IestynRoberts.com

There’s still a few things that I’m the process of ironing out – such as font and styles – but there’s a whole new photography gallery on there, and some nice plug-ins to enhance viewing the photographs.

Thank you good people of WordPress.com!

IestynRoberts.com

Baseball Swing

For the last two weeks, the 11secondclub.com have held a mini-challenge based on the theme ‘Sport’s Swing’. Since I’ve just purchased the fantastic Kenny Roy lecture on ‘Cartoony Animation’  I decided to try something in a ‘Cartoony’ approach. (Kenny’s lecture was full of those fantastic ‘Ah-ha!’ moments, and his delivery was really clear – I highly advise you guys check out his tutorials).

I began looking around for some inspiration, and found a pretty lovely short by Goofy called ‘How to play Baseball’. It was full of great little gems, so I decided to use him as my inspiration for my shot:

I’m quite happy with how he turned out. I tried to really push the Norman rig as much as I could (Mod by F.C. Kiral - Cool Sports Norman), by really pushing the poses, but there’s a few poses here and there that I think, looking at it now, I’ve pushed a little bit too much, so I will go back and address them. It was a good exercise, and I learned a great deal, also getting some really great feedback from the folks on the forum.

As for the render – still trying to get my head around it. Been reading up on some great tutorials, and it’s starting to make some sense. For Normal, I’ve faked the back lighting, and used the Illuminati script for the Global Illumination effect.

I shall post an update when I’ve corrected some Issues I have with the piece.

I followed a couple of tutorials to get the rendering effect, mainly Georgi Zahariev’s and Ciaran Dempsey - faking the Rim light by using the ramp node, and Sampler Info node – really lovely results, with minimal rendering times. As for the light, I simply used the Illuminati  rig, which I’m quite happy with – due to my current lack of Rendering knowledge. So hopefully, the next render will be a bit more ambitious! Learning is fun!

On a chilly and windy day, I headed up to Cwm Idwal to walk up the beautiful hanging valley with Neil, John and Del the dog.

We only did a quick loop on this run, starting from the Idwal Cottages below, heading into the Cwm itself, round the lake and up towards Clogwyn y Geifr, from there we headed straight up Y Garn, and down the path that leads towards the Pinnacle Crag, doing a nice tidy loop of the valley.

Whilst ontop of Y Garn, we almost nearly had a full cloud inversion, but the clouds quickly disbursed, but the view towards Snowdon was fantastic.

Here’s a collection of Panoramas taken on the trek:

Cwm Idwal. Tryfan, Glyder Fach, Glyder Fawr. Snowdonia, North Wales

Snowdon Inversion, taken from Y Garn

Cwm Idwal, looking towards Glyder Fawr & Castell y Geifr

God Rays, Cwm Idwal.

Hello, I’ve gone ahead and added a new Page to my blog, called ‘Photography’ that can be reached at the very top of this blog. I’ve included pretty much all my panoramic photographs that I’ve created over the years, and I shall be updating it as I take new ones.

Right now, there’s only my mountain landscapes, and a few beach shots, but once I collect more and more variety, I’ll change the Page, so it’ll be nicely categorised.

If you click on some of the photos, it’ll take you directly to the relevant blog post, otherwise it’ll take you to a higher res photo.

All my photography is for sale – please contact me if you’re interested in High Resolution print.

As I mentioned, over May I attended a course in Aberystwyth, Mid Wales on Freelancing. We covered pretty much everything involved in going Freelance, from Taxes, to Networking, to seeing your Strengths and Weaknesses. For me, it was a brilliant course, funded by the good people of Go Wales, as I learned so much about everything. The tutors were really helpful, with a wealth of knowledge, and I’m really happy I attended.

A couple of weeks after the course, I was contacted by Go Wales, asking if they could do a wee interview with me about the course, what I enjoyed, and if I got everything I wanted out of it, and here it is!

Iestyn Roberts – Go Wales Interview (or click the image above)

One evening, after a pretty awesome storm, the sun came out, and lit up the dark clouds so beautifully, I just had to go out and try and shoot one of my favourite spots, Llyn Nantlle. The panorama is my biggest yet. 16 photographs make up this beast, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Llyn Nantlle

The view is quite beautiful, as on your right, you’ve got (Grib) Nantlle Ridge, and on the left, you’ve got one of my favourite mountains – Mynydd Mawr, and in between the two, in the centre, you’ve got Snowdon peaking through the gap.

The site is mentioned in the Old Welsh Manuscripts, Y Mabinogion - as Gwydion searches for Lleu Llaw Gyffes see here.

A painting of the same view was done by the Welsh Landscape painter, who I studied a lot in school, Richard Wilson in the 18th century titled ‘Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle’ which is on display at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, which I’ve always like:

Richard Wilson's 'Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle'

'Intro' Anturiaethau Syr Wynff a Plwmsan (Hanner Dwsin)

Pam roeddwn i yn hogyn bach, roedd ‘na ddau gymeriad ar S4C roeddwn i wrth fy modd gyda. Dwi’n cofio eistedd yn rheolaidd o flaen y teledu i wylio’r ddau gymeriad, ac yn edrych ymlaen i weld syt fath o drwbl roedd y ddau am am fod i fewn ynddi, y ddau yma oedd, Syr Wynff a Plwmsan.

Syr Wynff a Plwmsan

Syr Wynff, Fi, Plwmsan a Celfyn (fy mrawd) - Eisteddfod yr Urdd 1990

Hyd heddiw, dwi’m yn meddwl does na dim byd gwell wedi cael i ddangos ar S4C, (‘C’mon Midffild’ yn agos ) a wrth ddweud hynny, does na ddim llawer o gyfresi yn y byd sy’n dod yn agos i faint roeddwn i’n mwynhau gwylio antics y ddau yma. Hyd heddiw, mi dwi dal i fwynhau eistedd yn ol, a ail wylio’r rhagleni. Mi gennai gasgliad go lew o’r Anturiaethau, ond, wrth ddweud hyny, mae’n hen bryd i Sain (neu rhiwyn) rhyddhau fwy o’r anturiaethau ar DVD.

Ma bron iawn i bob bennawd yn ymwneud a Syr Wynff yn cael syniad gwych o syt i fod yn Filiwnydd, ag yna yn mynd ati i drio llwyddo hefo help ‘i ffrind, Plwmsan. Wrth gwrs, bob tro, mae’nt yn methu gyda canlyniadau catastroffig. Maen’t yn gyfrifol am ddod a llwythi o ddyweddiadau gwych i’r Iaith Gymraeg, fel ‘Râslas bach â mawr’, ‘Slepjan’, ‘Oh hysh y sŵnyn’, ‘Oh Wynff be?!’

Fi a Wynford Ellis Owen

Fi a Mici Plwm

Dyddiau hyn, mi dwi’n ffrindiau da hefo’r ddau, ag yn cadw mewn cysylltiad yn aml. Mae’r ddau’n ffantastic, ac mae’n bleser cael wedi dod ‘i nabod y ddau drost y blynyddoedd. Mae gennai hefyd bob fath o femorabilia dwi wedi ‘i gael gan y ddau drost y blynyddoedd, o hen lyniau, i crysa-t Plwmsan, lyniau wedi ‘i fframio ag, Y motorbeic:

Fi a'r Motorbeic

Wel! Ar ôl 22 mlynedd o heb fod ar y sgin, mae’r ddau yn ol – hefo Syr Wynff a Plwmsan 2. Dyma linc i’r trêlyr ar wefan y sioe newydd ‘Ddoe am Ddeg’:

Syr Wynff a Plwmsan 2

Mae’n wych gweld y ddau’n ol, a dwi’n rili edrych ymlaen cael gweld be sydd yn mynd i ddigwydd yn y sketches newydd ‘ma. Os di’r trêilyr rhiwbeth i ymwneud a’r peth – allai’m disgwyl!!

Mi dwi hefyd am drio gweithio ar broject bach yn ymwneud a’r ddau gymeriad yma, ac yn yr wythnosau dwytha, dwi wedi bod yn gweithio’n galed arni – mi wnai bosdio fwy o wybodaeth yn y man.

Os dachi ar Twitter, yna dilynwch fy nhudalen Twitter Syr Wynff a Plwmsan yma: @SyrWynffaPlwmsan

@SyrWynffPlwmsan

Ddraig Twitter Cymreig -gan Geoff (Foomandoonian)

Mi dwi hefyd wedi dechrau arni i rhannu fy wybodaeth ar  Wicipedia am Syr Wynff a Plwmsan. Darllenwch amdanynt yma: Syr Wynff a Plwmsan Wicipedia

My Portfolio

I’ve just created an online gallery at the awesome looking site – Behance.net. It’s a gallery full of my Panorama’s that I post here – but all together, which is really nice to see. I will be updating it quite often I imagine, I have tonnes of panorama’s I need to finish stitching, and I’ll be going up Mountains very often, so there will always be some pictures to take.

Here’s a direct link to my portfolio:

Iestyn Roberts – Panoramas of a mountain view

If you like the set so far, please hit the ‘Appreciate’ button at the bottom. Thank you.