Design Classic number 131: The Westland Sea King WS-61 Helicopter

Okay so it might not look like a design classic, but the Sea King Helicopter has been flying for over 50 years and over that time has been adapted from being an anti-submarine weapon during the cold war, to a troop carrier and an RAF search and rescue helicopter.

Based on the US designed, Sikorsky-built S-61, the Sea King WS-61 was built by Westland in the UK and debuted in 1969. Fitted with Rolls Royce Gnome engines, the Sea King had a maximum take off weight of nearly ten tonnes, could carry 28 fully-equipped troops and could fly within a range of over 1500km.

The Sea King has served in ten wars, including the Falklands, when its versatility meant its duties included anti-submarine use, troop deployment and re-supply, reconnaissance and even acting as a decoy to protect the Royal Navy ships from Exocet missiles.

The sea king has flown over 15,000 search and rescue missions, most famously by Prince William. I'd say it deserves 'Design Classic' status. And I love big choppers.

Design at SoVibrant

Related Links:



Design Classic No.007: Aston Martin DB5 
Design Classic No.28: The Triumph Bonneville

Design Classic no.30: British Road Signs

Design Classic No.38: AEC Routemaster Bus
Design Classic No.43 - Concorde
Design Classic No. 65: Penguin Book Covers
Design classic No. 74: The Telephone Box
Design Classic No.88 - The Egg Chair
Design Classic No. 111: The PH Artichoke pendant lightfitting
Design Classic No.122: The Sony Walkman
Design Classic No.145 - The London Underground Map
Design Classic No. 166: The Supermarine Spitfire 1936
Design Classic No.234: Sinclair C5
Design Classic No.243: The Anglepoise Lamp
Design Classic No.246: Ferrari Dino
Design Classic No.300: Mercedes 300SL Coupe
Design Classic No.325: Ferrari 512 S Modulo
Design Classic No.412: BMC Mini
 

It could be worse

Good Afternoon readers.

So, it’s Friday and we imagine you’re likely to have had a stressful and hectic week so here is something that will make your working week feel like a breeze!  You may have had deadlines to hit in impossible timescales, late nights and early mornings.

However, let’s just be grateful that you don't have to tell your boss that you accidentally knocked over and broke a 290 million dollar state of the art satellite as someone did at NASA

We imagine the US equivalent of a P45 may have been awaiting someone's arrival at work the next day. 

SoVibrant / Media Productions

Windswept - Kinetic Art

'Windswept' is a wind-driven, kinetic facade consisting of 612 freely rotating directional arrows. Rather like a matrix of weather cocks, giving a fluid visualisation of how the wind is currently interacting with the building's elevation. Designed by Charles Sowers, 'Windswept' is simple, ever changing, quite brilliant and is installed on the outside of the Randall Museum in San Francisco:

Art and Design at SoVibrant



Related links:

Sydney's sails...
Global Rainbow - Yvette Mattern
The Obliteration Room

3Doodler: The World's First 3D Printing Pen

Hi everyone,

As the title suggests, this post is based on the worlds first 3D doodling pen. When I saw this pen in action I was amazed at how fun something like this would actually be to use. Basically, it allows you to sketch anything you want, in three dimensions. It uses ABS plastic such as is used by modern 3D printers, which quickly hardens to maintain any shapes you can create or imagine.

Images courtesy of cgarchitect.com

My first opinion of the 3Doodler was that it would just be a gimmick or a bit of fun to use, but I may be wrong. After further thought, the pen could come in very handy when quickly trying to describe something in three dimensions without the prior knowledge of 3D modelling packages such as 3DS Max or Lightwave etc.  As well as these skills, you don't need the software or hardware normally associated with the 3D sketching that we are all familiar with.

Images courtesy of cgarchitect.com

The 3Doodler project is currently on Kickstarter with a $450,000 backing so far. If you like the product and want to help it's development, get involved and back it!

Images courtesy of cgarchitect.com

Below is a link to the 3Doodler page on CGarchitect as well as a direct link to the video which shows it working.


Click here to visit the 3Doodler page on cgarchitect.com
Click here to watch the 3Doodler intro video on Youtube

Happy reading

Media productions
www.sovibrant.co.uk

Consumed - The source of inspiration

Hello readers,

Today I pose the question of "where do you draw your inspiration from?". Personally I find that the majority of my personal work is inspired by films, books, the internet, games, music and the natural world. This, I imagine is probably true for a lot of people.

But when an idea is born from a less obvious source the results can be truly original and have a deeper emotional message. If emotional content is taken from your day to day experiences or the people in your life, whether they are family, friends or simply the person you walk past every morning on the way to work. How many times have these kind of experiences influenced your work? I know they don't generally influence mine but if they did, the end results would be truly original. This would be a visual representation of my own personal experience, but also an experience that others could relate to.

"Consumed" by Toni Bratincevic, a digital artist from USA created this piece using 3D Studio Max, Zbrush, VRay and  Photoshop. This is an excellent piece of digital art due the amount of detail involved in the composition and layout of the image. Technically, it's a fantastic example but understanding where the piece originated from really shows the brilliance of "Consumed."

Referring to his time spent in Croatia, Toni talks about his neighbour, an old man that lived below him as the inspiration for this image. This neighbour, who at the time was suffering from Alzheimer's, would often forget which flat he lived in and would even forget the identity of his own daughter, slowly losing himself and the memories of his life. Toni created this piece to immortalise his experience with this man, as well as the neighbour's fading memory.

"I will always remember you my unknown friend, you gave me power to create this piece of art, but I wish you never ignited this idea in me because that would mean that you spent your old days free of this suffering. You will live inside your loved ones until the day their time comes, but you will live inside this image forever." Toni Bratincevic 2012 CGSociety.

Toni doesn't explain the creation of the image in any detail, so how much it relates to his experience with this old man is completely subjective. For me at least, I see a man struggling whilst the life around him crumbles, decays and falls apart.

I look forward to hearing your views on this piece and where you get your inspiration from when starting on a new project.

Ryan Blackburn - Media productions

www.sovibrant.co.uk

Stuart Freeborn : 1914 - 2013

Good morning readers.

Sadly yesterday one of the legends of the silver screen Stuart Freeborn past away leaving a giant hole in the science fiction community.

As a character and creature artist, he left an unforgettable contribution to the movie industry including such characters as the Ewoks, Jabba the Hutt and Chewbacca. Stuart also worked on such innovative movies as 2001 : A Space Odyssey and Superman. His most memorable and most recognizable creation however was Yoda, who as you can tell was based on Stuart himself. Yoda has gone down in the history books as one of the greatest and most memorable characters of all time. 

Stuart will be missed, may the force be with him.

SoVibrant / Media Productions

Instagram gets BIGGER!

Over the past year we have been seeing and hearing more and more about Facebook’s  photo sharing service, “Instagram”.  For those of you that are still slightly alien to service, the photo sharing service allows users to create a profile and share photos with other online users.  It allows you to follow other people’s work, like and comment on imagery and also allows us to enhance and change images through a range of preset filters.

 

2012 saw Facebook buy Instagram for $1bn (£616m; 758m euros) in April 2012. However, in December  things looked uncertain for the online photo sharing service.  New “T’s and C’s” stated that Instagram would have the rights to all imagery that we, the general public, uploaded to our own personal profiles and could sell them for a profit.  I’m sure we all remember Instagram hitting the headlines with this story, with users concerned of their entitlements and uproar in an online company profiting from our own imagery, but to be honest I wouldn't blame them for trying ... if it had been true.  Although the new terms and conditions were mis-interpreted by the majority of Instagram’s users, it is evident to see why anyone would want to share and sell some images.  I have been mesmorised by some of the photography and skill that is appearing on Instagram. Some of the imagery is so stunning and unique that to have it on a canvas or acrylic in your own home would be just the right touch.

 

I thought I would share some of my favourite “Instagram findings”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Instagram, Design, Photogrpahy, Art

www.sovibrant.co.uk

 

Images courtesy of my Instagram followers and Google:

thegoodly

ovunno

natego

beachlife7

withhearts

wisslaren

The future of gaming

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to quickly blog a video that I have come across while browsing Youtube for all things CGI.

This video ties in with my previous posts on Euclideon : Unlimited Detail and describes how the future of gaming and realtime graphics could look. It focuses on the purely technical aspect of how the games engines work and what is in the pipeline for future release.


Click here for the Youtube video on Future computing speculation.


I especially like the comparisons this video makes between the different possible technologies. As well as this it offers a good insight into things to come and also a little nostalgia for all of those old-school gamers out there.


Happy reading


Media productions
www.sovibrant.co.uk

Dawn - A piece by Dimitar Tilev

Hi readers,

Whilst browsing the internet for inspiration I came across a visual created by Bulgarian digital artist Dimitar Tilev, on the CGsociety website. This piece was created using two programs, Autodesk 3Ds Max for the modelling and texturing and Vray for the lighting. 

There are several reasons that I really like this image, such as the emotion it evokes, capturing the magic of a sunrise with the warmth of the house, surrounded by the cold exterior. Note the clever choice of camera position making the house the focal point of the scene. 

Lastly, his attention to detail when creating this piece, such as the subtle randomness of the paving stones really add to the realism. On top of this the use of displacement aids in perfectly recreating the stone wall. 

It would be great to hear your comments on this image.

Ryan Blackburn - Media Productions
www.sovibrant.co.uk