sebscorner

Again, long, long time no post… well the usual.
As people will know the situation here in Japan after the big sendai-earthquake was rather delicate to say the least.
Without knowing clearly what’s going on, unsure what info to believe and some hysteric e-mails from mama back home, I decided to do a quick trip to Thailand.
Over there I was lucky to again meet Wisut Ponnimit (+ lovely wife Vee), an amazingly talented Manga /Animation Artist who is pretty popular in Japan these days.
Besides drawing he’s also doing live music going with his short films.  Animating, drawing, piano, guitar.. I’m not sure if there’s anything he doesn’t do.. .

大変お久しぶりにまたポストします。
地震がおき、そして原発の問題 が発生し、
何を信じればいいのか分からず、安心がちょっともできなかった。
そしてドイツに居る両親もパニックするぐらい配していたので、
とりあえずタイに非難ことにした。
タイで、ラッキーな僕は WisutPonnimit（タム君）と、
彼の素敵なお嫁さんのVeeちゃんにまた出会いできました。

大変才能ある彼は最近タイでも、
日本でも流行っている漫画やアニメアーティストです。
東京で見たライブは、ムービーが流れて行きながら、
タムがそれぞれの音楽を演奏している。
アニメーションや絵を描いたり、
ピアノやギターを弾いたり、
様々なスキルを持っていてすごいなー、といつも思う。

You can see some of his work on his site over here .
Checking youtube also yields tons of cool animation work.
I can for example recommend Love Elevator. Excellent stuff.
作品みたい人はこちらへ 。
Youtubeで検索するとアニメーションもたくさん見られます。
たとえば素晴らしいLove Elevatorもお勧め!

The other day he showed me this drawing:
ある日、彼がこの絵を見せてくれました。

(The Japanese title is “yurenai kokoro” which means “unshakable heart”)
I really liked the piece and thought it would work really well as a little “figurine of hope” for Japan.
So I guess I’m lucky there’s one thing he doesn’t really do and that’s sculpting..
He was so kind to prepare a “model sheet” for me and back in Japan I did some modeling accordingly.

その作品がシンプルで可愛くて、すぐ気に入りました。
”希望の人形”として、立体になったら素敵だなーと思い、
コラボレーションすることになりました。
”モデルシート”を描いてもらって、また日本に帰ったら、
モデリングを始めました。

Modelsheet:

With nice reference this went pretty quick and here is the final cg-result:
いい参考の絵のおかげで、作業が早かったです：

From CG to the real thing:
I’ve never done any prototyping or 3d-printing before so to be honest I was a bit lost at this point!
Luckily Steve Talkovski, the creator of the wicked “Sketch Bot” toy gave me some invaluable hints to get me started there.
One of his recommendations was the company Shapeways – who run a internet rapid-prototyping service.
It’s pretty painless – you send 3d-data via some web forms and they send the figure to your door.

CGから本物へ
３Dープリントや”プロトタイピング”が初めてだったので、
分からないことが多かったです。
幸いなことに、Toy作成の経験を持っている（”Sketch Bot“) Steve Talkovskiの友達が,
沢山のいいアドヴァイスをしてくれた。
インターネットで、ラピッド・プロトタイピング・サービスをやっている、
Shapewaysという 会社が彼のお勧めの一つ。
３Dデータを転送したら、彼らがドアーまで人形を送ってくれます。
意外と楽。

And here it is already:
それでもう出来ましたｗ：

If all goes well, the plan was to create a fair number of those figures and sell them for charity.
As the figure looks nice and *drumroll*.. stands ( I was a bit worried it might topple over!),
the next step is to do a proper mold from this, maybe design a sweet package and paint a lot of red dots!
プロトタイプがうまく行ったら、大量生産して、
チャリティーのため に売る予定です。
形が大丈夫そうだし、ちゃんと立っているし（頭が多きくて、倒れるのがちょっと心配だった！ｗ） 、
これからは製造用にモールドを作ったり、
綺麗なパッケージのデザインしたり、
そしてペイントしないといけない。

And while there’s still a bit to go for the final piece..
here’s some more images of the prototype:
最後まではちょっとまだなので、
とりあえず プロトタイプの写真：

.. and my “lighting setup” – good fun doing lighting with *real* lights! .
後僕の”ライトステージ”です：（普段CG世界に居る僕にそこは楽しかった！ｗ）

I’ll keep you posted!
それでは、
またね！

Hello!

Yesterday was my first day back at the company and today is already weekend. Excellent. Even better- looks like I’ll be doing artsy stuff from the time being. Only took me 3 years, ahhh,  let’s hope things turn out well.

As to other news, I managed to get another picture done before going back to “work” work. All thanks to the pin-up contest over at CGfeedback (a nice little forum I can warmly recommend!) I couldn’t get myself going until a week before the deadline so I made it just in time (as in 3 am Japan-time) making me show up tired for work . But it was well worth the effort  - first body in ages, first time painting textures by hand in mudbox. Good fun!
Stop the talk, here’s the image. If you feel like it, head over to the original thread here for some in progress images.

The other day I saw the trailer to “The Fall” – more than the movie I loved the theme music which happened to Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Such an amazing piece. Listen to it and be happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTo2wI-lpq4

I’m looking for cats now. I need to make one. It’s my mission!

Wow, unbelievable. Here I go again – anger makes me productive.
I hadn’t dabbled in mudbox for a while so I thought I give it a go and this is what came out.
Some alien-ish fac with a aztec-ish helmet.. I guess.  While making it I realized that it looks a bit moebius-ish as well, must be the high hat. I love Moebius. French artists are the best.

Mudbox is also nice, I like it. I do miss some of the zbrush brushes though, especially the new hard-surface ones.  Combining the two softwares would be glorious I thought – replace Mudbox brush engine with Zbrush and it ‘d be perfect.  :P
Anyhow, for the helmet I exported the high-res mesh as OBJ, brought it into Zbrush and reconstructed the lower levels. This is so cool, I knew about “reconstruct subdiv” before of course but I it was a bit of a revelation that one can exchange a model with all subdivisions like that.

Silly old me – shame it doesn’t work the other way though (Zbrush -> mudbox). Ah well. So heres some pics rendered with MR.
It looked a bit too boring with any colors so I blobbed some on in PS…

One day I’ll remesh it and make a proper character.. Right!! Get in line with all the unfinished stuff, aztec-alien-thing!

Oh -last but not least, I signed my new contract yesterday and I’ll be back at work in a week, oh dear. Time sure sure has flown.

Grrrml.
I’m angry and even though months and months haven’t passed yet I feel the urge to post.
This is something that people working in Japan should better know before they try to be out of the order punks like me so here we go:
If you have read this blog before, you know that after 3 years of teeth-grinding work I have quit my current job for a relaxing 2 month summer break.
And now after my little travel and general refreshment I will – as planned, re-enter the company on the first of July.

All nice and dandy if it weren’t for that letter from the tax-office yesterday: Income Tax? Me?! A mistake, surely. Not.
Big surprise,  都民税 (tominsei, Metropolitan inhabitant tax) is naturally calculated and automatically deducted from your income .. and here comes the funky bit, is also calculated *per year*, in advance.
In other words, after a full year of working in Japan your tax-rate will be set – and even if you then quit your job on the coming 2nd of January,  you will still have to pay.. drumroll..

A FULL YEARS TAX! OMG! What?!

Wow! Wow! If you don’t quite believe it (as I did), here’s an excerpt from the homepage of Yokohama about taxation (this is concerning ex pats but applies to my case as well)

Income tax is payable for each calendar year,however, inhabitant tax for the calendar year is calculated based on taxable income for the preceding calendar year. Moreover,inhabitant tax assessed against residents in Japan as of January 1 of the taxable year,and, therefore,if an expatriate terminates his assignment in Japan and leaves Japan on,for example,the second of January, he/she will be liable for the entire inhabitant tax for the year of his/her departure from Japan based on the taxable income for the preceding year regardless of only two days of residence in Japan for the year of departure.

I think it’s all the crazier that this still applies, even though you are not actually living in Japan anymore..  where’s the sense in that now!?
small update: some more research reveals that this rule also applies if you (or any Japanese citizen for that matter) actually *die*. So we got that covered.

Income tax is usually 20% of the salary for a foreigner in Japan which is, at least compared to most European countries (Germany 50%!!), beautifully low.
Yet, without any salary it suddenly looks like a big chunk of cash ( especially combined with  rent, living expense etc.)

I guess this is yet another measure to keep things running in a nice and straight line for Japan: if you have a job you better keep it, until the end of your days – seems the motto here. Taking time out? Crazy nut!
Maybe you already know but if you rent a flat in Japan, you usually give the landlord a “present” (yes, as in it won’t come back when you leave!) of 2 months rent – similar concept.
So there you are, another useful bit of info about living in Japan for you.

I really should write a lot more.

Oh! Before I forget, this applies for health insurance as well by the way – another letter I got today. <sniff>
God bless it’s a tad lower but still – my little break surely cost me.

So until next time I leave you with a fitting Japanese proverb I found:

“The nail that sticks up gets hammered down” (Deru kugi wa utareru.)

Lovely.

PS: Thinking more of it now I wonder if all this is one more explanation for all the homeless people I see around.
If you happen to get fired early in the year, I suppose this madness could really give you the push over the edge…

Welcome back,

after almost 3 weeks of travel in Europe (and a week Kyoto). Ah.. good times – Germany, northern Italy, lovely Provence and grand Paris. So much art, good food  all topped with surprisingly good weather.
I’d love to show some proof but sadly my iphone+photos got nicked from my pocket at Charles de Gaules airport. Shocking event but at least I managed to lock the phone and board my flight in time. (checking my identity only took 2*15euro phone cards calling Japan! they do things properly here).
I guess I would have taken it slightly easier if there wouldn’t have been also a problem with my credit card earlier –  having nothing but 40 euro in cash left made the whole affair all the  more exciting. Luckily it seems like the insurance will pay so the only shame is all the nice reference lost .
Oh well, I better be productive before it all leaves my brain for good! Seriously though, don’t miss Musee d’Orsey if you happen to be in Paris as it’s an amazing place. Or the National Gallery in London for that matter. So inspiring.. Also I never had much of an art education myself so it was really good to see what’s behind “Impressionism“, “Expressionism” and the like.
And above all the trip made me want an atelier like Cezanne had in Aix:  ;)

Anyhow, back in Japan with an urge to create I had to do some more modeling of course. Mainly I wanted to get some of the “Classic” feel I saw so often in the last weeks. The first one is a bit of a homage to Camille Claudel who was a student (and lover) of Rhodin.  The second I hope you do recognize (or I failed completely!). It was harder than I thought to get his likeness right though..

Still so many things I want to do and time is running a bit short – so that’s it for today!
See you soon, hopefully with some more new work!