Yes, I liked that one, and I also liked the 5th element, I thought that was pretty fun. I also enjoyed the one with Merle Streep and Goldie Hawn where he plays the mortian (but I can't think of the name).

Thanks, litst, seeing the mesh view is very helpful. I see I've complicated my figure overly much when I tried to add the face... so, off with her head! I'll try again at lunch. As for Bruce Willis... sometimes I'd claim him, sometimes I wouldn't. Depends on which of his movies I'd just finished watching. Of course, I doubt he'd claim me, anyhow. --Terri

Cool. Thanks. I know what you mean about translating "second nature" stuff. Back in college I earned my keep as a math tutor, and the more basic the course, the harder I found it to explain! --Terri

Rockjockjared - your dude's starting to get some personality. For some reason he makes me think of a sailor - I keep expecting to see a tattoo on his biceps! I know what you mean about it taking to long. I started adding a face to mine laste night, and I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm mucking with it too much. Especially after seeing litst's character. Litst - your guy has that "3D cartoon" feel that I'm trying to develop. I mean, he looks like he's ready to jump into a comic strip. Also, how did you do the hair? I'm tired of my character being bald; what if this voodoo stuff works and I wake up with no hair tomorrow?

MMMmmmm.... meatballs. Is it time for lunch yet?

Hey, he's pretty cute. Now all he needs is a T-Shirt that reads "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Vertex Modeler." He might want to switch brands of deoderant, though. I think the one he's using is too acidic. Did that happen with a weld? Sometimes when I try to weld things, I get weird results like disappearing polygons. And then sometimes I can't even use "fill polygon" to fix it. Is that a bug, or am I just doing something wrong? Anybody know?

Hmm. I'm still having trouble with the metaball and spline modelers. Any chance of sweet-talking you guys into posting some simple walk-throughs? --Terri

The trick to that is to select the vertices you want to flatten, then do a Selection-Resize to 0 in the dimension you want to flatten. For this example, use the top view to marquee select the front faces, then do a Selection-Resize and change the Y scale to 0% (leave the X Scale and Z Scale at 100%). After that, you might want to move those faces back a bit in the Y plane, to make the figure less thick front-to-back. I did something similar when extruding the leg. First I extruded the thigh, then while the face was still selected, I resized the Z Scale to 50%, then extruded the shin. That way the shin was at a more vertical angle than the thigh. Then I resized the Z Scale to 0%, so that when I extruded the foot it was nice a flat relative to the floor. I forget where I read this trick, it was in some Carrara faq I printed out, so I can't take credit it for. Comes in pretty handy, though. --Terri

So how about if I challenge everyone to use this technique make a cartoony self-portrait? I promise none of results will show up on rendererotica. Much. --Terri

Wow. Thanks for the link. Cool dog. Right sort of ears, too. I'm trying to caricature my own dog, and that's the sort of ears he has. I had a lot of trouble with the "fold over". I'll have to study this pic most carefully. It actually looks quite a bit like my (real) dog, only he's a hairy beast. Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to depict his "mutton chops". I'm trying to go for a cartoony look, so I don't want to go overboard on the details. I may just cheat and pretend that Harlan is a short-haired dog for now. Glad to hear you are working on a tutorial. I wasn't just kissing up to the moderator when I said I found you frogilla post helpful, heh. I've been playing around with this stuff for months without much progress to show for it, which is why I'm kind of jazzed right now. --Terri

My coworker asked me to please put eyes in, as he was watching Event Horizon last night. Seriously, I found the stuff litst posted really helpful. I think it would make a great tutorial (hint, hint, O Powers That Be). I bet if you try to duplicate the stuff at the link I posted, you'd have the same epiphany I did. I don't know how litst went about it, but I started with a block. Then, to add the vertices, I'd select one edge at a time and subdivide it. I get confused when there are a lot of vertices. So adding them one at a time was a big help to me, it broke the things I needed to do into smaller units. Other folks might find this a tedious way to go about things. I could probably post a step-by-step if anyone is interested, but it'd kinda be a case of the blind leading the blind. --Terri

Well, you know what they say: cold head, warm heart.

I use my spare brains as sort of a hot-swappable peripherals: When the one I'm using starts to overheat, it's nice to have a fresh cold one ready to go. Never was a problem before, but last week SO mistook one for some week-old pasta salad and got all bent out of shape. Sheesh, it wasn't like it was his brain that got all coated in mayo. But do you see me complaining? Oh well, I guess that's what I get for using brains made with old Commodore 64 power supplies. Anyway, the medium temp version sound like a good option. Do you have one with a built-in lazy sSusan? That would be cool (if you'll pardon the pun). --Terri

So, Mr. Graylensman: How are those cases for keeping brains? My SO is getting tired of me keeping my spares next to the orange juice. --Terri

My official title is "Network Planner", which sounds like I pick the crappy shows on TV. Actually, I work for MegaSoulessTelephone Corporation and my job involves planning and forecasting DSL use, and I get to tell engineers what to do, as in "Yo, dude, we need some more capacity over in Townsburg, VA". Then they get to work, and I go surf on Renderosity for awhile. Heh, heh. Pretty sweet deal. Don't tell my boss, OK?