
It is the product of the process of creating a brand for a new, hypothetical company.
This was a project for a graphic course: we have to create a new company and its main product, no limit to the imagination, requirement was to be coherent and convincing.
I imagined a start-up that was going to develop an A.I. capable of replacing its owner in all the aspects of the social/web life: gaming, chatting, posting comments and so on.
Obviously the A.I. was configurable and reporting to the owner on a schedule defined by the owner itself.
Starting from this idea there was the task of choosing a proper name, and the right font for it.
The next step was creating a graphic logo for the company.
I ended this phase with the horizontal log:

And also the compact version:

The next phase in the project was creating something special for the company and there, as you already guessed, the compact version of the name became central, with just some simple transformations a small robot character could be created:

So the small robot became the friendly interface of the A.I., especially for humans not much knowing about computers. And it was also a key graphical/emotional element for the possible applications:

It won the benevolence of the course members, and also a 3D render for the final page of the  Brand Development Guide.
As said in a previous post: all the elements of the character have a real meaning! :)

Firenze Logo

 

This is a study for a possible logo for a branding process that was started some years ago started in Firenze.
I stayed on a classic approach but the result was interesting... at least for me!
I liked the idea of something easily recognizable, also if being of little size, and something that recalled the actual artistic heritage of the city, where real masters of the Renaissance created their masterpieces.

Wizard Mouse

This little fellow was sketched when my son lost his first tooth.
Here the traditional story is that: a small magical mouse that comes during the children sleep, takes the tooth and drops a valuable coins as gift.
So I made a quick drawing of my version of this fantastic character... and also this, was just the first step of a new more complex project...
As usual: more about this in a future post.

8-Bit Invaders

 

Never, never, never give a squared sheet of paper to someone that played with an 8-bit computer!!!
The risk is of starting an invasion of pixel-alien creatures!
And so it was.
I started doing variations on an 8x8 grid and sketched a bunch of them... not only the ones you see above...
a bit more :)
When I finished a question raised: 'Can I leave them just on paper?'
Obviously not!
So I started a new task: create a digital version of them...

Golosaurus Rex

 And here we go with another sketch!
Someone spoke a rare dinosaur's species.
One that was well known for his capacity of eating huge amounts of food, especially if well cooked!!!

Several specimens are thought to be still alive and walk among us ;)

 

And so it is: I've met one
of them it seems!

After making a quick pencil sketch to document the finding...
I added a bit of color to make a clear picture of this really dangerous monster!

A new little friend

 

A new little guy was added to the number of sketches and creations!
Ok it is just a simple 3d model, and also quite schematic... so what can make it so interesting?
Trust me: there is a reason for each element of this simple model.
More on this in a future post :)

CUOYO Logo

 
Here is a logo for a company that works leather and leather shoes.
Not only it has to be printed on paper and shoppers, also has to be impressed directly on leather goods.
So a compact shape, easy to recognize, high contrast and few details.
The font was already registered for the company identity, so a graphical layout was needed, possibly displaying also one tool used i this kind of activities.
In the end the customer was satisfied, and that is the most important aspect!

La Guerra dei Draghi

Don't ask why but, I'm proud to show you all the result of my last project, a small book:
'La Guerra dei Draghi'.
I worked on this during the spare time of the last months (so, really, no much time :) ).
The idea was born from seeing a friend publishing a book and seeing that the result was not bad at all, and from a bed-time story that I made up for my son when he was very young.
When I started telling him, probably, he could not even understand what I was saying but he needed to know that he was not alone, and I needed a way to stay awake... so...
Now he is grown up and he still remembers some of the story, but he could not put all the pieces together and make a complete story.
But he is going to start reading on his own in a short time.

So I said myself that I could try to make a short book, in this way if he will want to know how the story was when he will be capable of reading it.

Said that I started what resulted in a long term project: I made seventeen pictures and wrote the text trying to stay simple and short, and then put all together.

Being able to finish the project and print the book was very gratifying, way more than completing a PC image or 3D project.

Now I don't know if my son will ever read it or even give it a glance ... perhaps he will not be interested any more in fantasy stories, but one can not always be sure of what the future will be ...

Georgia a Typographic Poster

A new post at last, but this is not a 'non productive year': on the contrary I'm doing a lot o experiments with different techniques and, most interesting, I'm working more on paper than on screen.
This is a peculiar exercise done in a typographic context.
The idea was creating a poster having a Font as subject and using the minimum number possible of graphic elements.
I found the idea interesting and gave it a try: this is the result of my attempt.
Above all it was an interesting way of aproaching the 'universe' of typography.

Apatosaurus (low poly)

Here it is another dinosaur, this time an Apatosaurus.
I think I'm going to create a group of them and then set up a scene of some kind (obviously I will not have enough time to do any of that ) ... we will see ;).
And now a bit of movement:

An object from my desk

One object, one cut, multiple techniques. 
An exercise of denotative design, focusing on a common use object.

Rat Marauder 3D - next step

The Rat Marauder model has been retouched a bit during the past months.
The result is that has just some basic materials and textures but, ...
I've tried adding some hairs and now there are 5 hair particle systems applied to the model, but I did something more ...
I've experimented a bit with the armor he is wearing and the possibilities of animating it togheter with the body and:

Here it is it: with a bit of effort I managed the linking of the armor to the body (the most useful function available for achieving this result was not functionig in blender, hope they replaced/restored it now), and a constant struggle with the hair system was needed for doing almost everything, but in the end there is a model that can switch from low res to high res with its rig and hairs working because no modifier was applied but the mirror (the above render is a mix: low res hammer and armor high res for the body).

Rogue

And now a colored pencil drawing.
From the darkness of the dangerous dungeon a lone warrior emerges, descending the path to find a magic amulet and battling hordes of monsters: Rogue.

Inspired to the old original ascii graphic dungeon crawler game.

Explore the dungeon .. find the amulet ... become a ... HERO!

Stegosaurus (low poly)

Some months are passed from the last post. During this period I've made some different things, one of which was modeling a bit, as usual using Blender, and the result was a new dinosaur low poly model.

This time it is a Stegosaurus, with a basic rig to make some simple animation and poses.

Rat Marauder 3D

And now, at the end of the year, back to 3D!
One of the Rat Marauders found the way to the 3D realm and a new model was born :)
As you can see there are more details than in the original sketch: there is an armour and a great war-hammer as weapon.