Iestyn Roberts' Blog

A couple from Snowdonia

Iestyn Roberts — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:50:18 +0000

Here’s a couple more old photographs that I’ve just re-visited, as I love playing around in Lightroom. The first is take a couple years back coming down Yr Aran, with Bwlch Cwm Llan and the Snowdonia Quarries in the background, and the second I took while taking a nice gentle drive around Snowdon one evening, looking down Pen Y Pass, with the sun setting over Llanberis down the Valley.

Yr Aran, Bwlch Cwm Llan

Pen-Y-Pass

Ynys Enlli – Pen Llyn

Iestyn Roberts — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:37:42 +0000

Ynys Enlli

This image was taken way back in 2008. I was shifting through my iPhoto the other day and came across it, and because I haven’t really tested out my new Adobe Lightroom, I decided to have a play with the image. I’m really happy with the mood of the image, as it shows the vast-ness of the ocean, and the lovely light behind the clouds, yet keeping the unmistakable Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) silhouette, a striking image against the sea.

Cartoony Baseball Swing

Iestyn Roberts — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:33:10 +0000

I had the chance to go back to my Cartoony Baseball Swing, and re-work into it a bit. I’m now much happier with how it’s looking. Here’s the final version all rendered out:

Thanks for watching!

Schauinsland Sunrise

Iestyn Roberts — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:37:54 +0000

Schauinsland Sunrise

Schauinsland is a hill, located to the South East of Freiburg, with an elevation of 1,284 m. At the beginning of the week, I was dropping off my girlfriend at work for around 7am, so I decided to go up the Hill to try and capture the sunrising behind Felberg – which his biggest hill here in the Black Forest. It was a lovely morning, not a soul was around – except for a curious wee fox.

The Moon

Alps on the Horizon

On the images above, the Swiss Alps can be seen on the horizon, and the moon setting behind me as I watched the sunset.

A preview of ‘Guard – a Pantomime shot’

Iestyn Roberts — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:38:23 +0000

I’m currently rendering out my latest animation for my demo reel. It’s a pantomime shot that I based on my Animation Mentor shot – but I felt the AM shot wasn’t strong enough, so I fleshed it out a bit more. Here’s a still preview of what’s coming in the next couple of days:

Final Render of 'Guard - Pantomime'

Huge thanks goes to the awesome Oasim Karmieh for lighting and setting up the shaders on the scene for me so I can learn a bit more about lighting. I think he’s done an incredible job, and I’m looking forward seeing the final animation all rendered out! Thanks buddy.

I’ll be posting the completed version within a couple of days.

Grindelwald, Switzerland

Iestyn Roberts — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:07:39 +0000

The Bernese Alps

At the beginning of the year, we rented a little car, and headed down into Switzerland for the day. It was a nice little trip, filled with some sight seeing, and driving around.

This panorama was taken from a little touristy village on the foot of the Bernese Alps, called Ginderwald. From left to right you can see the famous Wetterhorn, Mattenberg, Ostegg, and the Eiger (you can just about see the North Face sliding down to the right of the photo). It’s taken me a while to get this to look ok, as I was just beginning to really experiment with panorama photography back then, so my camera wasn’t set up properly, but with a few tweaks, I’ve grown to like it, and thought I’d share it.

A few old Panoramas, Snowdonia – North Wales

Iestyn Roberts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:56:25 +0000

Something that I enjoy doing is to sit at my (our) desk, shifting through the wonderful iPhoto looking at my pictures. Every now and again, I come across some un-made panoramas that I took whilst out on my various adventures. Here are 4, relatively old panoramas, that I’ve just stitched up, and played around with. Some of these photographs are about 3 years old!

The first is taken from the road leading up Nant Gywnant, looking over towards Gallt y Wenallt with the Snowdon Horseshoe behind it. The second is taken from Dinas Dinlle, on a great Wintery evening. The third was taken when our walking group headed up Moel Lefn on a freezing cold Winter day, but the light was just fantastic, and the last – although not visually brilliant, is a panorama of my ’5 square mile’, Dyffryn Nantlle, taken from Y Cilgwyn.

Gallt y Wenallt & the Snowdon Horeshoe, Nant Gwynant

Dinas Dinlle Piws

Moel Lefn, looking towards Criccieth

Dyffryn Nantlle o Parc Bel, Y Cilgwyn

Photography

Iestyn Roberts — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:51:46 +0000

I’m slowly in the process of re-vamping a lot of my website, especially how the photography section works. I’ve decided to use a pretty great Flickr Plug-in for my gallery, which does a great job at displaying my images.

Use the drop-down menu under the Photography tab at the top of the page to view my photos.

Here’s a couple of new Panorama images I’ve just stitched together today. The first is from Cors y Fron, located just outside the Snowdonia National Park, on the way out of Y Fron towards Llyn Ffynhonnau and Mynydd Mawr. The wee ruin is by far, located in one of the most beautiful spots in North Wales, overlooking nothing but the magnificent Nantlle Ridge. The second is a first try at a night panorama, taken ontop of Moel Eilio, on a Winters night, looking towards Y Glyderau and Snowdon. Snowdon is just under the moon.

An Autumn scene at Cors y Fron

Glyderau, Snowdon and the Moon

Cwm Bwlch y Moch, Snowdonia

Iestyn Roberts — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:39:04 +0000

I headed back to North Wales for a couple of weeks to see my parents & friends, and to attend some meetings involving an animation project that I’ve been working on. As always, I took my camera out with me, but due to some pretty epic man-flu type symptoms, I didn’t manage to head on out into the mountains as much as I’d like.

Instead, I decided to experiment a bit with taking panoramas, which was great fun – as I’m getting a little bit tired of my normal panorama swoop. I headed on up into the Nantlle Valley, and came to Cwm Blwch y Moch, just North of Llyn y Dywarchen, which is nested just under Mynydd Mawr. This time, I tried to focus on a nice feature in the Cwm, as opposed to just a massive panorama sweeping across the landscape. I really enjoyed trying to capture the mood of the place.

Y Garn

Cwm Bwlch y Moch

For the first image, ‘Y Garn’ – I played around with the fisheye lens, and also graded the image, slightly de-saturating it, to try and bring out the feeling of the day a bit better.

‘Catgroove’ – Got the Groove Dance

Iestyn Roberts — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:06:14 +0000

I decided to focus a bit on body mechanics over the last couple of weeks, and thought it would be a great idea to animate a full body dance.

It was a fun project to animate, seeing as I’ve never animated a dance scene before. The folks over at 11secondclub helped me out a lot by giving me some great feedback, and generally, I’m very happy with how he turned out.

I’ve dedicated this to my lovely girlfriend, Regina, who’s being super awesome to me right now, who loves Parov’s music so much, and today just happens to be her name day - Všechno nejlepší k svátku, Regina! xo

The audio is Parov Stelar’s ‘Catgroove’ and the Norman Rig is the ‘Cool Shirt Norman’ by F.C. Kiral.

If you’l like to see the Work in Progress thread for this, here’s a link from blocking, straight through to the final render: Got the Groove.