Greg Tatum's Hideout

Nearing Completion

2011-09-23T13:19:00.000-05:00

I'm just about done with Episode 2 of The Adventures of Mr. Rat. I finished the last shot, and now I just have to wrap up the titles, and send it off to Jeremy to compose the music.

Flip Animated

2011-09-16T13:02:00.000-05:00

Here's a little demo GIF of the animated Flip. He'll be part of a bigger shot, but this was the first test of my new process.

Edit: I should also mention that the noise on the coloring is from the GIF compression. I just did it this way so that it would be easy to embed online. It won't be like that in the finished piece.

Flip from Little Nemo

2011-08-25T14:33:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to try out some animation on paper. It's not nearly as quick as working on the computer, but the precision and line quality is phenomenally better. I'm hoping this process will work out for me. If it does I'll do a post showing off my mobile animation rig.

Flip is a character from the Winsor McCay comic strip "Little Nemo". He's going to be featured in my next animation after I finish episode 2 of Mr. Rat. He's poking his head out from a hole in a wall in this shot. I haven't made the background for the shot yet.

Interactive Bait Ball

2011-08-04T11:17:00.005-05:00

Here is another example of my schooling fish and motion detection. It's going to be used in an interactive kiosk to talk about predators and prey, about the strategies used for protecting themselves, and the ones used to exploit those strategies.

You must have a webcam for this example to work, and it must be enabled, otherwise it might not look right. You can also view a larger version here. If it runs too slow then change the quality settings by right clicking.

Mr. Rat - Ep. 2 Shot Breakdown

2011-08-02T22:26:00.000-05:00

I'm getting close to finishing up episode 2 of The Adventures of Mr. Rat. Here's a quick breakdown of how I put my shots together. You'll notice that I changed some motion between the storyboards and the actual animation due to some on-the-fly decisions while I was animating (for better or worse).

Animation Backdrop of Mushroom Forest

2011-08-01T11:14:00.000-05:00

Here is an actual shot of what I want to do with the 3d CG mushrooms I posted before. After I finish this next episode of Mr. Rat I'm planning on doing another 30 second to 1 minute long hand drawn animation. The 3d mushrooms will be used as a bunch of the backdrops. I'm trying to go for more of a painterly feel with the style.

3d CG Mushroom Model

2011-07-29T14:59:00.000-05:00

Here's a little 3d model I put together for a future project. I composited the mushrooms into a forest scene. The finished product for the scene they will go in will be an entirely different scale.

Predator Prey Opening Title

2011-07-28T17:04:00.000-05:00

Here is a video of an opening title I'm working on for an interactive kiosk. The fish move based on an algorithm I wrote, it's not a pre-set animation. It's modified off of my webcam motion sensitive algorithm I've posted about previously which I've posted (and subsequently improved). This will play in Flash on the kiosk, but it might be fun to experiment programming animations for more traditional things.

Arapaima, Sea Nettle, and Crab Mural

2011-07-25T12:10:00.002-05:00

It's been awhile since I posted much here. I'm going to post some of the things I've been working on here in the next few days and try and catch up a bit. Here is a mural and gallery title graphic that I put together. The requested direction for the graphic was to have a bunch of animals on a mural that would draw visitors into the exhibit galleries.

The mural is printed vinyl and PVC on vinyl for the gallery titles. I produced the actual artwork on paper with gouache, colored pencils, and ink. I then photographed it, and prepared it for digital printing. There was a bit of a change after I had finished all of the artwork when it was decided that there couldn't be an octopus in the piece. I swapped it out for the pictured sea nettle. You can see the original octopus graphic below as well as a shot of the in-progress graphic with my original graphite sketch overlaid in tracing paper.

Schooling Fish and Motion Detection in Flash

2011-03-31T12:09:00.001-05:00

Here's a little demo of an interactive exhibit kiosk I am working on using motion detection. This is the implementation of the swarming red dots example I posted previously.

Water Ripples in Flash

2011-02-15T20:28:00.002-06:00

Here's another little fun thing I've been programming. Move your mouse through the water's surface and click to interact with it. The artwork is really just filler graphics at this point.

Swarm Motion Control in Adobe Flash

2011-02-11T10:10:00.005-06:00

There are lots of examples on the web of people doing motion detection in Flash. Here's my own script to add to the mix. It's for an interactive kiosk, but I figured I'd share the base code as it's pretty fun to play around with. You can download the code here. I'm releasing it under the Creative Commons Share Alike license. If you use it please include a credit line and a link back to my site.

The method for actually detecting the motion has been pretty well documented, but the part that stumped me was how to decide where the dots would go to once a motion collision was detected. The biggest issue with the motion detection is that it detects the edge of the motion, not the entire moving object. Thus it's hard to figure out where exactly the dots will flee. My solution was to create an animated point that would rapidly swim around the stage. Once a motion collision was detected the dots would begin to "flee" towards that swimming dot. This gives the illusion that the dot is trying to escape from you.

My end product is going to be a bunch of schooling fish so you can see how I'm trying to get their behavior to mimic that.

Motion Detection in Flash

2011-02-09T13:14:00.004-06:00

Most of the time I can't share what I'm working on while programming as there is nothing really visual to show. This little test that I'm working on is pretty cool though.

Robot Model Continued

2011-02-06T15:10:00.001-06:00

I have some more progress completed on this model. I went ahead and rendered it with some basic textures. More detail work to come, plus the rest the model, and then of course actual texturing and rigging.

New Robot Model

2011-02-02T01:16:00.002-06:00

I started playing around with a new model for a little short a friend and I are working on. Expect more images in the next few weeks.This is definitely in the alpha stages of development.

DNS Issues

2011-01-03T15:57:00.002-06:00

I'm having some DNS issues I'm trying really hard to resolve. Hopefully my website and blog template will be back online shortly. My web company decided to disappear and not honor my renewal payment.

Electroreception Graphic

2010-12-17T13:46:00.000-06:00

This graphic is intense. Especially considering it's for a video describing little pores on sharks...

Mural Sneak Peek...

2010-12-02T15:59:00.002-06:00

Here are some quick pictures from my phone of on my projects at work going up. Finished beauty shot will be coming up soon! The two guys working are from the printing company Meeks Litho. They do great work.

Bucking Horse in Watercolor

2010-11-10T21:36:00.002-06:00

This is is my first real watercolor piece. I'm trying to learn it. I've seen some really cool stuff done in watercolor.

Trio of Oz Progress and Rename

2010-09-18T17:24:00.004-05:00

My animation is moving along nicely now. I have 50 seconds of shots completed. If any of my readers have done any animation, they will know that that's some good progress. The way I decided to structure this animation was to have hand-built miniatures with CG characters animated on top of still images. This technique lets me crank out my shots pretty quickly.

In other news I'm going to rename my animation. I discovered that the Trio of Oz is a new jazz group. I was never really satisfied with the name. I started researching some new options for a name, which was really frustrating. There is a lot of Oz related media out there.

So finally the new name for this animation is "The Journey of Oz".

The Tin Woodman has found a new friend?

The Adventures of Mr. Rat - Episode 1 "Frack!"

2010-09-02T12:57:00.004-05:00

Animation: Greg Tatum Music: Jeremy Engleman

Trio of Oz Props

2010-08-26T17:59:00.001-05:00

I've been going through my storyboards and making all those little props that I drew for my little characters to use. Luckily these aren't taking too long to do and will only be featured for a few shots.

Rust Resistant Umbrella Axe

Specially Formulated Oil Can by H. M. Wogglebug

All-Purpose Drying Fan (Slightly Used)

Map of the Land of Ev

Tinman Render

2010-08-25T08:28:00.000-05:00

I always joke with my wife about having ADD when it comes to projects. Maybe I'll actually finish this Oz animation that I've been working on for probably 5 years now.

Machinists Geometry Illustration

2010-08-03T15:19:00.000-05:00

Cyclist Geometry Illustration

2010-07-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

More experiments with this style. I think I need to take it further now.

Football Angle Illustration

2010-07-13T14:44:00.001-05:00

Playing around with some visual ideas. Ink with digital coloring.

Life Drawing Open Studio

2010-07-08T22:20:00.001-05:00

I went to Philbrook's life drawing open studio this evening. It's really quite a nice set up, just $10 bucks per session which is every Thursday. It's kind of fun getting back into the art studio setting with lots of other people around drawing.

Anyway click past this jump (if you are on the main blog page) to see the drawings as there is obviously nudity.

20 minute sessions:

10, 5, and 1 minute sessions: (china marker)

Shark Animation Pencil Rough

2010-07-02T16:12:00.001-05:00

I finished a little animation of a shark for the kiosks I'm working on at work. He's pretty fun.

Gas Mask Ladies Inked

2010-07-01T22:27:00.002-05:00

I think I'll do watercolor on top of this drawing. I really need to get better at it. Plus if I mess it up I can always go back and digitally color it.

Drawing on a Lazy Saturday

2010-06-28T08:32:00.002-05:00

I drew these really lightly with a 2h so sorry for the mediocre photos. The wife fell asleep on a couch, then proceeded to wake up and read more Jane Eyre. Click the images for bigger (you can see them better that way).

Perspective Map

2010-06-25T01:44:00.000-05:00

Been working on a map as a favor for a friend's camp. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I had to reconstruct everything from blurry satellite photos and hazy recollections of where buildings were, plus a random collection of photos of the buildings and some verbal descriptions.

And here's the pen linework:

I did this on a pretty large piece of paper, with a light drawing in 2h pencil and then the lines in Micron pens. I then took a photo and digitally colored it and adjusted a few things.

Sketch of Women in Gas Masks

2010-06-24T16:13:00.000-05:00

Flash Multitouch and Fullscreen Bug

2010-06-14T13:26:00.001-05:00

I had an error while developing a multitouch app in ActionScript 3 in Flash that I figured I'd blog in case anyone needed to Google a fix. I'm not sure if it's a bug or an inconsistency but it took me nearly a full day to figure out a solution. If you initiate a multitouch input mode such as

Multitouch.inputMode = MultitouchInputMode.TOUCH_POINT;

once you go to full screen the multitouch will no longer work. The problem is that this command is somehow lost. If you just call it again it will not re-initialize it. The trick is to set it to another input mode and then reset it, like below after the call to fullscreen.

stage.displayState=StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN; //Set to fullscreen
Multitouch.inputMode = MultitouchInputMode.GESTURE; //Change input mode
Multitouch.inputMode = MultitouchInputMode.TOUCH_POINT; //Reset it to the original

The multitouch event listeners will fire correctly after that. I put this code in my event handler function. This happens anytime you switch in and out of fullscreen mode. I hope I explained that well enough, feel free to leave me a comment if you have a question.

I had this problem with Flash Player 10.1 and Flash CS4.

Ode to Eyvind Earle

2010-05-29T00:30:00.000-05:00

Pink Salmon Ocean Phase

2010-05-27T15:08:00.000-05:00

Brush pen lines to digital layout and coloring. This little guy is going in an aquarium kiosk. He's actually a vector.

A. Carnegie, Crazy Color Portrait

2010-05-16T21:46:00.001-05:00

One of my online friends uses crazy colors in his work and luscious line work. I'm copying him a bit with the loud colors. He says that he picks the craziest colors and then just makes them work. The lines were done with a brush pen. Again this seems a lot faster and more expressive than my normal microns.

Cheetah Rough, Inking and Watercolor

2010-05-16T15:42:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted anything in awhile. I've been doing a lot of programming lately instead of drawing. Code examples aren't really interesting to post. This is a 3" rough in my small sketchbook for something bigger I've been meaning to do. This is my first successful thing done with a brush pen. I'm also playing some with watercolors. I need to get a scanner for my house because the photos blow out some of the subtleties.

Some Loose Sketches of Footballers

2010-03-25T21:55:00.001-05:00

Old Time Baseball Catcher

2010-03-23T15:43:00.003-05:00

This is an old time baseball catcher done in graphite. I have a bunch of sketches I need to post. I've not been good about scanning plus I've been on vacation.

Journal Record on the Shark Exhibit

2010-03-05T12:18:00.003-06:00

The Journal Record had an article on the Phase 1 opening of the Shark Exhibit. They interviewed me for it and there are a few quotes from. I quoted part of the article below. Unfortunately the article is subscribers only online.

Oklahoma Aquarium refreshes its popular shark exhibit

Shimmering ripples flowed across the ceiling, the lights dimmed as if filtered through deep waters.

The snout of a giant prehistoric megalodon loomed at one corner, beneath hanging jaws that could swallow a man. Across the opposite wall swam a school of fish, backdrop to a fiberglass shark floating just above visitor heads.

That new entryway marks the Oklahoma Aquarium’s first phase in its two-part, $100,000 project to rejuvenate its shark exhibit, possibly the most popular destination at one of the state’s most successful attractions.

...

But through that time, the halls and rooms guiding visitors through the walk-through shark tank remained dark, the walls unused.

Marketing coordinator and graphic artist Greg Tatum has now transformed those corridors into deep-sea presentations, using blue plastic filters resembling ocean waves to turn the overhead lights into rays shining beneath the surface. One passage represents the open seas, while the other takes visitors beneath a drilling platform.

“I looked at this as a big playground, looking at what I could do and how I could have fun,” said Tatum, who studied contemporary sculpture at the University of Oklahoma. “This was like a dream come true for me.”

...

Phase two, which Bowers expects to complete over the next year, will add interactive exhibits, fossils and other displays.

The displays represent the aquarium’s first move to refresh the shark exhibit since its opening. Bowers and Tatum expect the changes to help drive repeat visitations.

Journal Record

Fiberglass Shark Models

2010-03-04T16:11:00.003-06:00

A package... for me?

8 of these guys inside all of them.

Lots of dremeling and sanding later...

After some bondo and expoxy work, the seams are covered and they have finished mouths and teeth.

Lots of airbrushing and sealing.

Time to hang them.

Shark frenzy. Notice the 2d printed sharks in the background as well.

Hunter in Graphite

2010-02-25T16:41:00.000-06:00

Woman Shooting Archery Drawing

2010-02-02T20:26:00.000-06:00

Graphite and digital coloring.

Cow Anatomy Drawing

2010-01-23T23:04:00.003-06:00

I figured I'd try to do an anatomy drawing with my own pose. It's hilarious sitting at subway drawing at lunch with anatomy pages strewn across the table drawing a cow without its skin on.

Ink on paper, then digitally colored.

My Entry for ADCT's Block Party

2010-01-18T10:17:00.001-06:00

Here's a snippet describing the Block Party from the Art Directors of Tulsa website...

ADCT has called on all local artists to participate in a unique design challenge that will help raise money for ADCT’s art-student fund.

Participating artists were given a block of wood, a four-by-four-inch cube, with which they can create an object of art. All finished pieces will then be displayed at ADCT’s “Block Party” where each creative block will be available for sale. Proceeds will go toward financial awards given by ADCT each year to qualifying art students.

The block will be in their show which is...

Thursday, January 28, 2010
7 pm to 10 pm
Ralph Cole Studio
615 East 4th Street
Tulsa, OK 74120-3017

WWI Soldier Inking

2010-01-12T17:14:00.001-06:00

I'm playing around with some more inking. I was trying to render the image with large blocks of dark color to see what would happen. Coloring is all digital, the lines are black ink on paper.

On a side note I also drew a shark from life. It's kind of hard drawing in a dark exhibit with light refracting all over the page.

Painting of an Axe in the Forest

2010-01-03T03:43:00.002-06:00

Watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on cold-pressed watercolor paper. I will post a "making of" animation soon, but it's too late tonight! I finally figured out how to get those bright whites and bright hues you can get in digital.

"Making of" update:

The first image in the sequence shows the watercolor and gouache underpainting. The watercolor is the sky portion of the image, then the rest is gouache. The trees in the distance that I add were done with watercolor, with some gouache additions as well. Later on in the piece I started adding some details in colored pencils.

The first image here shows the smaller thumbnails I drew to figure out how I wanted to arrange everything. Strangely I was pretty happy with the first one. I still forced myself to play with it a bit to see if I could come up with something better.

The second image shows my sketch paper I have taped to the back of my pad. I draw that first over my pad. Then I use graphite transfer paper to transfer the image to my pad. I can then freely paint over the page, and then accurately re-add the details. I'm still playing around with this process but it seems to be working fairly well so far.

Gouache Painting of Powerlines and Crows in Motion

2009-12-29T12:30:00.000-06:00

Another gouache painting with some ink on watercolor paper. I still feel like I have a lot to learn about gouache paints. I'm going to try something featuring more light effects in my next piece.

Gouache Painting of a Bald Eagle

2009-12-19T12:05:00.001-06:00

Another little gouache painting of an eagle. For some reason when I took a photo straight on I didn't like how it looked, so I took one like this.

Gouache Rhino Painting and Inking

2009-12-10T22:40:00.001-06:00

This is my first time to use gouache. I think I'm in love. I'd read online that inking on top of gouache wasn't a good idea, but I went ahead and did it. The pens would "gunk up" and not put ink down, but then I just used them on another piece of paper for a bit and they would start running again. I might have to experiment with it some.

I'm also using my new drafting table. I'm in love with it! It's a much more pleasant and ergonomic space to work on. I love the little draw that slides out that I can crap up with my stuff as if it were just desk space.

Aldabra Giant Tortoise Illustration

2009-12-01T22:45:00.002-06:00

This is my third inking. Micron pens on sketch paper, with digital coloring and layout. I'm really starting to like this process. I'm trying to see what all I can do with it.

Drafting Table

2009-11-29T13:01:00.000-06:00

Look at what I just bought!

Ink Drawing of a Tiger

2009-11-24T15:02:00.002-06:00

I did this sketch of a tiger from some reference that I took out at the zoo. This is my second inking to do. I'm starting to like the process. It takes me 2 lunches instead of one to do a drawing but it definitely has a level of polish to it that pencils just can't compete with.

Coloring is digital.

Cat & Rat

2009-11-20T13:45:00.001-06:00

This was my first real time to work with a pen. I'd done other smaller things and immediately felt in over my head. I think I might be able to work on this process and get it to work better for me. Definitely a study piece I want to do more pen now.

Sketch of a Rat

2009-11-09T16:47:00.002-06:00

I drew a rat at lunch. I've been playing around with a different technique involving spreading the graphite around with a tissue early in the drawing process, spreading the midtones. Then I added in darker values and picked out highlights with an eraser.

Rat Animation

2009-10-23T08:14:00.001-05:00

This is the first shot to an animation I'm playing around with. Photoshop for the backdrop, then flash for the animated rat, and then everything was composited in After Effects.

It's about 50 drawings of the rat for that little bit of animation. Quadped walk cycles are kind of interesting. Surprisingly the front and back feet aren't in phase so it adds a bit of complexity to setting everything up.

Shark Ramp Airbrushing Numero Dos

2009-10-22T08:32:00.001-05:00

This side shark ramp has been a blitzkrieg of work. I've airbrushed the ramp and had the murals installed in two days. I still have a little bit more blending and stencil work to accomplish today, but really this ramp has flown by. All hands have been on deck and we've been working like crazy. I'm stoked.

That's me airbrushing on the lift.

That's one big shark! The graphic is 16 feet long

I blocked off the graphic and then blended around it with the airbrush.

The megalodon is rather menacing!

Shark Exhibit Mural Artwork

2009-10-22T08:20:00.001-05:00

I also haven't posted the artwork of the other murals so I might as well do them right now.

This was a fun guy to make. I took a photo of a great white, and then painted over him with my computer tablet in Photoshop to change the proportions and details. I moved a lot of stuff around and added muscles here and there. It was nice to have a photo to directly sample from. I think it helped acheive a good level of realism, plus I worked on adding a lot of texture details to the smooth skin surface along with some scarring. I stole some details from the whale shark, the only really huge shark that's still left in the oceans. As a side note, these things fed on whales and were around 50 feet long!

This backdrop I had some trouble with originally. I had a photographer say that I could use his photo for the ramp and then he never got back with me. I then decided to just make my own of a bait ball with a shark going through it. Obviously it's not a thing I could just go grab a photo of. Painting that many fish would be a huge pain in the neck. So then I realized that making 3d computer generated fish would be the best route to go. I ended up modeling just one fish and then duplicating and adding variations.

This image shows the set up of the 3d scene. The green thing is the camera view, the magenta things are lights, and then the cyan and light yellow are the fish. The blue are the "bones" which you can use to move models (think of bending an arm, but then apply that to a school of fish). The yellow fish show one group of fish that I arranged. I tried to create that natural flow that a school of fish has. I was happy with the results and the final image.

The shark in the artwork is a photo from our shark tank with some color correction and painting over it.

Left Shark Ramp Soft Opening

2009-10-14T15:18:00.002-05:00

We had a soft opening for the left ramp on the shark exhibit. We just switched over to the other side to start painting and getting that side ready. I can't wait until we get the rest of the graphics and exhibit items installed in the ramps. This is exciting! Oh and also I've been working on finishing the fiberglass casts of sharks. I ordered unfinished cast blanks that I have to sand, fill in, and paint myself.

Oh a postcard... for me?!

Oh look a shark.

Time to sand down and finish that puppy. I'll post some more photos once I get to the painting phase.

Hugo Award Loser

2009-09-23T15:32:00.000-05:00

I entered in the Hugo Award logo design contest, and I never did post my losing designs, hah. Here is the one I went with, on a black background and then a white one.

Another Sibelius Portrait

2009-09-21T14:24:00.000-05:00

Another drawing of Jean Sibelius.

Jean Sibelius Portrait

2009-09-14T21:13:00.004-05:00

This is my first attempt at watercolors ever! It's a portrait of Jean Sibelius, the Finnish composer. I've been listening to his 6th & 7th symphonies all day long.

Watercolor, chalk, and graphite on gray paper.

Shooting Background Plates

2009-09-07T22:47:00.000-05:00

I just finished shooting half the background plates for the first scene of my animation. It took about 2 hours for 6 pages of storyboards at 9 drawings per page. Albeit some pages had crossed out drawings and a lot of frames use the same backgrounds. Still I'm excited.

Pictures of the process and my shooting setup to follow.

Shark Exhibit Airbrushing Progress

2009-08-28T16:45:00.004-05:00

Further progress on the shark ramps. I'm started to airbrush the walls in order to create a smooth gradient of color. I will add more details after this.

As can be seen here the walls are painted in bands of blue in order to provide good coverage when I airbrush. So far this process is working really well.

Meek Litho made it out again today and installed another backdrop, this time the entrance mural. Now I think this space says "exhibit" and "experience". It's weird how similar the photo looks to my original renderings (even though I did change the artwork on it).

Miniatures!

2009-08-20T16:41:00.004-05:00

I forgot to post these. I've been working on my Trio of Oz miniature set. I've actually made more progress than this, but I'll probably hold off posting any more until I finish. I'm hoping to be done by next week so I can start photographing it for real.

I've also been re-working the storyboards. I'm adding a few things and tightening up some shots. It seems like when I do that it just gets longer and longer.

Oil Rig Vinyls Going Up

2009-08-20T16:28:00.002-05:00

The oil rig vinyl backdrops started going up today! I love how transformative backdrops are. I can't wait until they are all up, the tunnel is painted, and it gets lit.

I also finished the last graphic bubble today. Progress!

Ancient Sharks

2009-08-07T13:36:00.003-05:00

Xenacanthus, a freshwater shark that had an eel-like body.

Stethacanthus. The dorsal fin and top of the head were full of teeth, essentially modified dermal dentacles, theorized for use in either mating or hitching ride on larger animals. Freaky either way.

Helicoprion or whorl-toothed shark. This freaky animal had a spiral of teeth jutting from its jaw that was probably used for slashing through schools of fishing, or specially suited to getting through the yummy protections of the nautilus.
I did a small series of ancient sharks for the shark exhibit that I thought I would share here. I had a lot of fun imagining these crazy looking animals. These are all graphite on normal paper.

The Finished Shrimp Boat Exhibit

2009-08-03T14:04:00.004-05:00

The shrimp boat exhibit at the aquarium is finally open. The little details of the exhibit have been dragging on for awhile now, but they have (most) all been sorted out. We were waiting on one of the most important details, actually getting shrimp in the exhibit. Luckily the shrimpies are swimming (crawling) around in their little boat.

The overview:

The shrimp are swimming around in their tank. Yes there is water in there!

Our first guests to the exhibit, being shown about by one of our biology staff.

I'm glad to get my work done on this one so I can really concentrate on the shark exhibit next.

Poor Tiktok

2009-07-22T22:36:00.000-05:00

Poor TikTok!

Was tweaking Smasher's rig and I decided to do a quick render. I'm really liking the way these rigs have turned out. Smasher's hands now stay put on the hammer, and I have 2 goals that I move around to adjust the hammer rig. The hands stay rotated and fixed on it, and the arms move separate. Woot! I still need to UV texture Smasher.

Trees for the Miniature

2009-07-13T22:38:00.005-05:00

I'm nearly done with all the models for my animation so I've started working on getting the miniature I'm animating on up to par. I decided that the clockworld was too bare and needed some nice little foliage to give it some depth.

Here are some trees that I'm working on for it.

Floral wire wrapped around in the shape of a tree.

Then I coated the wire with a bunch of latex caulk. I bought the squeezable bottles for easy application. It took about 1 bottle for 2 of these trees.

And then I painted them a brown barkish color. The lighting in this shot makes it look brighter than it is.

Here you can see some of my materials I'm working with.

And finally the finished product (at least so far).

The Wind-up Bird

2009-07-10T16:39:00.003-05:00

I got the rig done for my wind-up bird! Rather than another boring picture of a rig here's a new render of the model. I tweaked the texture too. I finally also figured out how to tweak the ambient occlusion shader the way I wanted to in Lightwave.

Shark Exhibit Update

2009-07-10T16:33:00.004-05:00

I'm nearly done with the first big vinyl for the shark exhibit. I put together a quick photoshoped mock-up of what it will look like. It will be nice to have some progress.

TikTok Re-Rigging

2009-07-06T11:03:00.002-05:00

I've successfully re-rigged TikTok. He's a lot easier to pose now. I'm so glad that Lightwave updated and rewrote its rigging system. This pose took no time at all to achieve. Some of the technical hurdles on TikTok involved the fact that his waist needs to stretch and move while the two halves of his body need to rotate independently as well.

I also had a big issue with the rig popping and jiggling when I was moving the extremities. I was able to fix that with a simple tick of the check next to "Ignore IK of Descendents". Apparently it was recalculating the IK of all of the extremities every time I moved just one hand or foot. Luckily that fixed it. Things really stay put once I move them there.

2009-07-03T18:56:00.002-05:00

I will crush you! I finally got this rig working. So far it works like a charm. I've been having a lot of troubles with Lightwave's rigging system. I've been playing around a lot with different methods for putting a system together. The problem is that there aren't any good tutorials out there on Lightwave rigging, and some of the much needed tools are fairly new in the latest 9.x updates.

I've got independent rotation set up for both the hips and the shoulders, what some of my earlier rigs were lacking. The hands stay put where I set them, as well as feet. I reduced the visible controls to just what I need. I can also move the entire rig, or just the body and not the external goals, or just individual parts as well as hips & shoulders independent of the attached extremities.

The only annoying thing is the two-handed hammer grip. I just have to pose one hand every time. Oh well, his motions in my storyboards don't look too hard to do anyway.

Now I just need to re-rig all of my other characters. Sigh...

Life Drawing Session

2009-06-25T21:21:00.003-05:00

Thumbnailed for drawn nudity.

Charcoal & Chalk on Gray Paper, 20 min.

Charcoal & Chalk on Gray Paper, 20 min.

China Marker on Newsprint

Figure from Imagination

2009-06-11T14:22:00.003-05:00

Another figure sketch from my imagination.

Figures From Imagination

2009-06-09T16:36:00.004-05:00

I'm going to start doing figures from my imagination. This one turned out pretty well I think. It's kind of a silly pose but hopefully I'll come up with some fun ones.

Andrew Loomis Figure Sketches

2009-06-09T16:33:00.002-05:00

Some more Andrew Loomis figure exercises.

Loomis Drawings

2009-05-20T17:44:00.002-05:00

More Loomis Head Sketches

2009-05-14T17:05:00.001-05:00

Shrimp Boat Backdrop

2009-05-13T15:02:00.006-05:00

They finished putting up the backdrop for the new exhibit. Talk about exciting! The colors look great and the quality of the print is perfect. The colors are spot on. It's kind of eerie how well the perspectives match up. I put the horizon line right at my eye level, which is kind of funny, but I figure I'm a pretty average height. It works really well on the walls and curved surface.

The left hand side. The cab of the boat is the next step.

John, the curator, is proud of his rock-work. He insisted on sitting on it. Notice how the backdrop
lines up with the physical boat.

And a quick shot of myself with the boat.

Shrimp Boat Backdrop is Coming Along

2009-05-12T16:59:00.002-05:00

They started installing the shrimp boat backdrop today. It's pretty exciting! So far all of my measurements are coming out correct and things are lining up! Pictures of the finished (knock on wood) coming tomorrow!

Walk Cycle

2009-05-10T12:20:00.002-05:00

Andrew Loomis Head Studies

2009-05-04T15:36:00.002-05:00

Lion Goes for the Kill

2009-04-20T16:42:00.001-05:00

Zero Hour Electric Bomb!

2009-04-20T13:09:00.004-05:00

This is a neat little tidbit that came across my desk. The curator of our fishing tackle museum here at the Aquarium came by the other day and asked if I could restore some logos for some new exhibit pieces she was putting up. The coolest one was the Zero Hour Bomb Company. Apparently they were involved in making bombs to ~~blow up old oil rigs~~ fracture oil wells to produce more oil. After awhile the market for their product slowed and they decided to make a logical jump to fishing tackle. It makes sense to me... right?

Well anyway the piece she is putting on display is a set of light bulbs for... fishing boats, maybe? Regardless of all of that the packaging was really cool and the logo was even cooler! You could make a cool story out of this logo I think.

Edit: Oh and apparently after doing some Googling the company incorporated and shrunk their name to Zebco. I had no idea...

The Trio of Oz Schedule

2009-04-19T14:38:00.004-05:00

I'm getting really excited. I'm getting close to finishing up all the characters for my first scene. I think I will be animating by this summer! I started up this project in 2006 crazy enough. I've not been actively working on it all of that time of course. It had fallen by the wayside but in January I really started spending a lot more time getting everything going on my animation.

I of course got married, and got a full-time job as a graphic designer between 2006 and now, so a lot has gone on.

After I finish up all of my characters for the first scene I'm going to work on completely producing one scene as a cohesive finished product. I'm hoping that way I will be able to work out any kinks in my workflow for the rest of the scenes.

Expect a better web presence here in the next few months for my animation. I'll get a bunch of real beauty renders going for all of my characters shortly.

Lion Sketches

2009-04-17T14:33:00.000-05:00

TikTok and Other Oz Friends

2009-04-14T15:03:00.004-05:00

Make sure and click the links to see the unsquished images. I didn't shrink these down before posting.

TikTok is nearly done. I'm finishing up on his texturing. I've just got to redo his mustache and finish up on some final detail work. I still need to do his backside more thoroughly too.

The wind-up smasher is also coming along. I'm nearly done modeling him. I have to finish his riveting, do his UVs and texturing, and then rig him so he can smash all sorts of fun stuff with his mighty hammer.

Horse Sketch

2009-04-09T14:12:00.003-05:00

Lion Sketch

2009-04-07T16:17:00.001-05:00

Oz Friends

2009-04-06T22:21:00.002-05:00

New Oz ~~friends~~ enemies coming soon!

Dog Anatomy Sketch #2

2009-04-04T12:05:00.002-05:00

Dog Anatomy Sketch

2009-04-01T22:22:00.001-05:00

Horse Sketches 2

2009-03-30T19:53:00.002-05:00

Horse Sketches

2009-03-29T21:08:00.002-05:00

Mouse Drawings

2009-03-28T17:12:00.002-05:00

Playing around with china markers and newsprint.

New Shark Exhibit Visualizations

2009-03-27T13:13:00.009-05:00

Let me first off say that we have an amazing walk-through tunnel and shark tank at the Aquarium as you can see from the photo above. However, when I first got the job here I thought to myself that the exhibit and space around it could really use some help. The sharks and tank itself are absolutely fabulous. The problems are the extremely dark tunnels and the complete lack of any type of signage. I tried tackling a little bit of that without any funding by installing some small graphic boxes.

I chatted quite a bit with some of the employees here at the facility about the tunnels, especially the curator. He had a lot of good ideas, especially with all of the exhibit work he's done in our facility and others. I looked up a lot of different information and really got some ideas going. I've also been reading a quite interesting book simply called "Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach" which has been extremely informative.

To make a long story short we have acquired a budget for this project and it has become a high priority. I'm amazed at how this project has become fast tracked. I spent the whole last week avoiding sales calls, and everything else in order to get these visualizations done. This will give the general idea of what I have planned for the space, and there is always room for things to change when we actually start building everything.

Here are some photos of the original space. And here are my renders of what the space will be transformed into:

We've already blocked off one of the tunnels. This is exciting, but it's going to be a lot of work.

The Airport Play Area

2009-03-14T09:27:00.004-05:00

I've finished my first big exhibit type of project for the Aquarium. I installed the airport play area earlier this week at the Tulsa International Airport.

We had a big media event and unveiling at the airport. It was really nice, and I believe all the major news stations came out for it. This thing has been in the works for quite awhile. I'm really glad to finish it all up. I actually got told about it my first day of work. Everyone who could work on it when I started was fairly busy so I ended up leading the project. I pretty much built everything myself with some help wiring and installing from one of my co-workers. I also got a little help painting from the Education Dept.

It was a lot of physical work to get this done, and a lot of worrying about particulars. I think it ended up really nice and it is definitely eye catching in the space. It's installed in the waiting area at Concourse B at the airport just outside of security. There is always a steady stream of people (and children) waiting around for their loved ones. I was amazed while I was working on it how many kids wanted to come over and start playing, even though it wasn't all put together yet. I had it all behind pipe and drapes while installing.

And finally here are two links to some media talking about the project.

The Tulsa World article which has a picture. (I will get a scan of the newspaper soon.)
An interview with me on the News On 6 in Tulsa.

TikTok is Rigged!

2009-03-08T03:40:00.003-05:00

TikTok is rigged! He took me a lot less time than Scarecrow did.