Simon Cowell's haircut as seen on American Idol

So what is Simon Cowell’s most recognisable feature? It’s that random looking, short-centre-split-on-top and number-2-side-and-back thingy you call hair. By saying that, we have already identified two highlights (or lowlights) of the haircut: a shorter than usual centre parting, and number 2 all around the side and back of the head.

Let’s fire up Blender and get modelling. Here is a character mesh that I already prepared, and I start from the centre of the head, and create a flat piece of hair flowing outwards, ending with a triangle, so the hair has a cartoony look, for comedic effect for the parody.

The beginning of Simon Cowell's haircut

Then add a bit of volume by subdividing the hair along the flow of the hair and move the vertices away from the head.

Add some volume to the parting hair on Simon's head

Then line the hair in pairs flowing in opposite directions on top of the head to create the shorter than usual centre parting of hair.

Simon's parting hair completed

Now it’s time to make the number 2 haircut on the side and rear of the head. Line parallel pieces of hair flowing down the hair and place them just beneath the centre parting we have just created. This time, the volume of the hair should be thinner, as we want to make sure it resembles the top heavy look.

The start of Simon's number 2 haircut

Continue to add the thinner hair pieces around the head, all parallel to each other. It’s likely one layer of the hair will not cover the whole head, so just continue to make another layer underneath the previous one until the head is covered. Take special care of the sideburns to keep the hairstyle looking natural.

Simon Cowell's completed haircut

This is the final textured haircut as rendered in our inhouse rendering engine.

Simon Cowell looking puzzled in 3D

Check out one of the American Idol parodies we made about Simon Cowell on voovees.com. It was written and directed by Overman at Zarathustra Studios.

And now, with the new ‘Taylor v.s Kanye Parody‘ video up on voovees.com, you get to parody the incident!

Taylor v.s Kanye Parody

One of our big time users elmo even parodied the recent 4chan-started ‘RIP Kanye West‘ hoax, which was trending on twitter for several days.

On a different note, this video is just the first of many collaboration effort between us here at ThinkingCactus and [the critically acclaimed award-winning] Phil Rice (aka Overman), there will definitely be more of these coming up, so stay tuned.

Twilight Parody vol.3 Poster

For better or for worse, this will be our last one about twilight (well, perhaps more after New Moon comes out anyway).

Moving on to other movies, watch this space…. Hmmm, where’s my old pile of DVD collections?

Also, definitely taking suggestions here, what movies / specific scenes that you’d like to parody?

Our frequent users ‘redoptick‘ is probably the user that made the most number of pickup-lines (professional pickup artist?), who even made a 4 part series within those entries. Ah, always entertaining.

We have over 70 entries so far, and among ourselves we’ve had several laughed-out-loud moments in the office just looking at them.

Click on top right link to view all parodies for that story

You can now access to all the parodies made for a particular story by clicking on the top right link from the frontpage, just in time for you to decide who want to vote for huh?

We invite everyone to go see all the pick-up line entries, and vote on whether you like them or not, even if you are not making pick-up lines yourself; if you did make an entry, invite your friends to come on and vote.

Go for it before the time runs out!

Voovees.com presents: Twilight 48Hour Parody Competition #1

I hearby announce the first ever Voovees.com Twilight 48Hour Parody Competition begins!

Over the next 48 hours, all the parodies that you, the registered user, make of the Twilight Parody vol.1 and vol.2, will be eligible for prizes!

The single parody, out of all the parodies made from both scenes, with the highest view count, will get to choose from a range of prizes. Also, the entry with the highest overall rating, will also get to choose from a range of prizes. Even if you just register to enter by making one remix, you still might get the chance to win the limited 5 lucky draw prizes. For the details about the prizes and rules, see competition rules.

The clock is ticking away even as you read this, so get to it! Start making twilight parodies!

Also, please help us spread this contest, you can get blog / tweet / shout at the top of your roof, get as many of your friends to enter! It’s something fun to do anyway. You can get the banner from this link, and link to the competition rules page where the big count down clock is, post them everywhere!

Following the part 1 of the ‘twilight parody, making of’, which talked about Edward the forever-teenage vampire, this time we will talk about Edward’s love interest and the main heroine of the sage, Bella Swan.

Bella Swan - Wireframe and Action Shot

Bella is also a strong character, even if she felt like she’s the lamb of the lion-sheep relationship she has with Edward, and we wanted to portrait her as that, along with the fragile teenage innocence that she embodies.

Her facial expressions were drawn with those characteristics in mind.

Many faces of Bella Swan

In the last post we’ve used the first twilight parody as the example, and this time we’ll be using the second twilight parody, the forest scene where Edward confirms that he in deed is a vampire (like that’s a big secret). If you think the reveal wasn’t exciting enough, make your own!

Here are some of the good parodies already made for that scene:

A Lover and a Fighter

Man helping out with house work

Good listener (family guy reference)

I know what you are.

Healthy Green Glow (my fav.)

Once again I’ll leave you with some movie shots and their corresponding parody shots.

Bella in the forest followed by Edward (movie)

Bella in the forest followed by Edward (parody)

Edward / Bella forest scene (movie)

Edward / Bella forest scene (parody)

The Reveal (movie)

The Reveal (parody)