The last word on my last bee, was that is was a copy of the Georgia Tech Hornet. My friend says that they copyrighted their logo with that bee on it and it should be ok to use. I still think that eventually there would be a challenge from G.T.

I still wish to do an animated version of his logo, but I decided to make my own bee. When I am finished with it he can use it or not but I still wish to use it for a learning project. It may be another week or so before I will have the time to rig him and add some decals for flavor, but here is the start.

Great start, Myron!

This is great so far. Great job.

Oh ya! Nice job.

Cool, Myron! Glad to see you're not giving up!

Bee utiful Model gets right to the point

Got him rigged, and CP's weighted ( I hope I'm done). Got some smart skinning left, a few of decals, then some poses. Oh yeah, and a hand gizmo. (Thanks Will Sutton, and Holmes Bryant for the vid tutes )

I'm getting quite an education on this little project.

A lean, mean flying machine! Looks great, Myron!

Very cool!

Great character Myron, I would not do better .... you should try using AO / IBL to enhance the look of the scene

Thanks, Guys. The pats on the back are all the more profound considering who they are coming from.
These were just quick shots with the bee, rendered as a targa, imposed on a jpeg I had laying around and fuzzed up a little.

Xtaz, I will eventually get around to the fancy lighting stuff as soon as I can, right now the learning curve is on relationships in the model.

I have been learning so much with this project. These years of lurking on the forum, reading every post, is starting to pay off. This time next week I should have an animated turnaround to show.

I'm late to the party but want to echo what has already been said. Looking very good Myron!

I particularly like the character you've put into him. He looks like a bee that is not to be trifled with. Serious Business.
He's got just the right amount of detail and realism yet just enough caricature to pull me in and want to see and learn more about him.
The photo background really adds to the sense that he's a 'real' character which makes that last one a fun rendering.

Looking forward to your next update.

Very clean and good looking! Can't wait to see him animated!

Finally got the time to finish the rigging, CP weighting and some smart skins. Still need to refine a bunch, but I've managed to replicate the original logo with the new bee.

Nice! Great work, Myron!

Ok, I'm ready to animate.

The bee will fly into a black background, (speck to large) and "Sting" once and the words "Franco Paletta & The Stingers" will appear in the arc, one letter at a time, dissolving in from transparent to solid.

At first I tried each letter as a group in the same model but I couldn't get the individual group Transparency attributes to animate. Neither as a pose or in the chor.

I'm sure there must be a way to do this without making each letter a separate model?

Suggestions? thanks.

Looks great, Myron!

Did a successful search and found the answer to my problem Here

EDIT:

To get the transparency to animate in the groups of a model, AFTER you drop the model into the chor you activate the "show more than drivers" button in the chor's shortcut to the model and animate the group transparencies there.
Will let you know how it turns out.