Just a week since Siggraph and I’m already busy preparing to move to San Francisco.
Washington D.C. has treated me well, and I’m really going to miss everyone here - but the Golden Gate calls my name.

I’ll be taking a few Grad School classes at the Academy of Art University, while finishing up my modeling reel and scouting out the bay area studios.  So wish me luck, and if you happen to live in the bay area and want to meet up, just shoot me an email.

See you all on the other side of the US!

I’m going to be attending Siggraph 2008 in Los Angeles this week.
Looking forward to seeing everyone from the previous years and meeting lots of new people.

I’m also going to be hosting some video coverage of the conference for CGSociety over the week.
So keep an eye out for the videos being posted daily on the Siggraph forum at CGTalk.com

Here’s a teaser of the nearly finished sculpt… There’s a few more things I want to tweak before I call it finshed and post the final renders, but I’ve hardly had any free time to work on it this past month – been very busy with other projects, preparing for Siggraph, and moving to San Francisco (more on that soon!)

Back to work on The Sky Fisherman.
Here’s Eli all done.  Ardent’s nearing completion, but his hair is proving to be a royal pain in the ass.

This weekend I Directed a team of 20+ people to create a film for the 48 Hour Film Project.  The 48HFP is a nationwide contest where teams in major cities have 48 consecutive hours to write, shoot, edit, and deliver a 4 to 7 minute short film based on a genre we pull at random.  It was a lot of fun to work with many talented people who are as passionate about filmmaking as I am.

Our film, titled ‘Dead Man’s Hand’, is a western about two men having a showdown over a woman they both claim is rightfully theirs.  Here’s a still from the film showcasing our three leads:

If you happen to live in the Richmond VA area, be sure to come by the historic Byrd Theatre (2908 West Cary Street, Richmond, VA, 23221) to check out our film screening on Saturday, July 26 at 4:00PM.

I’ve taken a short break from the Sky Fisherman project to photograph an older project that I’ve wanted to share for a while now.

The Flame Guitar is a full size, playable guitar that I designed and built from scratch in my spare time.  It was a hell of a process to build something so complex - and me being the dumbass I am, just happened to come up with the most difficult shape possible for a guitar (you have any idea how hard it is to sand in-between all those tiny flame grooves?!)  Wish I gave that a little more forethought in the design process.  Anyhow, be sure to check out the final photos of the guitar in the tradtional gallery.

Some quick stats:
Drafted the body design in 3ds max, Full maple body (one heavy mofo), 100% hand sanded and filed to get the contours on the sides,  No access to a router or milling machine (I wish it was that easy), and custom mixed dye for the final color.

Gotten a bit behind on the updates, so here’s a small dump of images to show whats be worked on these past few weeks.

The project is nearing the end, all thats left is to sculpt the clothing and hair and the boys are finished!
Next post should be the finished product.

Once again, I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project – this time for the Baltimore area.  It was a lot of fun to work with many talented people passionate about making the best film we could in 48 hours.

If you happen to live in the Baltimore area, come by the Charles theatre (1711 N. Charles Street) to check out our film on Tuesday June 17th at 7:30PM.  The title of our film is “2024” by the Karma VS Mojo team.

Just thought I’d quickly share this hand I sculpted today.   That is all.

Things have finally settled down a bit, and I had the chance to work on the project this weekend.
The boys’ basemeshes are pretty much done – and I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

Time to start sculpting the higher subdivisions and pose them.

I’m going to be giving a demo titled ‘Character Creation: Concept to ZBrush’ at the next DC Siggraph meeting on Wednesday May 14′th.  It should be a fun night – I’m gonna go over how I created the Venetian Gondolier and Sky Fisherman models, as well as some of the Character Modeling tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years.

And as a special bonus, we’ll be raffling off a full copy of ZBrush 3.1 for a lucky someone in the audience!
So if you’re in the DC area, mark your calendars and invite your friends for this great evening presented by DC Siggraph.

Where:  BAE Systems, 8201 Greensboro Drive, McLean, VA 22102
When: Wednesday, May 14 from 7pm to 9pm

Over this weekend I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project for the Washington DC area.  The whole deal is you’ve got 48 hours to write, cast, shoot, edit, and deliver a 7 minute short film based on a genre and character they assign you at the beginning.  It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of wonderful people who are as passionate about filmmaking as I am.

If you happen to live in the DC area, come by the AFI Silver theatre in Silver Spring MD to check out our film on Friday, May 9′th, 9:30PM.  The title is “Who Killed Larry” by the Karma VS Mojo team.

The new computer seems to be running quick and stable… hopefully it’ll stay that way for a long time to come. *crosses fingers*

Worked on the boys basemeshes the past few days, heres what I’ve got so far.
A few more props to make and they’re ready to be brought into ZBrush for some sculpting.

After much delay (sorry, it’s been hectic), I’m proud to present the finished turtle sculpt!

I went back and redid the bases for the flippers, banged up the shell a bit, sculpted the transition between submeshes (neck and arms meeting the shell), and spent a good deal of time on the face and neck.

My 3 year old computer is just about ready to catch fire from working on this (the meshes currently weigh in at 6 mil polys total).  So I’m finally biting the bullet and putting some cash down on a new system that can hopefully make ZBrush a little more snappy and get rid of the annoying 30 second wait for ‘compacting mem’ every time I Ctrl-Z.

Once I get the new computer up and running (hopefully this week), I’ll move on to working on the kids meshes, and progress should hopefully speed up dramatically.  Cheers!

Heres a few screengrabs of the finished fins on the turtle.  It’s nearing the homestretch, just gotta finish up the neck and head, and then it’ll be time to model the kids.  It’s been a fun and interesting experience walking the line between stoph’s original concept and my gathered sea turtle reference… but I think its worked out ok so far.