Vitus and Sloth Characters

Here are a few new things I’ve been working on. First up, is a geometric character named Vitus. He was created by my colleague Nate Pratt. This will soon be painted, and he will also be my next 3D model. Additionally, I plan on sculpting 5 heads in different expressions.

Next up is a sloth character I am working on for the rigging department at Full Sail. I did a quick sculpt to help me with the model. I will finish up the sculpture soon in a more interesting pose.

Lastly, is a nice photo of the forest emperor as well as a shot of the armature model inside of Maya. I will be soon sending some screen shots to the welding company to have it built at 6 feet. I can’t wait!

Current Projects

I took a week and a half off after SIGGRAPH to get some sculpting done (and some relaxing too!) Some of you may remember the design I did for the Forest Emperor dragon a while back. I finished up the maquette for him this past week. He is going to be reference for a 6′ sculpture that I am doing. Next up is a sculpture of Appa from Avatar, the Last Airbender. He is still in very early stages, and will eventually be in a sitting pose. Lastly is a tattoo design idea I did for myself. The final design ended up looking pretty different (in a good way!) but I still like the image as a design.

I will be back to modeling next week, but I will still be sculpting as well.

Alpha Forest

In between sculpting sessions, I like to get my research and asset collection done for whatever project I am working on. That way, I still feel like I am working towards the completion of my project but I also give my brain a break from the project at hand.

In zBrush, I like to use a combination of hand sculpting as well as alpha sculpting from photos. Here is a layout of all the alphas I put together for tree dragon. I probably won’t use all of them, but it’s nice to have a library to choose from. I will probably also use these on some other project one day.

For anyone that is unfamiliar, an alpha (in this case) is basically a texture brush. Wherever the white on the photo is, the higher the texture will be off the the face of the model.

The Forest Emperor

This is the concept for a 5-6 foot sculpture I am planning. More to come!

Last Week!

I can’t believe that Comic Con is next week already! My husband and I are finishing up the Wolverine casts this week. He’s been doing the casting and power sanding, and I’ve been doing sanding by hand, patching, and painting. I always forget how much work casting is.

Here is a photo of the mess that is our kitchen table. The casts are so strange looking…like hardened mucus! I usually use a plastic that cures opaque white!

SDCC Home Stretch

Just over two weeks left before I head out to San Diego. I’ve been getting all my work done on schedule, and I should be good to go with a little time to spare before I get on a plane on the 22nd (at 6:30am, much to my dismay!)

The Wolverine casts are coming along nicely! Unfortunately, the metal powder wasn’t working out and I don’t have the time/money to experiment with it right now. My husband has been casting these for me since I am super allergic to the casting resins when they are in liquid form. So that makes it even harder to experiment when I am shouting instructions from the other side of the house! Anyways, we went with plain resin and I’ve been painting them up to look like pewter. It is working out well. I’ll have some photos of the Wolverine army later on, haha. I have some photos of the unpainted casts too, they look so weird.

I printed out some test samples of the box packaging I did for these and that looks nice too. I should have a nice little package to give out when it’s all done! Today I finished up the last of my portfolios. I did 50 total, 5 of which I gave out to a few people already. The other 45 are coming with me to SDCC.

Yokaiden Madnessss!

Dimensions : 6.5″w x 11″h x 8.5″d

I have been working non-stop getting ready for comic-con. It’s just a few weeks away now. I head out on the 22nd. I just finished up the Yokaiden sculpture. Man, it was a lot of work! But I am happy with the result. This was SO far out of my style, and I really loved the challenge. Check out the original illustration that I based this sculpture on. Some things were tweaked, but I largely followed the drawing bit for bit.

For those of you that don’t know, Yokaiden is an awesome manga by buddy Nina Matsumoto. Pick up a copy today. You won’t be disappointed. Nina was very helpful and accommodating during the creation of this sculpture so many thanks to her!

If you are going to be attending Comic Con on Saturday, be sure to drop by the RandomHouse/Del Ray booth (1128) to get your copy of Yokaiden signed by Nina. You can also check out my sculpture in person at that same table. The signing will be from 3-3:30pm.

Also, I will be toting some postcards promoting this sculpture as well as Nina’s manga. Vistaprint.com is great for last second, small run postcards. Just ordered them up today on priority shipping.

Had a few snags with the Wolverine casts, but my husband and I are back to work on the tonight. Gonna go do that now!

I Love Molds. But Not Really….

I got to work on my Wolverine mold last night. I used Smooth-On Oomoo30, and ended up using the whole container! Here are some progress photos of how I made the mold.

I make my mold boxes using 1/4″ foam core. I start by measuring out each side of the box, leaving a little space on each side of the sculpture. You don’t want the edges of the box to be too close to the edges of the sculpture or else you will get weak spots in your mold from where the rubber is too thin. I cut the pieces out using a metal straight edge and a box cutter, and tape them together with masking tape. You have to make sure you seal the inside and outside edges with tape so that the rubber doesn’t leak. I actually ran out of masking tape when I was making this so I used a little scotch tape too which ended up working just fine! I then used Super Glue to fix Wolverine in place at the bottom of the mold box. I spray the inside of the mold with Universal Mold Release so it the rubber won’t stick to the figure.

Then the fun starts! The rubber gets mixed 50/50. I use the small cups to measure out each part and then mix them together in a larger cup. Once they are blended, I pour them into another cup to do the final mixing. Then, I pour the rubber into the box. MAGIC! It’s a tiring process. You have to make sure the rubber is mixed very well, and you don’t want to mix too much at one time. So I mixed three batches of rubber for this particular mold….and my neck was screaming at me after wards. FUN!

This morning, the rubber seemed to have cured well. I won’t know for sure until I fully demold, but I am confident that it turned out ok. Here’s hoping the casting goes smoothly!

I also have a photo of all the pages of my 8×10 portfolio. The paper instructions said to let it dry for a week (!!) after printing before putting it in an album. That paper is expensive so I am not taking any chances! I should be able to put them away this weekend!

My kitchen looked like easter after all that colorful rubber going everywhere!!!

Wolverine’s House!

I’ve been trying to come up with a good design for the box that will house my Wolverine mini-busts which I will be giving out at comic con. I am trying to keep with the same theme (colors/fonts/etc.) as the rest of my promo material. I will be using these boxes and will be printing out the labels on 17″ long paper to wrap around the box. Probably will use spray adhesive to get them to stick, I love that stuff.

This is just a mock up as I don’t have the figure cast yet, so I am working with my progress photos. I am still tweaking it, and any suggestions would be much appreciated! Any type of package design is always a struggle for me.

This Has Been a Productive Week!

I finished up Wolverine tonight. He is about 4 inches tall and done in Sculpey Firm. I will be giving out casts at Comic*Con next month. I am going to design boxes for them this month.

I am casting him in resin with nickel powder for a pewter look. I will be using Smooth-On products to cast, used them for years. Here is what the process looks like. And don’t worry, I will do my own step by step photos for this project! My husband will be taking on a lot of the work because I am horribly allergic to casting resins when they are in liquid form. I break out in hives for a month with the tiniest exposure, even fully covered. EW!

I have been working on portfolio stuff the last couple of days. I am printing out a few pages for my large portfolio tonight. I have a good prototype done for my small hand-out portfolios, now I am just waiting on paper samples. I went through 2 types of paper all ready with no luck. I am ordering some top quality stuff from Inkpress.com so hopefully one of those will work out for me.

I worked a little on my website design tonight too. My husband is nearly done coding my new site, yay! Nothing TOO big changing…a few small design elements and a more organized/simplified gallery. I am linking my news updates to my Twitter as well. I feel so modern!