I came up with the idea of this necklace a while ago as an anniversary present for my girlfriend, (around April) and it has taken until now to read up on how to make it and to ACTUALLY make it. The original concept was a necklace pendant that looked like a fish in a bag, but that proved to be almost impossible to make right. I got a little discouraged halfway through when the bag idea didn’t work, but I redesigned it and kept on rolling along. I’m extremely happy with the final result!

If you’d like to make your own, you can check out how I made it here on Instructables!

Once again if you want to see the how it was made pictures, or how to make your own… Go here!

I returned to the awesome two week work shop at UTA (University of Texas Arlington) that focuses on a new type of digital art for high school students every year. This summer we had the task of coming up with a concept for a 3D world and then creating it. Our group came up with the idea of the Planet Effluvium by an impressive feat of intellectual craftsmanship that can be found halfway down the page in this article on the UTA Newspaper website. I did a lot of the work on this project mostly because nobody else in my group, or really the workshop had used 3D software before. We each made our own robot, and they modeled the buildings for the planet. I modeled the planet as well as a bird and cockroach models to supplement our world. I’m not explaining the back story because it doesn’t make any sense. Just look at the pictures!

Two versions.

What started as a project in film class has now turned into what my friend (Cameron Casey) and I are now calling “Runner Productions.” I’ve made the logo for our “company,” and I plan to animate it soon and post it. We are now in the planning process for our short films, which should be made and released during or right after the summer.

Speaking of short films, here is what started it all:

It has no plot. No planning. About five hours of effort put into it. Enjoy!

Unfinished, untextured model

Well, I was sitting in Spanish class when it hit me. I drew a phongraph. It was destiny. My drawing wasn’t so hot, so… I figured I had new inspiration for something to 3D model. It seemed to be not too hard, but certainly challenging. This particular 3D model is different from the rest, because of the amount of detail I put into it, and I started over multiple times rather than taking the easy way out. I also plan to UV map this sucker, which is a tedious but usually necessary process if you want to texture something with complex or photographic textures. I ACTUALLY plan on finishing this one, unlike the T-Rex I never got around to texturing.

I’ve stuck together a short little progress picture as well. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I didn’t keep any of the screw up models.

This is the first of what is most likely going to be a series of covers that I do for my school’s magazine, the Parish PEN. I used mostly vector shapes extruded out into 3D. I used Cinema 4D, Illustrator and Photoshop for an overall nice looking 3D, cover-worthy composition! I retraced their “The PEN” logo for a cleaner, non-pixellated look. I have already been contacted to make their next cover, and I will be posting it as soon as it comes out!

Some “making of” snapshots:

This is the beginning of well made website banners (No future ones are planned), but in the past all of them have been drawn in Photoshop, and they just didn’t look quite as good as they could have.

But today is a new day! I had one of those drawn banners up, and it did look nice, but I decided to learn how to use Illustrator and the improvements are stunning. I made the background in Photoshop, recycling most of yesterday’s background except for the flower. I replaced the flower with a real sunburst! It looks loads better.

For those that don’t know: Adobe Illustrator is a vector drawing program. The drawings you make are infinitely scalable; they can be resized as large as you like.

I started what is now the final version of this composition right as soon as Christmas break begun and worked on it for a good week or two before slowing down, and I then left it around for a little while. Actually, I left it around until yesterday; when I decided to promptly finish it. If you look at all of the items in this scene, you may notice that they span across three or so decades. This was pretty much intentional, so no need to worry yourself about that.

I haven’t been posting all to much recently, but I will post things that seem relevant and interesting! I have included progress pictures, as well as a 3D scene that I started a couple of months ago, which I scrapped.

Tyrannosaurus Rex!

Turntable animation:

Tron Lightbike

**EDIT** I was way too excited about Tron when I wrote this bottom half. So I took it out. All you need to know is that is a light cycle from Tron Legacy on the pumpkin!

Tron Preview