Cyfa's art challenges and other bits & bobs

Arrrgh! After rushing home from work, I descended upon the beach armed with my cut-outs and camera. After a typical day of beautiful, bright sunshine while I was at work, as soon as I got home so did the clouds. Also, the tide was almost high, the wind threatened to blow everything away, and to top it all off I was hungry and impatient. Still, I managed to get a few photos that weren't completely awful. Here's one of those Bolians again:



(If you think the bottom of the photo looks weird - it is! I had to quickly cover up the cardboard stand using my hideous MS Paint abilities because I didn't bury it properly in the sand...)

The weather forecast for the end of June is pretty grim - I don't think we'll be having any more sunny days here, so I may have to resort to photographing these figures in front of previous beach photos I've taken displayed on my monitor.

 

Despite what I said in the previous post, I didn't take any more photos as my monitor is too small and the figures too big. So, I made do with the photos I did take on the beach and came up with this as my submission to the June Art Challenge:



I've put some "making of" photos on my blog if anyone's interested, although they're not terribly different to what I've posted here. Having said that, I do like the one below for the splash of the wave above the couple's heads...

 

Inspired by @gazomg and M's early starts, I thought I'd also get something up and running for the July Art Challenge. From the 8th until this morning, all I'd done was jot down ideas - so many ideas - but most of them are going to require more time than I've actually got to complete. One of those ideas was to construct a golden Cardassian Hideki-class ship and give it an all-over livery reminiscent of Tutankhamun's mask, but a 3D cardboard model will take me ages to make (not least because of all the procrastinating I will do), so I thought I'd try a flat 2D one instead.


(The larger, detailed, half-Hideki was going to be the basis of a 3d golden card model)

Now that I've cut out the shape, I don't like what I've imagined it will look like with the mask livery, and have pretty much abandoned it in favour of the goddess Wadjet (either in full-on snake form, or a more Trek-like Selay woman) in an Egyptian-style late 24th century dress uniform (the white one). Although we'll see if this comes to pass or not...

 

Thanks, M As well as the Selay, I'd intended to show a range of "crew" - A Caitian Bastet, an Aurelian Horus, a Gorn Sobek and a Bzzit Khaht Heqet - but we'll see if time allows these crew to board!

 

I now want this so badly, it is not even funny.

Also, can create that Star Trek/Stargate crossover.

Quick, to fan fiction!

 

I've given up on the cardboard cut-outs as they're taking too long and need too much detail work to make the heads recognisable as Trek races/species, so I stuck with pencil and paper:


Here we have Maahes (a Caitian), Wadjet (a Selay), Horus (an Aurelian), Sobek (a Gorn), and Heqet (a Bzzit Khaht).

This isn't finished (by a long shot), but it might end up being my challenge entry depending on how much free time I can muster between now and the 28th. Of course, it would help if I stopped fannying around with it

 

Thanks, M. I love the frog-like Bzzit Khaht even though they were barely seen on screen in ST IV. However, that love turned to frustration when I could only find a head-on view of one online so had to try and extrapolate a profile view. After several unconvincing sketches, I gave up and just drew a frog!

That picture above looks rather faded on screen, so here is a super contrasty one that I used before adding colour:


Then, here's the colour (added in Paint) which looks a little garish and childlike, but there is a reason...


And the reason is because I covered my monitor with gold tissue paper to give the picture an old, faded look (because I still haven't sorted out Photoshop or the like!) then took a photo, et voilà:

(It's a bit fuzzy at the top and bottom as the tissue paper wasn't stuck to the screen - I'll probably re-do it before Friday).

 

Wow, I really like that effect and that piece. Took me a second to figure it out, but it worked very well.

Not to be that guy (since i'm not an artist and my stick figures would proudly attest to that) but GIMP will allow you to create that effect on the computer.

 

Thanks, @fireproof78. And don't worry, I don't think you're that guy - the advice is welcome! Actually, I've just got a new PC (still in it's box, at the mo), so after some help from @BorgMan (first page of this thread), I'm going to download Photoshop CS2 and have a play around with it to see what it can do (it's got to be better than fart-arsing around taking photos of tissue-paper covered monitors )

Anyway, this is what I've done with my picture (it wasn't the original intention, but it'll do for now):

(the PADD is from VGR: Dark Frontier)
EDIT 18:39 - Hieroglyphs was spelled wrong, so I amended it - thanks @Laura Cynthia Chambers

 

Nice! I like the final result. (USS Moya? Been watching Farscape? )

 

Thanks @B.J. And I haven't seen Farscape in too long - It came up in conversation yesterday, so I've resolved to watch a few episodes as soon as I get the time...

 

Nice. Once you've gigured out Photoshop, you can do that kind of thing in a heartbeat. Nice to see some progress!

 

After a little while away from Trek BBS, I am absolutely elated to be able to share @Scribble 's interpretations of my somewhat ropey alternate take on the TOS Movie Era rank insignia! Scribble's done a fantastic job of turning my pen and ink (unfinished) musings into beautiful models that I think are utterly realistic.

First up, my rather slapdash approach to the insignia (earlier versions can be seen on page two of this thread). The first column on the left were sketches from years ago, while those in the middle on the brown wrapping paper are from the last year or so, and those on the right (ignore the travesty that is the captain rank insignia at the top) are from a few months back:


And this is Scribble's stunning work:


You can see more variations in Scribble's scribbles art thread (from page 4 onwards), plus incredible models and renderings of Robert Fletchers original movie-era rank insignia..

 

I would love to see someone try to "reimagine" the TWOK-era rank insignia so that they would conform more closely with the US Navy ranks. (officers enlisted)

I see the gold cross-braces in these pieces as having the potential to correspond to US Navy braids for officers (or the pips in TNG).

 

All I can say is thank you, and thanks for the inspiration.

 

I did once try something that would use TOS/TMP's sequence for the WOK uniform.

 

I don't have much free time at the moment (does anyone?), and should be working on some alternate versions of the TOS movie era rank insignia for @Scribble to transform into those exquisite models, but I just had to get an idea for this month's art challenge out of my head first.
Here's my work so far:


Can you guess what these figures might be celebrating?

 

Let's see, pointy ears, running around, doesn't look like they're clothed.... gotta be Rumarie!