Just cut together a draft of my new demo reel focusing on PreVis. It's a little rough right now but any feedback is always welcome.
You might even catch a glimpse of the new Sputnik and Laika storyboards! Still being mauled over, adding and subtracting shots, but you'll see it soon.
Hello again! I see you've found your way back for some more art-type stuff. Here's what's been happening.
Atroxity:
More Atroxity! Pages and pages have been coming while you've been away. Check it out at www.atroxity.com!
We will be taking a few weeks off to catch up and work on expanding our readership, which is hard when you're trying to create it at the same time. I need a full time person for this sort of stuff.
Sputnik and Laika:
The old girl and her canine side kick is back in production with a small but powerful team ready to kick it into gear. New storyboards have been made, which were needed since the old ones were horrifying. Goes to show how your skills and ideas can improve in a few years.
Take a look at the new drone concept, it's a bit menacing but more detailed than the last one.
Graphic Design:
Made a small flyer for an Architecture event going on in Portland. They wanted something "Slam"-ish with the idea of "10x10x10" and "green building design". So I came up with the concept of slamming into concrete, which went well, but how can I make it look good without hand rendering the whole thing?
Enter 3D design. With a few tricks and some rough geometry I made a clean looking image to be used in the flyer, and in barely a day. Check out the process.
It was also my first year of being married to my lovely wife on May the 4th! If you can guess why else that day's so special, you're awesome.
That's it for now. I probably have a bunch of stuff more that I'm forgetting, but you'll have to come back next time to find out!
Finally got down to modeling the Bone Axe! It was a concept I made up while in school and promised myself I'd model it. Now the day has come. All created in ZBrush, and I'll be working on the displacement map and meshes to move it in to Maya to get some better lighting and maybe animate it! (talking Bone Axe with fire eyes?) That may take a while but here's the original concept art to start you off.
Here's the textured model.
And the texture map for you 3D enthusiasts.
How I could improve? Could have put a bit more geometry in the staff but I was already pushing over my poly goal. The staff needed more attention in general, but I wanted the skull to be the star of the show.
On to Atroxity! Lots of cool developments there, so check it out at www.atroxity.com! I'm a few pages ahead of you guys, so prepare yourself. Things are gonna get messy.
Meanwhile, a new VFX house, The Refuge, opened up here in Portland and I went to the open house party. I've been in Portland for a bit now, but it was quite a first to see how alive and vibrant the VFX industry is here by the amount of people I met working on lots of different things. The studio looks great, and I can't wait to see what these guys cook up.
After such a great time, I realize I should get out and socialize more, especially with parties like this going on. It's just so hard to peel myself away from working on cool things like Bone Axe and Atroxity. Let's see if there's any more cool parties going on soon.
Yes, I know it's already March but... HEY LOOK, PRETTY PICTURES!
Here are two comics I made for a League of Legends competition where I won a Runner Up prize of a new Wacom drawing tablet and a bunch of Riot credit.
Here is a concept piece of Toa: the Pint Sized Polynesian. He was a character I thought of while in college, and I thought why not give him a reboot?
This is a 3D piece I made with ZBrush. It's an intricate lamp holder I modeled to get to know ZBrush a little more.
This is Superman, but you already knew that. The model and rig were created by Ashwin Inamdar while I did the animation and effects along with sound and rendering. I wanted to keep my animation skills sharp and make a short "attack" move like you would see in a fighting game.
And of course, there's a LOT of Atroxity pages up for your viewing pleasure at Atroxity.com. It's getting pretty intense and I love the new character, Cardinal Horrel. It's about to get really ugly though, so check it out and catch up!
I was also in India again for ten days at a traditional Indian wedding, which is quite the test of stamina especially when you're fighting jet lag, partying till 4am, and waking up at 8. The copious amounts of booze and food don't help either, but it was a fantastic time and and once in a lifetime experience.
Did I mention I went to the Wizarding World Comic Con in Portland? Me and Bill, the writer of Atroxity, went to visit and see what the local talent was all about, hopefully to give us an idea of how Atroxity stacks against the rest of the world. It was a ton of fun and gave us a boost of confidence in our work with the positive feedback from everyone who saw it. Also, Star Wars cosplay!.
I also had the chance to go to the Comic Con in India! Not exactly what I expected compared to the Portland Wizarding World Comic Con I went to the week before, but fun all the same. Got a picture with Super Kudi, the Indian superhero!
Things have been steadily chugging along, so I thought I'd give an update.
3D ANIMATION
I rendered out that robotic arm rig I animated. I tried putting sound in it but it sounded weird so I kept it silent. Maybe there's a better sound designer out there, but it's not me.
I also ran into some great guys at a little software retailer called 3DV in Portland OR and have developed a great relationship with them. If you're interested in software, head over to www.3DV.com and mention my name to get a great deal.
WEBSITE REDESIGN
I redesigned my website. Just rearranged things, simplified the design and cut down all the clutter. Check it out at www.leealailimarose.com.
ATROXITY: CHAPTER 2
We finished Chapter 1: Digging for Fire, so now were going to take a few weeks off to prepare for the next chapter, Climbing the Walls.
Were also starting to decide what were doing for ad campaigns, publication ideas, and all that so lots of behind the scenes work. Lots of cool work coming in the next chapter so stay tuned.
Take a look at this cool poster I made! And go re-read Chapter 1, or check it out if you haven't already.
Another idea we've been bouncing around is what to do with all this content. Right now its completely free online, with no ads or anything to generate revenue from views. We may start to do that, or we could pitch to a publisher and get a deal! A few good houses nearby is Dark Horse and Oni Press among many others, so that's an idea. If it does go into the hands of a publisher, you probably won't see it online, but probably in stores!
Just a thought. If you have any feedback, comments, or just want to say you enjoy the work, let me know so we know where we stand.
If you answered "Food Orgy" we probably went to the same family dinner. Incredible food, great fun, and wonderful times seeing the family again, especially my brother, sister, nephews, and parents.
Now that the family is gone, I decided to get back on the blog and keep updating it, hopefully better than I have been.
ATROXITY
Every Monday now a new page of Atroxity, the web comic I've been working on, comes out so go check it out already!
www.atroxity.com
If you don't know, Atroxity is a gritty noir-style graphic novel about a mans journey through a strange city. I can't give away too much but it's good, especially well written by Bill Salisbury, who I work closely with to bring the city to life.
Things have been going quite swimmingly with Atroxity if I do say so myself. We fell behind on our buffer during the holiday, so were playing catch-up but everything's looking great! Traffic is still low but slowly climbing every day, so maybe we can actually make a living doing this one day! Once Chapter 1 is finished were going to make a big advertising campaign to push more readers our direction, hopefully kick up a real following.
ANIMATION
I've been actively improving my animation and rigging skills by rigging and animating a simple but fun robotic arm. I have an idea of what to use him for but I'll save that explanation for later. Right now I have a great test animation for you, which has been rendered out and awaiting my sound design so keep an eye out for that.
So far it's UV layout is ready for texturing so that will be my next step, which brings me to my next work.
SODA CANS
This is my refresher on texturing, which is a simple soda can so I'm not really pushing it. What I am pushing is rigging this can to deform and "crush" so I can use it later for something, maybe another fun short with the arm rig? Oh the possibilities.
The texture I have now is too low res. so I'll need to change that, but it's still a ton of fun.
I also made it around the sun again a few days ago, so I've got that going for me...
