leigh van der byl

Hello 2012

leigh — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:09:34 +0000

Happy new year everyone. To kickstart 2012, I’ve begun the process of collating and updating my numerous old texturing tutorials, which were in dire need of some attention. I’ll begin putting them back onto the site in the next few days, followed by downloadable PDF versions where necessary at a later stage.

I’ve also begun compiling a FAQ, which is now selectable from the menu on the right, just addressing some of the most common questions I face in my email and elsewhere. It’ll probably be periodically updated.

Goodbye Steve Jobs ;_;

leigh — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:31:36 +0000

Today the world said goodbye to a true visionary who changed the face of modern computing, and took a niche product brand and turned it into an international household name. Steve Jobs will be greatly missed.

New photo on Flickr

leigh — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:34:45 +0000

I attended the annual London Tattoo Convention over the weekend, and snapped quite a few shots of all the decorated people there. This man was doing traditional hand-tapped tribal tattooing.

New photo on Flickr

leigh — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 22:01:39 +0000

I’ve always really liked this fabulous art deco building in Bloomsbury, behind the British Museum in London, leading onto Russell Square. It’s part of the University of London and is called the Senate House, and if it looks familiar to you, it’s because it was used as the Ministry of Truth building in the film adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I shot this on my FinePix x100, and did the mono conversion and processing in Silver Efex Pro 2 in Aperture 3. Have I mentioned that Silver Efex Pro rocks? Well, Silver Efex Pro rocks.

WordPress is cool

leigh — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:55:28 +0000

So after switching my hosting package and a couple of hours of tinkering in a crash-prone Artisteer beta for Mac that the developers have mysteriously put up for sale despite it not being a full release candidate, I’ve now managed to port my former website into my own custom WordPress theme and get it online. I’ll try to get my CGI tutorials and stuff back online soon; they’re in dire need of updating but I simply don’t have the time right now to address this. If you need help with CG stuff, go to CGTalk. On the subject of WordPress themes though, my god there’s a lot of crap out there. I trawled for hours across the web, finding countless articles claiming to showcase THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORDPRESS THEMES!!!111, only to find a collection of themes so hideous they wouldn’t look out of place at the Tate Modern.

New photo on Flickr

leigh — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 02:31:54 +0000

I shot this on a recent trip to Scotland. Urquhart Castle perches on the banks of the murky, black waters of the famous Loch Ness. I shot this on my Canon EOS 7D, with mono conversion and processing done in Silver Efex Pro 2 in Aperture 3. Unfortunately the monster was a no-show.

New photo on Flickr

leigh — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 02:29:13 +0000

A recent upload, but an older photo – I shot this last year in Paris, France. It’s a quaint view looking across the Seine river, taken with my old Canon EOS 450D, and processed in Silver Efex Pro 2 in Aperture 3.

New photo on Flickr

leigh — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 02:24:56 +0000

I shot this last year at Warwick Castle in Warwick, England. This was shot on my old Canon EOS 450D, with mono conversion and processing done in Silver Efex Pro 2 in Aperture 3.