Great fun. Went out at 4:30 in the morning and shot some nice pictures with direct sunlight. It was so bright and gorgeous, I could not lie in bed and miss it.

Taken right in the entrance of the station.

Guess what, it's a pub!

Little big things . . .

Sunrise, with a twist.

Walking back on the Station Road.

It's the Shopping Centre complex.

Beautiful apartment design.

Birds!

Tags: Australia, Photography
Posted in Photography | 2 Comments »

Quick paint over to show the intended colour for the creature. Time to work on another project! :)

Tags: Concept Art, Creature, Mods, Unreal Tournament
Posted in Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Fine Arts, Game Industry, Portfolio Work | Leave a Comment »

Joined a small team over at ModDB and started some freelance work. This creature was rather interesting to draw. A quick colour paint over is coming soon. =]

Tags: Concept Art, Creature, Mods, Unreal Tournament
Posted in Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Fine Arts, Game Industry, Portfolio Work | Leave a Comment »

As much as I think that name is silly, I do have to admit that it’s quite convenient living here. The shopping centre (like a mall) is around 8 blocks away, and 2 blocks away for bus/train station. I have awesome mobility. Not to mention they seem to have every shop in the centre!

AirTrain, basically the train transportation in Australia.

Interesting tree I found near the bridge.

Wall decoration in Indooroopilly Train Station

Bridge connects Indooroopilly southward across the river.

Cool design near where I live.

Chelmer station. I get off here every day from places I go.

Tags: Australia, Photography
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So, I got myself some markers, about roughly a little under two weeks ago. Haven’t been drawing much. Not enough, anyway. I have been busy with modding on Unreal Tournament III. It’s great fun.

After a few pictures with the markers initially, I went and bought the CG4 and WG4 to fill in the gap - so the picture shows my entire collection - currently. I have to be honest and say, I’m really not comfortable enough with value reduction, and these markers are pushing me to the limit. I can’t blend them without leaving a stroke. Very hard.

(CG stands for Cool Grey; WG, Warm Grey.)

So I drew a chart - that’s the picture - and experimented with blending, both with the same marker and with other markers I have. Here’s what I learned:

1. Apparently, they cap out at around 4 repeated strokes.
2. Markers close to their values (like CG2 and WG4, as opposed to WG4 and CG9) seem to override each other in terms of temperature. If you look at the table I drew, the line was made vertically first, and then horizontal. That means the lower left corner has the cool first, warm second, while the upper right corner has warm first, and then cool. What’s interesting about this, is that the last stroke applied determines the temperature. For example, CG2 first and then WG4, it’s cooler, while WG4 first and then CG2 second, it’s warmer.
3. The warmer ones blend less well. I don’t know why. It’s a feeling.
4. Even though the 120 Black is supposed to be . . . well, black, it still blends somewhat. As you can see, I can apply it over and over to about 4 times before it caps out. So it’s really not “black”.
5. I should have bought CG8 instead of CG9, so the gap is not so obvious. Stupid me.

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   Tags: Art, Experiment, Markers
   Posted in Fine Arts | Leave a Comment »

Recently I successfully transferred to Software Engineering over at Griffith University. It’s going to be a 4-year full-time course, on campus, and I’m quite excited. As one who has a strong background in fine art and visual design, I’ve been always intrigued by the amazing computer technology - especially in the Computer Graphics industry - and I really would love to program for a game one day. Game Engine Architect is a title I’m working for right now, a stretched-out long-term goal I want to reach as soon as possible.

So I took a friend’s suggestion over at Gaming Artist forum and bought Unreal Tournament III. Totally beat that game in three days, and started doing tutorials I found online about modding. Like a Mutator, or an imported model.

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Tags: Freetalk, Unreal Engine, Unreal Tournament, Xavier Ho
Posted in General Talk | Leave a Comment »

And here goes my first celebration of my new website. This time I rewrote everything for the CSS, and implemented Wordpress as my main CMS. It’s about at the stage where it’s fully functional and I hope you enjoy the rest.

I’ve added a few things since the last post:
- My portfolio
- Commission details
- Photography gallery

Poke around and leave me a comment! Also, stay tuned by subscribing to the RSS (link is to the right of About on the top) is also a good way to keep an eye on me.

Last, but not least, get Firefox! Also get Flash Player while you’re at it. Internet Explorer by default blocks all the Flash content, and doesn’t do z-index correctly. It’s ugly.

Have a great day!

Tags: Freetalk, Xavier Ho
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Finally got the latest weblog to look the way I feel like to. Welcome to my personal website.

Right now, I’m just beginning to teach myself some ActionScript 3.0. It’s crazy to think that the last time I launched Flash was 6 years ago - about the same time I started in VB 6.0; about the same time I started in the CG family.

Well, there’s not much to see now. But I’ll be uploading my current portfolio soon. There will also be a page with detail about how to contact me for private commission or freelance jobs.

For now, please check out the About page. I wrote an autobiography and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Bookmark this blog and see you soon!

Tags: Freetalk, Xavier Ho
Posted in General Talk | Leave a Comment »