Maya Effects Book

So I am officially going to be the lead author on a Maya Effects book. Should be done this winter. I have alreday written tutorials for the first chapter - texture effects. Should be fun. My two fingered typing style has already gotten much faster.

Here are some renderings of my scientist character. This is just a dummy menat for animatic purposes. his clothes are pretty low poly. I have to rig him and work him into a scene. As the scene progresses I will update the model - make his clothes look a little more real. I'm pretty happy with the face although the area under the nose is weird. I'd like a more cartoony style but I'm also trying to make the geometry of his face obey the contours of muscle so he'll be easy to animate.

another sexy babe drawing

OK, this should be my last sexy babe drawing for a while, I may finally have it out of my system. i actually did this a couple months ago for a special project. It is my first concept art gig... more later!




Oh, and I updated my Digital Art section to include the science animations I did for stylus eralier this year.

Manga Mood

I'm in the process of updating the old website here, forgive the disorganized state. I switched the front page image to a random manga style robot I created in Modo and rendered in Maya with some toon shading. Below I've added some stills of varoius models I've been working on for fun and other things.

This building scene is a model I'm working on for a cartoon of mine. This is a biotech lab, a company called Xycom - I'm changing the name once I come up with something better. The object behind the logo is a model of transfer RNA, I'm going to turn that into a bronze sculpture fountain. The images below show the wrok in progress:






















Excuse the crappy paint effects trees and lack of textures, It should look better once I start texturing and finishing the scene. Right now I just need it at animatic level.

Here's a guy I'm working on for the same cartoon, he's at the creepy eyeless stage right now. He's going to be more cartoony than realistic, I'm still working on getting the profile right. i like his cartoony nose but its messing up his face a little.








Here's the model shown on the front page. I made it rather quickly for an effects tutorial I'm writing. I wasn't wild about it until I applied the toon shading and toon lines. The rendered version is super-retro fun! His name is Super-Klesko! He'll make a great inexplicable T-shirt.












Here's a model of a UFO I'm working on for another tutorial, this one was created in Maya.








Next I will be rearranging my CG section to include some science animations and I have a new sketch to upload and some music I created in Garage Band. Well, it has been a while...

June sleepers will not be tolerated

I'll let it slide this time...

So today is my last day on the ESPN project. It's been fun, slightly stressful at times but mostly smooth. I would have like to have created more realistic animations but we were limited by the computing power available and time. The directors were awesome - Matt Checkowski, Kurt Matilla - living proof that great people do work in Hollywood. Looking forward to seeing their film "Lies and Alibis." All the After Effects guys (Grant, Roy, and Geordie) on the job were top notch, made my 3D stuff look awesome. Paul and Anthony were the other Maya guys, fantastick job. And of course Jordi and Melissa who made working in downtown LA much more pleasant than it could have been. Finally I'd like to thank my mother, my highschool gym teacher, and the Acadamey...

maybe next week I can start updating this again. I've been playing with garage band so I have some annoying music to add to my gallery of stuff. Plus new science animations and test renders from my magnum opus...

Happy July!