Hammond's Cane

 This is a member of the insect family Tipulidae, of the order Diptera. Commonly called a 'Crane Fly'. More importantly, this is the insect used as a prehistoric mosquito trapped in amber atop John Hammond's cane in Jurassic Park. It's my intention to recreate JUST the mosquito trapped in amber. (I think the rest of the cane looks stupid)

This one shouldn't take too long. It's organic and I don't need to get too detailed with the fly since it's so obscured by amber.

Big Boy: FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Finished two days before the deadline! Woo! Behold a completed American Locomotive Company class 4000 articulated, coal fired steam locomotive. More accurate than the Revell model kit, not quite as accurate as the real thing. 

And now, I'm taking a break from Zbrush for a few weeks....

Big Boy: Week 11. Front Bumper

 The Front Bumper (as I call it) is all done!!! Complete with Union Pacific shield and little light bulb in the headlight!!! Now she's looking like a proper engine!

Big Boy: Week 10. 10? I'm not sure.

I'm very confident I can keep a 3 month deadline. That will be November 8th. I started this thing August 8th. Here's my plan for the next few weeks. The rest of this week, I'll make sure the inner bottom stuff is done, so all the drive wheels look like they're attached to something. The next week will be the front and back smaller wheels. The week after that will be the front boxes and platform stuff (the very very front of the train). The last three days will be adding the upper train numbers, bell and light. 

Phew!.....

Big Boy: Week 7 - About to go on Vacation!

I'm about to go on a week long vacation to California to stay with some friends and explore Yosemite national park! So what you see above is about all I plan on doing until we come back in October. I'm glad I'm finally moving on to the last section of the train. Sadly, this is also the most complicated and detailed section. I think my three month deadline will be pretty accurate. 

Big Boy: Week 6

Not much to say. Just working out the boiler.

Big Boy: Week 5 - Engine progress.

I'm finally on the engine! This is it! I'm happy with the progress so far. I'm curious how far I'll be in 3 weeks.

Big Boy: Week 3. Love me Tender?

Sorry about the pun. I'm at week three with this build and I'm really happy with the progress! I'm about 98% done the tender. At this point I've put in a few hours a day and taken the weekends off. So, we'll say about 30 hours into it so far. I can't wait to get past the tender and start on the engine!!!

Big boy: one week later!

Hey! Not bad for a little less than a week later! I'm also not doing this on the weekends, so .... yeah! The tender wheels are all done! I'll never have to do THOSE wheels again. Now, just the other 4-8-8-4.... 

Big Boy: Tender fly wheels

So, it's been about a week and I've got the first set of wheels for the tender all done. I'm still struggling with trying to be accurate as possible while not getting bogged down in minutia. When this is all done, you'll barely look at these wheels since they visually will make up about 2% of the whole thing. 

Union Pacific "Big Boy"?

American Locomotive Company 4000-class 4-8-8-4 articulated, coal-fired, steam locomotive. Also known as 'Big Boy'. Jesus. Should I even do this?! It's overwhelming to say the least. I originally wanted this to be a Rhino 5 learning experience, but it's a massive horrible beast and I think I shouldn't bite off more than I can chew so early in Rhino. But even in ZBrush... I don't know. Am I a fool for taking this on?

Goonies Props: Copper Skeleton Key

Well, I knew this wasn't going to take long, but I never thought it would take as little as 30 minutes! It's just four different masks and then some texturing over the surface. Viola!!!

Goonies Props: Rendered coin (no patina)

  Rendered in Flamingo, but without a nice patina to fill the recessed areas, it looks weird. I just ordered a steel printed one off of imaterialise just now! It'll be cool to see this in real metal!

Goonies Props: coin all done!

   The coin didn't take very long. I still need to render it and figure out how to reder it with a patina, if such a thing is possible. The skeleton key is up next!

The Goonies Props

   I've always loved The Goonies. I'll never understand why there were no sequels or a tv show. There are only two props from that movie that I want: the coin with the holes in it and the copper skeleton key. You can purchase both, fairly accurate replicas online, but the coin isn't quite as accurate as I'd like. What you see above it the beginning of the photoshop mask I'm making for the Zbrush coin. Coins are easy in Zbrush as long as you have good alpha masks for the front, back, and overall coin shape. 

I don't forsee this taking more than a couple days (for the coin). I haven't done research on the skeleton key yet. 

Stygimoloch: done!!!!

All done!! Now comes the fun part of testing out all the different rendering options!

Stygimoloch: update

The hands are done! The mouth is fixed and improved with a fully sculpted interior! I'm goin' all out!!

Stygimoloch: Head is close to being done!

Is that a textured tounge and accurate teeth? Why yes! Yes it is! ..... are the teeth too large.... yes.... yes they are... : (

Stygimoloch

 Still messing with the proportions. It's hard amassing reference on an animal that is left mostly to interpretation. 

Zbrush Project: 6 - Stygimoloch

Well, I've decided on the next project. A member of the Pachycephalasaurus family, the Stygimoloch. 'Why the Stygimoloch' you may ask without slowing on the pronunciation? I really want to do a dino that's rarely ever done. Everyone does T-rexes and incorrectly sized Spielbergian Velociraptors (that are really utah raptors, Velociraptors were actually very small). I wanted something compact, no sauropod stuff. And I really like the detail and spikes of the head! The image above is the z-sphere beginning of the body. I'll do the arms legs, head and neck as separate subtools until I get the pose I want. 

This one wont be as quick as the Headpiece to the staff of Ra. But it shouldn't take nearly as long as the tedious Bird of Prey!

Headpiece: Rendered in Flamingo NXT 5.0

Damn! Rendering makes my stuff look crazy good!!! Hey, California, can I have a job now?

Headpiece: Side one all finished!

Like a good record, I decided to finish the most important side A, before doing all the B side stuff. Not to say the B side isn't important. If you only do side A you'll be digging in the wrong place. 

Next Zbrush Project: Headpiece to the staff of Ra!

Working for Universals' Prop shop, I should probably start doing prop related projects to beef up my portfolio. What better way to start then by one of my favorite props of all time!!! This shouldn't take too long either!

I just purchased Rhino 5 and Flamingo NXT5. So once I'm done sculpting this, I'd like to render it in Flamingo and see what I get!!

2nd Bubo all done!!!

You've probably wondered where the hell I've gone over the past several months. THIS is partly the answer. I got a commision to make a 2nd Bubo!!! Here he is all shiny and new! I've made a lot of progress on the garage too that I haven't posted. I'll do that soon. I'm also restoring and refurbishing a full size Thestral head that I can't post pictures of, so I've got a lot in the pipeline.

This second Bubo is actually more accurate to  the first one I made. The face is taller, and the eye openings are full circles instead of the oblong ones I had before. I also made this one MUCH stronger, each piece isn't glued on with super glue like the last one, they're all polygemed in! This thing needs to ship across country so I'm taking no chances.