Well, I can finally say that I have got past the development and casting stages. I created a completely new sculpt – the one seen in the previous MySpace blog (3rd Jan) was put together in a rush just so we could test out the lighting and frame considerations. This time I went for more texture, and worked the eye with more fissures and detail. Whereas the former eye was hastily built from an epoxy resin, this one is now like crystal, faceted and polished to really work with the illumination.

In order to keep the final cost as low as possible, we revised some of the more ambitious ideas proposed in the original blog. That was me getting carried away. We have moved some of the tricks to later designs (there are four more lined up) – this one just seemed to work great when triggered by light levels and temperature. The other effects changed the way the eye 'lived' in the room, and we felt this particular design was much better suited to more subtle triggers, changing slowly but continually.

The end result was even better than I had expected. When the eye is lit, colours shift and merge in the orb – the smallest shift in the viewing angle causes the hues to merge and bloom, so it appears that the eye is radiating all sorts of colours inside itself. As you walk around it, the colours shift from greens to red, creating a kind of pulsing heat of oranges. As the greens begin to dominate, an angry corona of red circles the eye.

I have tried to capture this (poorly) with my little camera. In professional hands this would be a joy to behold, but for the moment you are going to have to make do with my attempts:

The three at the bottom were taken in sequence (left to right) – notice how the reds flood the eye.

Some more images -

Again, a fractional move to the left shifts the colours inside the eye. The image below shows the effect under normal lighting conditions.

The lighting you see on the outside of the relief is dictated by temperature – blues become dominant if it is cold, reds if it is warm. At night, if it is cold, the eye will turn completely green -

This is what it looks like under daylight – one with the eye functioning, one with it turned off -

All of these images show the relief without it's frame – that's because they are a few days away at the time of writing. Overall, each will measure only approximately 14x18cm and powered via a mains adaptor, suitable for free-standing or wall mounting.

Each piece is hand crafted and painted; the monochrome hues on the relief form a perfect canvas for the light effects, which introduce primaries into key areas, transforming the look of the relief.

The Light Relief forms part of the Terrorama project.  Once complete, the first Light Relief will be available from the Doodlemonkie website!

A blog has been posted on Doodlemonkie's MySpace page, detailing the Terrorama project; where it's currently at, and where it is headed. 


If you haven't already seen the entry, you can do so by following  this link. 

Finally, a Hatchlings gallery has been added.  Also,  you will find a PokeHoRs page and companion gallery (more to come with this soon).  Links to these new sections are found on the main menu (left).  Stay tuned for even more new content!

After a flurry of activity, the site has had a stack of new images, text and even some small games added to pretty much every section.  (Hint: not everything is found by navigating the main menu - keep an eye out for small icons at the bottom of various pages.)

Doodlemonkie has been busy on some sculpting projects, the results of which will be uploaded very soon.  Keep checking back for even more images!

Thanks as ever for those of you who have emailed and given feedback - the doodlemonkie is delighted to hear that people like his work.   Thanks also to the new friends and fellow artists found at MySpace for their encouragement!

Thanks to my friend Clare, I have finally got some more images ready to add to the site... content will be added over the next few days to various sections, but especially to the Kid-id  gallery.  I have a couple of commissions to add to this section in the next few weeks, too, so as always, your feedback is welcome. 

Doodlemonkie's magnum opus, Magic and Mayhem, is now the second most downloaded game on Freeloader.com, nearly ten years after its conception.  

Great to see how sometimes things bounce back; M&M was strangled at birth by a then-struggling publisher (at least in the UK - US sales fared much better under Bethesda Softworks where the game was released as Duel: The Mage Wars). 

For more info, hop on over to Freeloader.com

Slowly, but surely, content is being added to the site - plenty more to come!