Another Maquette

This is still a work in progress , but I got this sculpture close enough that I could do a paint over. I'm more or less happy with how my second ever photoshop painting turned out. Looking forward to doing the same treatment on the other characters.

Concept Art

It's been over a month since my last update and things have been crazy busy for me. I started a new job last month as I needed to pay some bills to keep the project afloat. It's been good to get back into a film production again, but it means time on my short is very limited now. Here's some of the latest concept art I've done for the pigs. These are my first photoshop paintings and unfortunately I ran out of time before I could finish the skin tones to my liking. I'll just have to revisit them at a later date.

Another Animation Maquette....

Here are a couple of photos of my next pig maquette.

Ready for Moulding and Casting

Here's the finished bust of Louie from my animated 3D short. I'll be making a mould and casting him in resin soon. In the meantime I'm working on a second pig and a new website. I had so much fun sculpting this guy and wish there were more hours in the day to do more. Maybe I'll do a series.....

I snapped my "G" string tonight.... No not that kind. I haven't played guitar since I was in grade 6, but I still need a "G" string. I use it as a tool for sculpting the finishing details, and unfortunately none of the music stores are open this late at night. Looks like I'll just have to finish the sculpture tomorrow.

Animation Maquette Almost Complete

Just a few more little things to be done before I consider him finished.

This is a clay sculpt, but will ultimately be cast in resin for the Kickstarter campaign.

Louie Animation Maquette for Kickstarter Campaign

I've had a few days away from the sculpt, so I thought I should put some time into it today. Still very much a work in progress. I'm not completely happy with his expression yet.

Animation Maquette

I am putting together a Kickstarter campaign for my animated short and will be offering this character bust as one of the incentives. This is Louie who I started sculpting today. I will post again when he's nearing completion. He's sculpted with Chavant NSP medium and I'll be casting him in resin.

ZBrush 4R6: ZRemesher

I just got my upgrade to Zbrush 4R6 and was anxious to try the new ZRemesher plug in. WOW! It really is a game changer. I used the default settings on the latest character and within 2 minutes it had done a pretty impressive job. It needs some refinements as it's not 100 percent spot on, but it's really close. My original sculpt had 1.8 million polygons. It's now down to 18,000. With a little tweaking, this could be a fully animatable mesh! Kudos to Pixologic for an awesome fabulous update!

More Zbrush Sketches

I haven't touched Zbrush in a few weeks and was itching to do something to exercise my digital sculpting. I'll visit this character again when I get the chance as I'd like to do a better job of the rendering.

Sculpting, Moldmaking and Casting Workshop Intensive!

I'm looking forward to teaching this exciting class this fall in Vancouver. 

Friday Afternoon's Zbrush Quick Sketch

Had sometime over lunch on Friday to do this one. I have yet to learn how to mask properly in photoshop. I'll get to that at some point.

Mask Making Course

For a very limited engagement, I'll be teaching in beautiful Victoria BC the weekend of June 1 and 2nd.

Sketch of the Day

Here's a character I've always wanted to sculpt, but never got around to it until today. It's a good start, but I have other things to get done today, so will get back to it another day.

Concept Sculpture and Zbrush Model

I decided to take one of my clay concept sculptures through to Zbrush 4R5. I started modelling from a dynamesh sphere. Renderings were done in Zbrush and composited in Photoshop. I love Zbrush, still have so much to learn, but it's becoming more intuitive the more time I spend with it.

The model is still a work in progress. I softened her features quite a bit for the Zbrush iteration.

Mask Making Workshop

I'm very excited to announce I will be teaching a course in mask making in beautiful Victoria BC on the weekend of June 1st and 2nd.

I will also be teaching sculpting courses in Vancouver this fall. If interested, please drop me a comment below and I will send you further details.

Zbrush Rendering with Compositing in Photoshop

So after having some success with the last rendering, I thought I'd try working on another character I did ages ago but never finished. This Victorian fellow was originally intended to be printed and assembled in one of my clocks. I hope to complete that one of these days. Wally was modelled in Maya and Zbrush 4R2, then textured and rendered in Zbrush 4R5 with final compositing in Photoshop. I'm going to render off some of the pigs from the short now that I have a better grasp on rendering in ZBrush. Can't wait.

I took a couple of months off the short recently, so I could work on some concept work for 3 IP's I'm developing with Mike Erskine-Kellie, a writer friend of mine in Toronto. He's written some exceptionally funny stories, and it seemed natural that we should collaborate on these projects together. So for the past two months, I've been working almost entirely in Zbrush and a little Maya, to develop these concepts. I'd been working fairly sporadically with Zbrush until 2 months ago and had been quite frustrated, as I'd forget all the features I'd learned and basically had to relearn the process every time I would get back to dabbling the software. Now that I've been using it everyday, I finally feel like I'm making inroads. Here's the latest character modelled in maya, zbrush, textured lit and rendered in zbrush and composited in photoshop. I still have a lot to learn on the lighting and rendering side, but I'm starting to enjoy it more. I'll post more when he's rigged and I've modelled the blendshapes.

I'm still busy working away on my short. Progress has it's fits and starts and if it wasn't for the contributions of a few very talented people I wouldn't be as far along as I am. Here's a shout out to all those who've been working with me during the past year and a bit.

Adam Cable: Versatility is this man's middle name. An awesome artist who's great concept and storyboarding work helped get the short up and running.

Mike Peredo: A great friend who's contributed in ways he doesn't know I value. Thank you for all the times you've calmed me down and helped put out those fires when I had no one else to turn to!

Maykol Choqque: I feel very fortunate indeed to have him working on one of our rigs. A very talented Character Animator and Character TD.

Devan Mussato: Another big contributor to the short, Devan created our pig rigs.

Alex Liki: A very talented artist who's been contributing to our Character lineup.

Heather McNabb: A wonderful Animator who's also been exercising her drawing skills on our storyboards and design work.

Alicia Kroeker: She's had a major hand in putting together our layout who has since moved on to Bardel. I wish her the very best.

Mike Erskine-Kellie: A mad Writer genius, who's input has helped prop up my spirits when my enthusiasm waned. (Working on a short for almost a year can be very trying at times indeed!)

Mark Holmes: For the invaluable critique when I really needed it.

Joyce Moller: For your spiritual and financial support.

Andy Asperin and Louie Hinayo: I can't say enough good things about these guys. They are two of the best guys I've ever worked with and although they haven't animated on this particular short, they did animate my previous short film and are a huge part of my wanting to continue down this road. Hopefully I will get another chance to work with them again.

Thanks to all! Onward.......