Goat Skull

 A quick pencil sketch that I felt like bringing into Painter and playing around with-

Long Live Play

I’ve been working a lot, freelancing for Sony Computer Entertainment.  I’ve made a couple more videos for the PSVita that showed at the Tokyo Game Show; I will share them when I can. 

I also had the opportunity to create the Mnemonics for the new ad campaign for Playstation.

Now my work is at the end of every broadcast commercial and trailer made for Playstation, including the popular “For Michael” spot-

That video was the #1 watched video on all of YouTube the week that it released, and in just a few weeks has been watched almost 10 million times. 

I have to admit, as disillusioned as I had become with advertising, it’s nice to see my work on TV again.  Especially when I see it almost every day on nationally broadcast spots for high quality products like Uncharted 3, which aired during the NFL kickoff game, the season premiere of The Simpsons, and just about every channel since.

E3 2011

I haven’t posted in a while, I was working long hours in preparation for E3.

I created several videos for Sony Computer Entertainment America.  Some were shown to the public, others behind closed doors, and one wasn’t shown at all.

This is my portion of the video that was shown to the public.  It is promoting Sony’s new handheld tech “Vita”.

It’s pretty straightforward product stuff, but I’m happy with how it turned out, especially the opening macro sequence.

That is the only thing that I can share right now, but more will be coming soon. . .   

New Painting

I recently finished the first painting on canvas that I’ve completed in years.

“Zool”

Oil on Canvas

24” x 48”

Overall, I’m pretty happy with it, in that I feel like I am getting some of my skills back after such a long hiatus.  I am finally painting again, seriously and for a prolonged period of time, and it feels really good.

There are always things that can use improvement though.  I’m going to focus on using a more limited color palette for my next couple of paintings.  I felt the color scheme getting a little out of control on this one, I don’t know if maybe it’s the green of the fridge, but I feel like I’m using a little too much of the color wheel.

The piece is also little saturated overall.  I like using bold color, but I think I overdid it a bit on this one.  I could get a better effect by using more muted colors to set off the bolder color.  Plus, I feel that more mutes would make the wacky subject matter a little more sophisticated.

Either way, this piece represents an important personal milestone.  I’m back baby!

Humpback Whale Part 1

I am starting a new personal project.  I recently watched the BBC series “Life”, which was made by the same people that made “Planet Earth”.  It’s just as good, it’s absolutely amazing the footage that their photographers are able to capture. 

One word of warning though, if you watch it be sure to get the British version that has David Attenborough’s narration.  Not just because he’s great, but for some reason they chose to have Oprah narrate the American version, and it’s beyond awful.

Anyway, they had a segment on humpback whales.  I’ve always thought of them as one of the ugliest animals on earth.  However, there were some really incredible shots, and I saw them as I had never seen them before.  They have an amazing variety of textures across the surface of their skin.  You couldn’t ask for a better reference for a real-world monster/creature design.

I decided that it would be a great subject for ZBrush practice.

This is a screenshot from ZBrush.  The model is about 70%-80% complete.

I want to push myself to emulate the detailed textures of the whale’s battered hide.  So rather than render her out as a standard turntable, I want to move a camera around her and get very close at times to highlight the detail. 

I also want to place the model in an underwater scene.  For me the beauty of these creatures is their contrast, the way a 40 ton creature can move with an almost unnatural grace, and I want to try to capture that feeling.

Before I finish the last details on the model, I want to get her posed in a scene, so that I can block out my shot and see which areas I want to highlight with the camera.  There is no point in spending hours detailing areas of the model that won’t even be seen.

So I began creating a scene in Maya-

I roughed out some lighting and volumetric fog to give an underwater look to the scene.  I also spent some time creating a particle system to emulate the bubbles from the air trapped underneath the whale when it returns to the water after breaching.

The next step is to bring the whale model into the Maya scene and pose it, then block out the camera move before returning to ZBrush to finish the detailing of the model.

First Reverse Glass Painting

I finished my first glass painting a few weeks ago, but I didn’t post it because I’m really not happy with the way it turned out.  The whole piece was a constant struggle, which is to be expected.  It is my first attempt at this technique. 

However, my wife really wanted me to post it, and since she’s probably the only one that ever reads this thing anyway I am obliging her.

I did learn a lot from this painting.  I tried as many different techniques of applying/removing the paint to the glass that I could think of, to varying degrees of success. 

The hardest thing for me isn’t thinking backwards because of the reversed glass.  I have the most trouble getting one area perfect before I move on.  I’m used to being able to work all areas of a painting simultaneously.  Michiyo’s technique requires masking and gilding gold one area at a time.  This means I can’t adjust the outlines, color, or shape of an area once the gold has been applied.

I am also used to being able to build up many layers of paint on canvas, something that is extremely difficult to do with glass painting, because of the backwards nature of the technique.  I can’t use washes or dry-brush techniques to influence an existing color, so it is difficult to get the same complexity of color that my canvas work has.

After actually trying out the techniques, I’ve also learned what subject matter will work well with the gold.  This whole piece I was fighting the gold because I came up with the subject before I knew the process.  Now I can plan my next image so that the process supports it, rather than getting in the way.

As the god-awful anatomy in this piece will attest to, I also learned that it is not a good idea to try to use the gold as a value within a human figure until I am much more comfortable with the technique.

Either way, I figure I need a couple more reverse glass paintings under my belt before I have one that I’m happy with.  

Valentine’s Day

This being Valentine’s Day, I thought that I would share the way that I proposed to my wife.

Her favorite game series is Mario Brothers.  I spent months working in secret to create an actual, playable Mario scene with title screens, enemies, breakable blocks, climbable vines, Moving clouds that can be ridden, even music and sound effects.  I altered Princess Peach's look to make it look more like her, and made her dress red (her favorite color).

Once a block is broken, it left a letter behind.  The letters spelled my message once all blocks were broken.

Lucky for me, she said yes!

Rigid Body Dynamics Test

I have been super busy on a project at work, but I’ve found a little time to keep moving forward on my Megaman project.  This is a test for the “death” shots of the enemies. I used Rigid Body Dynamics in Maya.

I hadn’t played with the dynamics in Maya for the last couple of releases.  It's a lot easier than I remember it being.  It’s a little buggy, but you can get some pretty cool simulations out of it.

Arcade Control Panel Restoration

I did a write-up on how I restored the control panel on my Konami Windy arcade cabinet.  It is only one small part of a major project, restoring a classic Japanese arcade machine to it's original condition and state.

READ MORE ABOUT IT HERE