Archive for October, 2009
The blog design you see here today–and the rough Whitman model that inhabits the banner above–are going away as soon as possible.
To get an impression of where I want to take the site, please visit the new splash page (the index page) at http://LeavesofGrass.Org.
Finally, my arduous efforts to better myself as a character designer have coincided with breakthroughs in modeling, animation, and rendering that mark iClone version 4. Just see for yourself.
I hope my film’s actual animation will convey the remarkable “personal magnetism” which Walt Whitman’s contemporaries (not to mention the poet himself) often described.
Walt Whitman (c) 2009 by General Picture
Within a week of the appearance of iClone 4, I thought I had successfully ported my two characters over to the new G4 heads. / There are no G4 bodies, remember? 
/
But something hard to define has prevented me from being as happy with my G4 head work as I was with G3.
So I’ve been working and working and working all month to improve my faces.
I suspect that it may be higher accuracy of rendering in iClone4? combined with a more sophisticated head model?
Whatever it is, ** iClone 4 will actually challenge you to become a better artist!! **
So forget everything you ever saw from my animation tests.
Tonight, with powerful medicine from the great animation wizards at Reallusion, I am unveiling my LATEST animation test with my BEST avatar.
“I receive now again of my many translations—from my avataras ascending—while others doubtless await me…”
This could be Walt’s reaction as Fred tries to convince him not to embark upon a dangerous lecture tour out West.
Walt Whitman, animated by Mitchell Santine Gould (C) 2009
AP reporter Ben Judah writes, “Russia’s leading gay activist said Wednesday that he was disappointed that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with an outspoken foe of gay rights during her two-day trip to Russia and did not decry homophobia in the country.” The occasion was the commemoration of the new Walt Whitman statue at Moscow State University.
The chosen representative of the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation, James W. Symington, asserted that Whitman “transcended” [the illness] of “his sexuality;” and acted to “thank Mayor Luzhkov for welcoming him in his city and have absolutely nothing to say about those things.”
Judah reports that in “May more than 30 gay activists were arrested for attempting to hold a pride march” at the site of the statue.
Ben Judah. “Russian gays express disappointment in Clinton,” Associated Press. October 14, 2009.
Clinton’s embarrassingly less-than-courageous remarks at the ceremony can be found here.
In a moment of proof for the proposition that Walt Whitman is the gay community’s ultimate ambassador to an often-hateful world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to commemorate a monument in Russia to American poet Walt Whitman. The statue was executed by Alexander Bourganov. The artist’s proposal for the statue can be viewed at the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation website.
God even gets into the act, by issuing an enormous halo for the statue. See video.
Dedicated to gay rights in October 2009 by Sec State Clinton
Unfortunately, the likeness of the actual statue is, to put it mildly–mediocre.
Mediocre Whitman likeness by Alexander Burganov