Project Review: Blade Trininty - 3D Motion Graphics for Home Entertainment

 Here is the final date card for the DVD release of Blade Trinity the third in the series.

 This is frame 007 of the move as we start over the top of the scene looking down at the blood and bullets on the table. This model was all built as a high resolution model[ pre-quads]

 This style frame board shows the sequence for the boomerang wipe. I rendered it against an atmospheric light to get the right gradient.

 Here is the quad view of the 3D model I built for that shot above.

 I also did a 3D animated mini comic book that came with the DVD with a volumetric light effect coming from the "Bow"used in the film

  

Project Review: Blade Trinity

3D Motion Graphics for Home Entertainment

Client: via The Cimarron Group.
Art Direction: Myself, and their whole 5 person team.
Project Date: January 2005.

I worked on over 100 motion graphics projects during my 6 year stay at The Cimarron Group, and I had an occasional Home Entertainment project to work on , and I was put onto the project for Blade Trinity, for them.

I was first tasked with building out the knife boomerang that blade uses to catch the Vampires and they wanted to use it to wipe between cuts in the piece so I built it out, rigged the basic rotating model, and animated it through the scene.

It ended up finishing out as well as the the 3D move on the date card. I originally had silver bullets and blood in the comp, but the MPAA nixed them both.

Finally I animated and rendered out a mini comic book that came with the DVD for a quick end card. Used the same 3D volumetric lighting to cast rays from the pages at the book opened and closed.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: Napkin Sketching Part XIV

A doodle of a tree stump home balancing in the forked branches

A mini castle on a cliff

MAD DUCK!

Angry boss character I'm begining to develop.

[ I've had plenty of reference for this, remember I work in Hollywood and they are do fond of YELLING!]

Napkin Sketching Part XIV

 

 In this fourteenth installment of the Napkin Sketches, Drawings, and Doodles I do when I have a pen in hand, I have put up a few characters and architectural elements I've been doodling.

I've been doing these little houses for a while, they represent tree houses and forts, little gnome villages etc. I sourced a tree house manufacturer up in the bay area who takes a tree stump and builds a playhouse on top so I was inspired to design this on a living trunk.

I also did this little Tim Burton-esque' castle. A bit of animation in proportions with the oval windows and simplicity.

I also revisit the duck, this round I made him a bit pissed off and angry.

I also have this little "Yelling Boss" character I am developing as well. that is a mini-sketch at about 1.5" tall.

You can view the other parts as follows:

PART I

PART II

PART III

PART IV

PART V

PART VI

PART VII

PART VIII

PART IX 

PART X

PART XI 

PART XII

PART XIII

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: Home Alone 4: Home Entertainment Key Art 3D Illustration 2003.

 Here is the only 3D logo I did for the project , it was a brass plate with mini screws in the design as this was mounted to a door for the comp design.

 Here is the 3D Illustration I did for a Night-Vision-Goggle setup that the main character uses, a re-use from S.W.A.T.

 

 Here is a 3/4 view showing the high rez mesh I built for the Night vision prop from Home Alone.

 A basic beige panel door, simple, but this is what was used. Sometimes 3D Illustration has no "glamor", but it is effective as a tool for these times over stock or custom photography on price and ease of use due the the Smart-3D nature of these assets.

 Here is the internal staircase I rebuild as a virtual set. It is not furnished due to most being covered with "big heads" as well as budget limitations on time.

 Here we see the finished DVD cover with that door I did.

Project Review

Home Alone 4

Home Entertainment Key Art 3D Illustration 2003.

Client:  ABC via BLT and Associates.
Direction: Matt Rice.
Project Date: April 2003

I did plenty of 3D Illustrations for the various teams in-house at BLT whwn I was running my one man show there, and I was put on the Home Alone 4 ,a direct to video project for Matt Rice in the Home Entertainment division back in 2003 almost a decade ago.

I did some simple 3D props, like the panel door you see above[ which is all that finished], as well as a highly complex prop of some night vision goggles that I modified and used for SWAT as well.

I also did the staircase interior and this was an early GI, Global Illumination project I did the first mothe I used the software[ so excuse the speclkeling artifacts  :o) ].

THe project did finish and I rendered it at 5000 pixels wide for the final[ typical size].

Cheers, THOM

photoshop lesson...

Project Review: Real-D Cinemas 3D Logo Design Exploration

 Here is a shot of what I delivers as a final, though in the end it was scrapped by the client.

 In this quad view you can see the fillet of the text as it extrudes out from the back-plate wit the rounded edge.

 An early design using neon red in the tag line, 'cinema', along with a dropped camera view of the model.

 A double key-line with red neon on both type sections.

 In this design I attempted to show them caustic reflections[ low rez at this point], but it was too 'busy' for them.

 This comp was the 'Dog-Tag' idea with a plate of sandwiched materials, that would be used in the MGFX where we moved around the design.

 Thin type for Real-D cinemas,  floating over the back-plate to emphasize 3D in real space.

 Here we see the above design with minor caustics on as well as a more centered camera view of the 3D asset.

Project Review

Real-D Cinemas 3D Logo Design Exploration

Client: Read-D Cinemas via The Cimarron Group.
Art Direction: Myself.
Project Date: Summer 2006.

With 3D Stereoscopic Movies on the rise, there are many players looking to become the VHS, in this current format war, so we assisted Read-D with some 3D Logo explorations back in 2006 while I was running my 'lil department for the company in-house.

The logo itself as far as the font choice, was locked, but in 3D I have a whole bunch of room to  get creaive with depth, bends, and extrusions. For Read-D I went with a basic metal, with a red glow as our accent color.

I did about 6 designs at a lower rez, and tried to sell them on caustic reflections[ I went low rez at first[ less samples as seen it the grain of the reflections], but they wanted a super clean logo. 

The final was rendered at 5K for IMAX applications.

Cheers, THOM

The Danny Hall 1940 Ford Coupe - another surviver

By Dick Page and Rik Hoving

This is how Danny Hall's 1940 Ford Coupe looked
when it was featured in Custom Cars July 1958

This 1940 Ford coupe was owned by Danny Hall of Tacoma, Washington when it was featured in the magazines. When Danny bought this 1940 Ford he had great plans with it… Full custom was the only way to go for him. So Danny contacted Schneider's Custom Shop in Tacoma to do the heavy work for him. The top on Danny's coupe was chopped 3 inches, with the windshield raked back at a very pleasing angle. The drip rails remained, but where shortened around the rear side windows. Unusual for a chopped 1940 Ford the rear window was chopped as well. The hood was welded and nosed, the trunk decked and the rest of the body trim was also removed. Electrical solenoids where installed to open the doors and trunk from the dash. Danny used a 1941 Lincoln front bumper bumper and an 1950 Chrysler bumper at the rear. The license plate surround comes from a 1953 Studebaker. A very nice Custom parts that is not used a lot. He installed the Studebaker taillights, and those are the best looking taillights for any 1940 Ford Custom.

The Studebaker license plate surround on the rear bumper

Wonderful flow of the top and this view also shows the
shortened drip rail

The interior in Danny's Coupe was done in red and white naugahyde in a very nice but unusual tuck & roll upholstery pattern. The body was painted in a really deep Titian red lacer. Danny installed some new smooth hubcaps, but a set with a nice revile in them to give the car just a bit more flash, but not to much. I think he made a perfect choice with those. The car already came with a set of spotlights, so they where put back on. Back in the 1940's and 1950's you needed to have a set of Appleton S-112 or S-552, but those seamed to be less popular in the later part of the 1950's. A lot of the cars started to use Dummy spots from Cal Custom or other aftermarket companies. But Danny wanted to use the real ones, perhaps they where Appleton's, but not the famous Custom Series, these where a bit smaller. Still they look very good on the car. Danny was a member of the Tacoma Toppers Car Club.

Danny Hall's 40 Ford coupe was a big deal to Dick page as well. Danny worked in the neighborhood where Dick Page lived, just a very short walk from his house and he always loved looking at it up close.  When he heard that it was for sale in a body shop in Bremerton around 1970 he went to see it and was shocked to see it radically changed and sitting outside in primer. After that the car was painted lime green with gold trim.

I only found this small scan of the car
around 1970.

Later Bob McCutchen owned the car. For the last sixteen years it has been owned by John Dixon of Olympia Washington who loved the car when he first saw it in its present form and has no plans to change it. So the car is still around today… it sure does not look anything like it did in its glory days in the 1950's. But the new owner feels otherwise.

This photo of the former Danny Hall 1940 Ford and now owned
by JohnDixon was taken in the summer of 2011 by Dick Page.
It pretty much looks the same as it did in the 1970's
But far from how it looked when owned by Danny Hall.

Dick page helped the John Dixon identify his chopped 1940 Ford coupe as the Danny Hall 1940 Ford, showing him some hidden signs that nobody knew about. But Dick was able to find them. Positive ID.
Could this 1940 Ford be brought back to how it was in the photos shown above. Yes I think it could. It would need four new fenders, possibly a replacement hood and most likely a new old chassis. But the rest is all there, and most of all the great chop performed by Scheider's shop is still perfect today. I sure hope in the near future we could see this old custom get restored again.

Project Review: Early work out of Art Center: TV Production Design and Fabrication Wild Wallz -Alex Hajdu

 Here is the one page sketch that started the process.

Project Review

Early work out of Art Center

TV Production Design and Fabrication Wild Wallz -Alex Hajdu

Client Alex Hajdu @ Wild Wallz Productions.
Art Direction: Alex Hajdu.
Project Date: Spring 1992.

This posting reflects a very early design sketch that I did in my career. This was one of my first jobs out of Art Center, I had bumped into Brandon Smith in the Project Room at A.C.C.D. looking for a modeler to work on a van for Terminator 2 , but I had 2 weeks until I graduated so I had to pass, but I kept the number around, and it paid off with a few jobs.

I called and connected up on a few small projects for Alex Hajdu a Production Designer at the time who owned Wild Wallz in Burbank CA, so I came in on occasions to design and build items for him.

Above is a mechanical prop with spinning dials, that was to be used in a "soap" commercial of some sort, I do not even remember the name. I do remember building the prop in yellow foam and finishing like an automotive model from ACCD, and working with a great Mechanical FX guy for the inner workings.

I used yellow foam for the body, sealed in Pres-Tech catalyzing primer, a vacuum formed top, with PVC, aluminum, and wood internal parts[ hand built by me]. We did a lot of 14 hr days to design and build this functioning "Hero Prop" for a TV spot, FUN!


Cheers, THOM