There’s a great article on 3D Illustration over at Design Week.

There’s something about three-dimensional illustration that can strike a powerful chord. Whether it’s the Brothers Quay stock-motion, Tim Burton animation or work in editorial pages and on billboards, the world of tiny sets and realistic puppetry - with its hint of the oddball and grotesque - exudes a special pull, often harking back to childhood days.

I made a couple of heads. I think I need to buy another colour plasticine…

And it wouldn’t hurt for me to learn how to take decent photo’s too!

I haven’t played with plasticine since I was young. But I bought some yesterday and made a monster. Grrr!

Henk from microdot.be, has got in touch about his “Paper Craft Stress Test” series. He’s graciously selected my Tiger model to test it’s strength against the most fearsome of classical Greek elements FIRE! As you can see, it didn’t do too well.

Here’s a little header file for C/C++ that I knocked up to make colouring console output a little easier. Not all of these colour codes are supported by every console emulator, but if you stick to the primary colours, you should be fine.

File: shellColours.h
//// Foreground Colours ////
# define SH_FG_BLACK         "\033[0;30m"
# define SH_FG_BLUE         "\033[0;34m"
# define SH_FG_GREEN         "\033[0;32m"
# define SH_FG_CYAN         "\033[0;36m"
# define SH_FG_RED         "\033[0;31m"
# define SH_FG_PURPLE         "\033[0;35m"
# define SH_FG_YELLOW         "\033[0;33m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_GREY     "\033[0;37m"
# define SH_FG_DARK_GREY     "\033[1;30m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_BLUE     "\033[1;34m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_GREEN     "\033[1;32m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_CYAN     "\033[1;36m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_RED     "\033[1;31m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_PURPLE    "\033[1;35m"
# define SH_FG_LIGHT_YELLOW     "\033[1;33m"
# define SH_FG_WHITE         "\033[1;37m"

//// Background Colours ////
# define SH_BG_BLACK         "\033[0;40m"
# define SH_BG_BLUE         "\033[0;44m"
# define SH_BG_GREEN         "\033[0;42m"
# define SH_BG_CYAN         "\033[0;46m"
# define SH_BG_RED         "\033[0;41m"
# define SH_BG_PURPLE         "\033[0;45m"
# define SH_BG_YELLOW         "\033[0;43m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_GREY     "\033[0;47m"
# define SH_BG_DARK_GREY     "\033[1;40m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_BLUE     "\033[1;44m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_GREEN     "\033[1;42m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_CYAN     "\033[1;46m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_RED     "\033[1;41m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_PURPLE    "\033[1;45m"
# define SH_BG_LIGHT_YELLOW     "\033[1;43m"
# define SH_BG_WHITE         "\033[1;47m"

//// Others ////
# define SH_DEFAULT         "\033[0m"
# define SH_UNDERLINE         "\033[4m"
# define SH_BLINK         "\033[5m"
# define SH_INVERSE         "\033[7m"
# define SH_CONCEALED         "\033[8m"


And here’s how to use it. Note that you’ve got to set the colours back to default at the end of the sequence.

File: shellColoursTest.cpp
# include "../shellColours.h"
# include
using namespace std;

int main (){
cout < < SH_FG_BLUE <<"Foreground Blue" << SH_DEFAULT << endl;
cout << SH_BG_GREEN <<"Background Green" << SH_DEFAULT << endl;
cout << SH_UNDERLINE <<"Text Underlined" << SH_DEFAULT << " Back To Normal Text" << endl;
}