Contractopia

Check out our latest spot at Buck....Contractopia.
This was a really fun piece that we did about four weeks.

George Fuentes

As you can see George Fuentes is pretty awesome. I just met him the other day and got to watch him paint. He's fast! Check out his site here!

vcdave and okdork

Two blogs I've recently found very interesting: vcdave and okdork are two websites dedicated to ecommerce. I particularly found this jackpot tool really cool.

Also while on this tangent check out this traffic estimate site.

My Friend Scruggs Is Famous

Patrick Scruggs is viewed on motionographer again. He's awesome and deserves the recognition. Check out his work here.

Chris Lee's New Toy & Event

Check out the release of Chris Lee's new toy!

New Friend Ken

Ken and I became friends though intense conversations about television shows. He has some awesome work here. Also check out his mad remixing skills.

terrible

i am a terrible blogger. this whole business makes me feel bad because I usually only blog when I acomplish something and lately there haven't been many blogs at all which I suppose means I haven't been acomplishing much. I actually have been acomplishing a lot just haven't found my blogging groove. Happy May, may it be a good one.

We are interviewed by MyMentalRay

Check us out.
My Mental Ray is a community site for mental ray users run by a great 3D artist Julian Sarmiento. Julian was gracious enough to give us an interview!
Check out his site here.

Yay for us!

We are in Stash 31. Check it!

April no fool me day.

It's April 1st. and I haven't been fooled ha HA. Man this LA weather is nice. Today we walked to the tar pits...that joint is hurt up! then to the farmers market where I have a mint chocolate chip ice cream. I need to treat myself to icecream more often. I also watched the movie Rize, by David LaChapelle, that was great. If I had to choose between krumping and clowning I think I'd be a Krumper. Only because I can't deal with facial paint.
Anyway, happy April, spring is abound for those of you who aren't in sunny California...hang in there.

Flickr Tag Search Thingie

Check it!

HDR Photography

Tokyo Nightscape
Originally uploaded by /\ltus.

HDR Photography this technique is awesome. I would love to learn how this is done. Check out more of this guys work.

Buck Spring Reel

Buck's new spring reel...really goes.

Tower of Grantville takes top 3

Tower of Grantville takes top 3 at adcritic.

Tower of Grantville Stills

Here are some stills from the tower of Grantville created at Buck. Please view the quicktime here.

three months in

Ok, it's now March...already into the third month of this year. My life is busy and great, I've been working on a lot of projects and the quality of work on all fronts is continuously improving. I'm getting married in almost five months, this is amazing. Time is just blowing by with tremendous speed. All is well I will post some still of our latest piece soon.

Interview: Buck

Check out the interview I helped with with between MYMR and Buck here.

Tower of Grantville Completed

Today marks the day that Tower of Grantville has completed. It's defiantly the most creative project that I've worked on and I'm really glad to have been a part of it. The animation will premiere on big screens before movies so keep a look out for a tattered bunny rabbit, a man with a cardboard head, and screaming furry animals you won't be disappointed.

February

Already this far into February, wow.
Our first week of production has finished with Clique Online, it looks as though the graphics are coming along and they are working on the chat mechanics of the game. We seem to be narrowing down a "look" for the characters, it's exciting to see the thing come into existance. Other things to note, I'm watch the first season of Battle Star Galactica on my Ipod while on the bus to and from work, I must look a bit crazy not taking my eyes off the screen for the entire ride...though I'm beginning to realize crazy is nothing new to the LA metro system.
Both Lazytown and It's a Big Big world were nominated for Emmy's feels good to be a small part of that, cross your fingers for a win.

Normality & Reality

"Normality and Reality are a set of powerful plug-ins that allow CG Artists to light their 3D objects and scenes directly within the familiar Adobe After Effects environment.

The software is production proven and has been used on several high-end projects, including the Paraworld and Frontlines..."

Buck:Comcast: Mech

Here's a piece that I helped with the lighting/shading/comping. Mental Ray's car paint shader, and L_glass are the special shaders here.
Everything was broken out into separate passes at render time. Turned out pretty nice.

adventures in january

if adventures could happen digitally my life this year would be a wild ride.
so pretty much after returning from Christmas break I have been working non-stop, thus the lack of posts. Right now it's day 17 in a row. I'm actually feeling pretty good because we are working on a really challenging piece that is going to turn heads, probably one of the strangest yet one of the most exciting projects I've been on to date, I'll actually be sad to see it finish because I've grown to really like the characters.
Also happening in tandem (after work hours) is the production of our game Clique which is beginning full production Feb. 5th. We've got some great programmers involved at a company called Metaversal Studios in Boston. We are so excited to see our 8+months of dreaming and brainstorming become a reality. I have a lot of faith in the project and I think that a lot of people who see our prototype in a few months will also.
Other than that I haven't really seen any spots online that have knocked my socks off. There is a lot of good stuff out there but my mind is so saturated with media I have a hard time appreciating anything anymore. Hopefully Buck's latest release will swim to the surface and spark some inspiration into the field.

CG Art

I recently found a new cg resource, CG Art. The scrolling windows are kind of annoying but I've found some nice things here that I haven't seen elsewhere.

The Beast is Back

I recently met the talented illustrator/designer extraordinaire Chris Lee, if you haven't already seen his work check it out here. He has also done a great tutorial about adding dimension to your characters.

Public Transportation Patterns

Bakerloo Line train. London Underground
Originally uploaded by ludd.

Textures on flickr. They look unique! Nice patterns from different public transportation systems. View Ludwig's Flickr Set here! I found another public contriubtion flickr set here that also has patterns of this nature.

and we're back

Christmas vacation was a blast. We're back in LA, ready to take 2007 by the horns. Lots of big things happening this year!

Lazytown Post Production Crew

DSC_0128
Originally uploaded by wa_bash.

I've been browsing through old photos and found one. This was the orignal post-production crew of Lazytown Season 1. I find this very nostalgic, we are sitting/standing on the set of Sporticus' Airship.

Holidays

Oh the holidays are always a busy time and my blog has surely suffered from it. I'm still working at Buck looking forward to a nice Christmas Vacation in Colorado. Last weekend I was in New York with Lauire, we hit the streets and I got to see the madness downtown first hand...a really great time to be in the city!
Hope you all have a great Holiday!!! Much more blogging to come in 2007!

A great music video site found via motionographer.

donkey cake...works of art

Creativity never stops with Jeremy....even when the server goes down.

postrebel update

Nothing too flashy but a bit of a layout/navigation change. I'll be working on the reel and links to high-rez renders of renders, updating the models section, the photo section and the experimental section....but not now, for that matter not soon.

UNIKFREK

It is with my greatest pleasure to post content created by inspiring friends very dear to me. Expect to see more work from unikfrek, and check out her blog.....now.

antiquated textures

Check out this site. Some really nice 'old' world wall paper textures.

Buck: Budwieser: Pitch

My love for glass began with L_glass.

My Mental Ray

A resource that is going to be great. My Mental Ray is a site dedicated to Mental Ray enthusiasts. The site includes links to custom shaders, tutorials, forums, and a gallery. My favorite custom mental ray shader by the way is Lobber's Glass!

mk12

I know all of the usual sites posted on Mk12's recent reveal of their new trailer and site update. I'm not really worried about that. I just wanted to say keep your eyes on this company, I think they deserve a lot of viewer support....for good reason.

The Mill and SkyTV

I know this came out a while ago, I watched this piece again today and couldn't help but posting on it.

Buck & TV Land

Buck finished 3 spots for TVLand. I especially like the afro - to - icecream cone transition!

Marc Brunet

I was browsing CG portfolio's and Marc Brunet has some impressive digital paintings.

Petra Stefankova

I thought this artwork looked really cool, kind of like a modern take on Picasso. Perta Stefankova seems to really have control over lighting and texturing in 3d.

Project Squirrel

I'm currently working to create a photo-realistic squirrel. I'm tracking the progress from the beginning to end on my forum. I'm hoping to achieve realistic anatomy, hair and lighting as my primary goals.

As you can see my experience with hair is limited! Though with inexperience sometimes you can create radical squirrel haircuts! I'm using a plugin called shave and haircut, which...as I've read was used for kong's hair.

Cingular ads find their way to Motionographer

It's exciting to see that Buck's two new spots for Cingular made their way to Motionographer. Check out the spots if you haven't already seen them. Two 30 second spots in 4 weeks...not too bad! Go Buck. Go BBDO.

Creepy Stalker

Check out the freaky phone message my girlfriend got a while back from a guy she met once! You'll never think about a "protein shake" the same way again.

Still kickin

I've put up a new banner for my little forum, I found a design a few months ago and really like the colors and shapes and made my own version of it. Oh I've also been building my flickr page, check it out!

Jeremy's Reel

Donkey Cake is Jeremy's reel, (animation director at Buck). Some fun and funky stuff. Jeremy is on of the most talented and fun persons I've worked with.

colors/textures

I was recently introduced to a few helpful sites. One being Mayang Textures and the other being Getty Images. Thanks Thomas and Shannon.

Espaun...not stoppin'

Working at Buck I've been able to meet a few great designers. One of which is 21 year old Tomas Pena. Tomas comes from Spain, he is incredibly talented both creatively and technically, check out his work. He has also introduced me to another Spanish designer which you can see here.

Buck

Today I started working at Buck!!!

So long RTT thanks for all the photo-realistic memories

Tomorrow marks my last day working at RTT. It has been an absolute pleasure meeting and working with everyone in the LA office. In case some of your out there didn't know....RTT is one of the leading forces on the planet in photo-realistic renderings. Their technical wizardry combined with an overall genuine kindness makes for a great place to grow as an artist, work on high-end projects and meet an international crew.

Thank you! I will be in touch.

Labor Day in NY

Friday I got a chance to visit The Mill in Manhattan! This place takes their interior design really seriously! I think it's really cool to see high-end computers combined with high-end interior design. With their continued success it seems like spending a little extra cash on mod red couches and chrome orb lighting fixtures, (and panoramic views of the city) isn't a problem. Along with the high-end look of the place, the dress code seemed to follow suite, this new computer-nerd/fashionista look is pretty cool. Oh yah, and just being being in a place that is considered number 1 in the world in vfx/design is pretty inspiring.

After the city it was out to the beach and that...is the rest of the story.

postrebel - forum

This month's new banner for the postrebel forum!

Method Studios

If you haven't heard of Method Studios you've at least seen one if not twenty to thirty of their high profile commercials. Located in Santa Monica the heart of Los Angles' VFX houses, Method Stuios employees an eclectic group of people from around the world working with high-end hardware and software. Their work is just plain cool and sometimes very humerous projects. Yesterday I was lucky enough too meet Tonie and Laurent who are both extremly nice and interesting people, similar to the work Method creates.

The Evolution of Machinima

After reading blogs concerning the release of Coke's latest ad created by Nexus studios in the UK, I wanted to talk about Machinima and it's future impact on the media. Made popular by gamers controling characters in Halo and clipping together scenes to make mini movies and eventually a series Red vs Blue the word Machinima beacame more and more familar with the gamer/filmmaker community.
With the creation of such televison shows Disney's Book of Pooh, Nickelodeon's Lazytown and PBSKids' It's A Big Big World. We can see that Machinima is not just a low-tech form for of creating contect with real-time virtual set engines.
New gaming engines such as the offset engine for the PC are uping the resolution and realtime features such as (realtime depth of field, realtime soft shadows, realtime particles casting shadows, realtime global illumination...the list goes on). All of these features are currently being used as 3d animation studios creating high-end films. With the adavancement of realtime technologies we are going to see and increase in quality and thus production value in machinima. With the merging of media's the next-gen realtime virtual set television shows are going to increase in popularity, their visuals are going to greatly improve, and the cost large 3d post production teams could start disappearing.

Flash animation extravaganza

If you have ever attempted animating in flash, or at least working in it. You might like this video.

The Getty Center

Best view of Los Angeles you can get, at least if your not a Hollywood Hill homeowner. Parking was chaos but once acomplished a very nice walk up the hill to the center was perfect for a Sunday afternoon. Skimmed the art collection, getting a bit lost in each exhibit. The architecture is massive and beautiful. Noticed that outside a demographic ranging in age from 3 years old to 70 years old were having an equal amount of a good time. This says a lot for how the place is designed and what it has to offer to everyone.
I am really out of the loop when it comes to fine art, which doesn't mean I don't appreciate it...but I found the view of Los Angeles from the center equally engaging.

Harold Belker

Tonight we went down to Culver City to the MODAA to see Harold Belker. Harold is a concept artist from Germany with work in fields ranging from furniture design, automotive concepts to concept creation for feature films. Harold does all of his designs in 2D (pencil/pen, or photoshop) and his finished sketches turn out looking like renderings from a 3D rendering engine.

I went up to Harold and introduced myself, and rambled something that you might expect along the lines of inspiration, and adoration...never-the-less it was good to meet him.
It was cool to see his designs like furniture, bike designs, matchbox cars, set up with his renderings. I always have a hard time looking at digital large prints because the pixelation and color saturation never does the product created on the computer justice. I think mediums like digital art need to be shown on calibrated LCD monitors to really show the colors and details that the artist originally intended. Relying on ink, and a printer can be scary.

I look forward to seeing more creations from Harold Belker, maybe someday I can convice him to let me take one of his sketches and create some 3D renderings for him.

TMNT

Looks like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going to be made into a feature animation. This was bar-none one of my favorite cartoons growing up. I had nearly every single action figure. My friends used to meet up with our ninja turtles and we would spend hours...more like days fighting evil doers like Shredder and his foot soilders.
Looks like Warner Brothers is producing this flick along side the Weinstein Company. An animation house called Amagi in Hong Kong is doing the CG work for it. I saw the trailer and the 3D work looked rather 2D, perhaps holding to a 2D/3D hybrid look that we see in some recent Japanamai hits. Though it does indeed look like the characters are CG while the backdrops look matte painted. (As opposed to 2D characters and 3D backdrops). I think 2D matte paintings in the background is a good way to go, especially with a story that takes place in New York. Better to paint in the details of the geometry rather than model the entire city.
I think it is also good that a foreign animation house is creating the work for an American produced feature animation. Final Fantasy, created by square pictures (a japaneese owned company) hit the American market and did not do very well at all...though it did show ground breaking realism and what is truely possible it the feild of animated features. I'd like to see Eastern companies like Amagi show the CG the western culture something new as well. I see all of these great American features coming out, technically they look great....but still look the same no?

1st Ave Machine

1st Ave Machine is a company in New York that comes up with photo-unreal organic creations. I love the work that they do because much of the 3D community today is focusing a lot of energy towards photo-realism. These guys look like that have that figured out and are taking their work to the next level. Click on the image above to view their website.

Birddy Nam Nam & Jackson and his computer Band

Two other electronic bands that were introduced to me by my good friend Api. Like the Four Tet they are European, Birdy Nam Nam being French. Fun and enjoyable to listen to, some tracks would be ideal for a funky demo reel. These bands also seem to have a nice sense of design from their websites. Click the images above to view their websites.

four tet

I happened to be thinking about The Four Tet. This is a solo electronic trubador who is really amazing to see live. He also has a cool design sense. He has a few of his tracks on his myspace account.....myspace, gag. I'm getting really sick of it. Anyway give a listen here.
The website is here.

takagimasakatsu

I was browsing one of my favorite sites Motionographer and i followed a link to takagimasakatsu. Some really amazing experimental motion graphics! Stan Brackage eat your heart out.

postREBEL

monument valley

I thought I might open a flickr account and to start by showing one of my favorite panoramas. Laurie snapped off these shots on our way to California and I stitched them together in phothsop.
The gateway to the west.

scope boy

new design in progress

I have created a new design for my blog, it mostly consists of stealing source code from other blogs I fancy, so I can't take credit for the layout. A few of my blogs were lost in the transfer, I started deleting things that shouldn't have been deleted. My blog about annoying helicopters was lost and perhaps a few others that weren't too interesting. With the onset of a better design I'm going to try to follow suite with better topics directed towards motion graphics, design, 3d animation and film!!

Still in Progress....getting Closer though!

testing testing

does this work?

Carmel By-The-Sea

I'm currently reading East of Eden, an epic novel by John Steinbeck. The majoirty of the novel takes place in Northern California's Salinas Valley. This weekend we took a road trip up Highway 1 to San Louis Obispo through Big Sir into Carmel a beautiful drive a bit foggy but a wonderful place to set eyes on for the first time. Stayed in a nice bed-n-breakfast visited the famous pebble beach golf course, went to see Nacho Libre. Anyways on the way back we got a chance to see the historical town of Salinas. It is a quaint agricultural town surround by two beautiful mountain ranges. Fun to imagine Steinbecks characters on the still preserved beautiful country side.
wabash