Quba HQ

Still Swamped

I know many of you are still waiting for me to complete the two remaining tutorials promised for June. It seems however that it is going to take a while longer. Summertime is usually a very slow commercial season with not many TVCs being produced, so I naturally assumed I will have tons of free time to work on the tuts.

Things tend to work out not according to plan, though. I am still completely swamped with the projects for various clients and new ones just keep on coming. My current estimate is that I will be able to catch a break and record the next tutorial probably within 1-2 weeks, but only time will show if that’s realistic at all.

QubaHQ tutorials are quite important to me – just so you know, I have decided that I will not play a minute of Starcraft 2 until we get the next one online. And that’s a big commitment for me :)

Header photo by Ajfraser

The State of Things

I guess it is not too hard to notice that June is gone and I have managed to cover only half of the tutorial content from the trailer. Unfortunately, you will have to be patient for a little while longer.

It’s been raining projects here, and I literally don’t have any free time left to work on the site. This is likely to continue for a few more weeks, so naturally the Automated Light Array and Procedural Disintegration tutorials have been delayed until sometime later this Summer.

Be sure that the moment I catch a moment to breathe I will record the next video, but for now you just have to check the site regularly to see if that moment has come. Until then – enjoy the Summer, or go around the site and try out all these new shiny Facebook Like buttons. If you feel particularly generous, there is also a nice rounded yellow button on the right side you may want to try.

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I’m back! …kind of…

It’s been a while since I posted any meaningful update on QubaHQ. Except for the bi-daily doodle slowly turning the whole site monochrome there hasn’t been much activity here. Here’s why.

I have recently suffered a catastrophic HDD failure, wiping out all the current projects I have been working on. While older works were safe and sound in the backup drives, almost a week worth of animation went up in smoke. It was my own fault, really, stupidly running my main work system using a RAID-0 configuration – a mistake I am not likely to repeat anytime soon.

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New feature: featured… fea… tures?

With all the new content coming to QubaHQ all the time, I realized how many noteworthy articles disappear from the main page in the matter of days. That’s why, after few hours of fighting with PHP and CSS I added a new feature to the site: Featured Articles.

You can now see links to five hand-picked articles in the right sidebar, or browse a new category: Featured. As a rule of a thumb, posts will qualify for the Featured selection only after they exited the main page. Also, only original QubaHQ content will make it to this new section, so no Re:Posts and other links there.

Hopefully you will never miss any of the really good posts again!

Check out our Stash (issue 67)

Good news, everyone! Our piece, New York Times: The Turkish Edition is being featured in this month’s edition of Stash magazine (that’s Stash 67, April 2010). We are pleased to inform you that we are the first Turkish studio to have a commercial in this prestigious compilation.

Other studios featured in this issue include Radium, Glassworks, The Mill, Psyop, Superfad and many, many more (108 minutes of content). Check out the trailer for Stash 67 after the break.

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Ant Attack!

While I am on the other side of the world, getting married to Cigdem today, I did not forget about you :)

This one was drawn back in Spring of 2003, when ants invaded my kitchen. I found it only appropriate to publish this particular doodle today since in the middle of the picture a little ant wedding is happening.

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Bici Bee #143: Cici & Bici (4) The Wedding!

So the cat is out of the bag. Today I’m marrying Cigdem in a small ceremony held at the shore of Caribbean Sea.

Life doesn’t get much better than this.

Raise a glass!

Traveling

I am going to be away for the next 10 days, leaving the site relatively unattended. Thanks to the miracle of scheduled posts, however, there will be some fresh content coming out.

The Doodles&Noodles bonanza continues as every other day you will be presented with another sketch from my notebooks.

Additionally, be on a lookout for a very special four episode miniseries of Adventures of the Bici Bee featuring guest appearance by Kotoko the Kamikaze Sponge Ninja Assassin! Trust me, it’s big and you don’t wanna miss it!

If the fresh scheduled content is not enough, feel free to dig in the archives dating back all the way to 2002, check out the video tutorials, read some articles in brainstorm or post some comments around the site.

See you in 10 days!

Nothing to See Here

It is going to be a few slow news days for QubaHQ, as I am completely swamped with work and simply don’t have time to create or find new content. I have some cool things planned, so watch this space, but for a while things may get a bit more sparse.

Meanwhile, why don’t you hop on to http://chichiland.com/ and check some of Cigdem’s awesome illustrations? That should keep you occupied.

Chi Chi Land Re-launches

The new year re-design madness continues! Hot on the heels of the Quba HQ re-launch, I am proud to present to you new face of Chi Chi Land – a personal portfolio blog of Cigdem Keresteci.

The site contains wide variety of Cigdem’s works, from old web designs all the way to the most recent drawings, illustrations and paintings.

Custom WordPress template was designed and implemented by Quba Michalski with art by Cigdem Keresteci.

Visit it at:
http://chichiland.com/