DashDotSlash

Durham Cathedral Exterior WIP

2012-03-03T14:26:00.005-08:00

Work in Progress (about 1 /20th of the cathedral complex!)

Well it seems like a lifetime since I finsihed off the durham cathedral interior for FXPHD course MOD301 that I gave last year. But now about 4-5 months later its now time to get on with the exterior of the cathedral. This is no men task as the whole cathedral complex is massive and once you get a 300mm lens out you see detail that is not visible with the naked eye.

The bad side? I only have a week and a half to get it all done in before it has to be used in tehfinal few classes of the MOD302 3D digital environments course. Its the 1st time in ages I am geniuely crapping bricks it wont be done on time as usually I've give myself at least another week or two. but if this isn't done right it coud ruin the whole series of shots for the Joan of Arc short that FXPHD & mike seymour are making.

You know people ask me why I like using 3d max for personal stuff. Thats an easy question to answer, its got a lot of power and most of all the nitrous viewport... I hope neil hazard and the nitrous team are ready for it to be pushed to insane levels ;)

With a viewport like this its far easier to judge forms and lighting.

FXPHD Interview & doc on my time as an escape artist

2012-03-01T18:29:00.008-08:00

FXPHD / FXguide were nice enough to ask me for an interview a while back that they have just made live and you can watch it here:

http://www.fxphd.com/blog/professor-profile-wayne-robson/

...also for this I made a 22min documentary on my time as an escapologist. Until a couple of weeks back most people in 3D didn't have a clue about this and its safe to say there was a fair bit of interest in knowing more. So here is the full 'directors cut' of my short doc on my time as an escape artist. In some cases the footage is 27 years old and are the only copies that survive anywhere so this isn't the HD footage you may be used to.

I warn you it is a frank and often brutally honest look back at what I achieved and allows me for the very 1st time to put the record straight on something from over 23 years back thats been eating away at me all that time. So while to many of you in 3D thats not really important...to those who knew me before 3D this allows me to right a wrong and put my side of the story for the 1st time.

I realise that as a result I may well get the piss taken out of me now every time I appear at a 3d or art event to lecture or demo, but you know what... I'm still proud of everything I did back then. This isn't the character I use to present the 3d videos I release, or the crazy version of me from my youtube videos, but rather the real me.... this is as personal as it's ever going to get.
Enjoy

Wayne

Finally can show this a month and a half after I finished it

2012-03-01T09:48:00.004-08:00

This is actually the Sanjay who runs the corner shop near me ;)

As the next issue of 3D Artist magazine is now on sale I can finally show this model I did a month and a half back. You may remember seeing a couple of early work in progress shots before it was pointed out that actualy I wasn't allowed to show it in this particular case before publication. Its safe to say that after that it went a bit further onwards.

It nearly drove me nuts having to sit on this for a month and a half and it was also one of the reasons I did the last bust...as wanted to show how something along similar lines (hence why they both have a jumper on....) Oh and there's a tutorial of mine in there as well.

Done using mudbox and 3dmax

So enjoy...

an iteration with no jumper

Calling this final now....

2012-02-26T14:44:00.006-08:00

ok calling this one done or I'll sit and tweak stuff from now till doomsday...so it'll do for a weekend doodle. It uses Three 4k maps (color, bump and diffuse) on high res model using couple of spot lights in 3D Max.

also this weekend (back on thursday night) produced this full 3D scene as well (so its been quite a productive weekend!)

Saturday Night Render

2012-02-25T15:52:00.004-08:00

Sort of start of a work in progress.... ignore the jumper as it not been sculpted yet and the uvs are screwed up... but threw it into max and did a render anyways. Not the worlds most challenging model on the sculpting side as very little to do really...although may change a few proportions next time I pick it up. Runs off Three 4k maps, a diffuse, a bump and a spec....these are then plugged into various channels of the shader and color corrected in app as needed.... render time is only 40 seconds and this way saves a fair old whack of render time.

Some of you I know may see that it bares more than a passing resemblance to someone on the london 3d max scene...thats totally by chance.... honest ;)

Anomaly 2012

2012-02-23T13:49:00.008-08:00

I'e just agreed to give a lecture at the Anomaly 2012 event in Vancouver this year on April 28th, no I am not telling you whats its about just yet. It will be as usual a one off lecture, I've not been to canada before so it should be an experience.

Captains log.... additional:

did a quick 2hr 'speed matte' tonight...although in truth its a totally 3d scene..I had to work around the crash from hell so only the above shot looks the way I wanted it to... in this case its game model res.

Yep tiz all 3d before you ask....

Crash meant this one is unfinished so lighting and shaders bit off

Two Scenes...One bit of Geometry doodle

2012-02-20T03:31:00.003-08:00

The idea behind this doodle was a simple one, to take the same geometry and from it make 2 scenes by changing just lights and materials. (I actually made a third as well but its pretty borrring to look at so I've left itout.) Why? well just for something to do really on a sunday evening to relax and I wanted to try something else as part of my enviroment pipeline.

I'm more partial to the 1st image as it has a more 'alien' feel to it.

Tweaks

2012-02-19T11:18:00.004-08:00

"Give me a chocky muffin and custard!"

I sharpened things up a bit and tweaked a few minor things...may extend it to full body...not sure. I'll see how I feel in a day or two. Took it into zb to render for a change (as I get sick of the same thing lol....plus nice to switch things up a bit.)

Warm down doodle

2012-02-18T15:57:00.002-08:00

Its been a while since I did some sculpting what with all the 3d vue / maya stuff..and even longer since I did a monster...so this is my warm down sculpt for tonight...I 'may' actually continue with this one and do a few fixes that are annoying me at the moment with it.

Waterfalls Scene Final

2012-02-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

About as final as you'll get until its in shot

This is about as final as this will get here on my blog now until its used in the Joan of arc short FXPHD are making that these shots are meant for. Not one but two animated waterfalls and neither use water sims, both are old school practical effects. ;)

It may seem very little has changed since the last update but I can assure you it has... drastically... so that everything works in the actual shot and isn't going to take 6 million years to render. In fact it should be less than the average frame time for a TV series shot.

Now for my MOD302 class this is the final result you'll see in the next video covered from top to bottom, There is of course always a chance we'll change or add things slightly for the shot that's actually used..but nothing drastic. Its going to look nice once rendered out and properly graded (as its ungraded at the moment).

There's a combo of Nuke, Vue, Mudbox, Photoshop and Maya in this (maybe one or two other app's I can't remember as its been a busy 48 hours lol).

So for those of you taking my MOD302 course....get a notepad ready as this class is going to up the ante on the complexity front several notches or so. This leaves 2 shots left to do before the end of the course, the desert scene and the cathedral exterior matchmoved very complex shot that will give you nightmares..... as there is not just the cathedral to add.... ;) lets just say I have had an idea I want to run past mike 1st.

Escapology....

2012-02-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

Local news programme..complete with copper

You know I've been promissing those interested in my life before 3D some actual proof that I wasn't making up the fact I worked all over the world as an escape artist for a long time now over a decade in fact. (I only stopped due to a health problem that made it dangerous...well more dangerous.) So as I spent till 4am converting from old VHS one of the tapes of tv apearances I have to AVI here's a few screen grabs. I've lost count of how many people have asked about this over the years both in person and in interviews...so here yougo...better late than never..... Up till now not even close freinds in 3D knew much about this period of my life.

a thing with Tom o Connor

As this was long before the internet and back starting in 1987 for the 1st screen grab (I dont have a recording ofmy 1st time on TV aged 11), the only stuff about me as an escape artist online is what I have put there...ie next to nothing. Thus proving that things are infact still true even if you can't find out about them on the internet lol.

Last but one show Eammon Andrews ever did before he died.

Why am I converting them? Well the tapes are degrading fast and I want to have a record of all the things I achieved back then for my kids,and maybe one day decades for now... grandkids. Plus I'm also proud of what I managed to achieve back then. Maybe I'll stick one or two of the old tv spots up at some point..... but either way I'd sstill be embaressed to hell to see myself aged 14 onwards online lol.

Kids TV show called 'knock knock'

...Oh and here's a few of the hundreds of press clippings of mine I have from back in the day....many are missing though :(

So there you go...that should do you all for a while.

Additional:

Got to say the reaction to this has been off the scale lol. Now I realise its far more interesting to others than it is to me. So I'll answer the more common questions from today so I dont type them out a zillion times....

In the photos shown I range from about 14 or so to about 18 (I think)..I do have one from press cutting aged 11 but not showing that yet...if ever lol
Yes I still hold the world record, yes people have tried to break it and no its not in the guiness book anymore as they consider it 'unbreakable' (which is total and utter crap, as in practice I regulalry did 2.5 seconds lol).
Yes I can pick locks,no I wont open your cupboard , car , safe etc..... that you've lost the key to for you PMSL.
My talent was 1st spotted aged 2.....if you can call it that.
I was asked to write and published books and articles from age 14 that are apparently considered standards in the field (no I dont get royalties for them anymore....)
Yes I can 'still do that stuff' and part of my gear is in boxes in my office where it has been for long time. yes from time to time when no one is in the house I do get it out and have a go...no I will not show you.
No I will not go back to doing that....... its far to risky a feild for a guy with a wife and two kids to be taking those sort so risks every day....plus at 40 I'm a wee bit old and fat these days.
Yes I held a special explosives license from aged 17, which you have to have if your doing any escapes that are dicking around with high explosives...and yes I did do those. But I let that license lapse over 10 years ago.
No this is not the only thing I haven't made known in 3D up till now that I have done.

Now obviously I dont want this to take over from the art side as to be blunt I've been doing it far longer part of my life now. But I did promise rather a lot of people over the last decade or so to show some of this stuff.....just took me a decade to find the bloody time to actually do it thats all lol

Tree's and Waterfalls

2012-02-08T14:10:00.001-08:00

Waterfalls and all elements added...still a work in progress though ;)

Update to the 3d scene from the MOD302 '3D Digital Environments' course I'm giving at FXPHD this term, this is from week 5 (next week) and sort of a teaser. Unfortunately I can't show the animation I've ran a test render on, but I have to say that it looks very nice with those waterfalls added. Although it was sort of a cheat render as using a still for the scene elements so I can test the waterfall integration.

10 min cheats can be fun

Also as I had the elements lying around as a result of the above I knocked out in 10 mins the following crazy trees render....for shits and giggles. There is a rather obvious problem with the above shot if you can spot it and no its not the girls scale...any smaller and you'd not see her and think she was a branch lol

More Mattes

2012-02-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

No waterfalls yet....(there will be two)

A couple of mattes, the 1st is a late work in progress for my next couple of FXPHD classes. Its been nightmare to do as I'm seriously pushing Vue way beyond what it is designed for. Although people in the class won't need to, as I'm the only bugger who has to be able to load it all into one scene so you guys know what your aiming for lol. The final scene will be split across 3-4 scene files and composite.

This is just begging for a caption lol

and the other a mess around..... its a full 3D matte thats got my old mate Joep Van der Steen in it comped from a photo from EUE lol. See now its either begging for a caption or something added on the left on that sand bank lol.

Levelling up

2012-02-01T14:10:00.001-08:00

For those of you that may be interested there's an article in the new issue of 3D artist magazine I wrote (there's another next month as well). This month covers 'easy texturing in Mudbox' of a tree stump. You can buy it from www.3dartistonline.com or 'all good book stores' as they always say on the adverts.

A test frame from MY version of the cathedral animation

I'm also at the moment sorting out a couple of full 3d mattes / scenes for the Joan of Arc short being made by FXPHD as part of my MOD302 course. One of these is an absolute doozy of a shot, that will mix both practical effects and digital 3d mattes. In fact I have a timing shot with low res geo rendering out as I type this.

Also the lads over at Breitbild VFX in Germany are kindly letting me use their ender farm in between using it themselves to render out a load of stuff. So as well as some stuff you've not seen, there will also be my own personal version of the cathedral shots (with a few of my own added), some photoreal full 3 external environments and a bit of character stuff as well.

I've also been giving the cathedral a few tweaks as it was finished back at the end of September last year and so wanted to give everything a once over before adding it to a reel as even though the animation hasn't been seen yet, it's an old model ironically. So there are changes I've made to my own personal version that are different to the one covered in MOD301.

In case you hadn't guessed this is for a new reel, mainly as my non environment reel is seriously showing its age now after a year. It also gives me an excuse to show clients some more impressive stuff in actual shots. Now there is no way in hell I would be able to render this stuff out without a render farm...and even then some are having to be seriously optimised to not blow up the Breitbild VFX farm lol. So big thanks to the lads.

Also I'm amazed at the reaction to the free videos... I hope you found them useful and I'll up more once things calm down in a week or two.

Free Zbrush Hair to Spline's plugin for 3D Max

2012-01-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

'Wayne's Poly to Splines' 3D Max plug-in (Free)

Link: www.psychocore.com/WaynesPolyToSpline.zip

Well as a personal thank you to all the zbrush users that were so positive about the mudbox videos and realised they are just as useful to them, and also didn't insult me or start ww3.... Here's a little thank you for those of you that use 3D Max. Its something I knocked out in an hour tonight that takes imported zbrush hair and converts it into splines so that they can be used with to comb max hair and fur. This of course gives you dynamics and opens the whole thing up to animation. Its single click and works fast...oh and free.

It operates in a single click and includes a very basic installation and usage PDF....if there are any spelling mistakes or typos don't blame me as I wrote the damn thing in 5 mins lol. As mudbox users have sort of had a monopoly on me of late I felt it would be a nice way to say thanks to the zbrush users who often get sidelined in my freebie releases.

I can't stick this on zb central as I've been banned for 'daring to use mudbox' now for over 3 1/2 years lol. So pass the word amongst yourselves as I cannot.

...and so it is done.

2012-01-26T04:45:00.000-08:00

It's taken well over a week of uploading day and night on my slow rural internet connection and fitting it around constant client work, but all the DVD's I own copyright to are now available for free. Plus a few other videos that have either been lost over the years, spread in strange places no one but a few knew about or simply higher res versions.

There are many other videos I've done that as I don't own copyright I can't make free such as the 3d creative magazine ones I've done over the years (that could easily double this); and ones for 3D artist magazine coming up and of course the paid more recent FXPHD ones. But at over 46 1/2hours of free DVD's and videos isn't bad going for you all I think. I've no idea how much it would cost to buy them all...a fair bit though.

I do have one or two other things I want to still upload when I have time, but I'm going to take a well earned rest from uploading to the site for a while now. Let's not get this wrong this was a massive undertaking and one that has never been done before. No one has put their entire DVD back catalogue out for free..and certainly not on a very slow rural internet connection like I have. There are times over the last week I would have given my left nut for a faster upload speed. All videos have been uploaded with no help from anyone.... I don't think 3d palace wanted to kill their upload for a week lol.

There have been about 1% of predictable people with a problem, but to be frank I couldn't care less and neither could the vast majority of digital sculptors across the board of both Mudbox and Zbrush persuasion. This was not done for me, or them it was done to help people period. There's not even a proper back link to my main site www.DashDotSlash.net on it lol.

So enjoy the videos and PLEASE remember they are not representative of my current standard of work as some are very old models that were used...even back then. Never say I don't do nice things for you all every now and again. ;) Now it's over to the rest of the industry and see if they can start and build on this idea of mine.

Wow!

2012-01-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

Currently as it stands right this moment there is over 43 hours of free DVD's and video tutorials of mine on MudboxLIVE.com. all but 11 1/2 hours that I had totally forgotten about that I did for Filter Foundry a year back are direct links to the streaming video. The filter foundry videos (over 11/2 hours of it !) you do need to join up to filter foundry ....but the video s are free of mine.

There is still at least 2 DVD's I have to upload this week that will add even more serious time to the video content. That's assuming I don't come across any more videos I've forgotten about in the meantime..which I may well do. There are videos all over the internet that I've done over the years, many of which I have either lost track of , deleted or simply forgotten about or can't trace right now. So what's on MudboxLIVE is literally the tip of the iceberg of the videos I've put out.

I am humbled by the reaction to this crazy idea of mine. Its gone little bit viral and is very odd for me to see from the 'inside'. Although part of me finds it disturbing that more people have now seen stuff of mine that is years old than have seen my recent work lol. I do hope everyone bears in mind that a lot of the videos uploaded are very old and do not reflect what I can do as a tutor or an artist right now. The links to MudboxLIVE have been growing exponentially this week, and that just the ones I know about.....to be honest I haven't had time to check as I've been too busy.

I normally do not add links to my YouTube video blog to my site as to be honest its sort of my video diary and isn't meant to be taken particularly seriously, but the videos I upped a couple of days ago may explain why I've made all my back catalogue of DVD's available for free and how I personally see the whole thing.I should point out these YouTube videos are normally only intended for friends and are very not safe for work, there is swearing, rather a lot of it in fact. It is also in my 'raw' accent.

So as of right now I'm going to have the 1st day off of the year so far. I'm going to be doing some serious relaxing. Enjoy the videos.......

As of now all my Mudbox DVD's free .....

2012-01-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

People have said alot of nice things about the 14 DVD's I've released over the years and they continue to sell. As I own copyright on 10 of them (and to be frank the other 4 are so old they are useless to anyone except an archaeologist lol) I have decided to put my entire range of DVD's out for free as my gift. No catch...no signing up for a forum...and no restrictions on where you can add them. I've always said that when I do well I try to spread the good fortune around in some way and as this year so far has been fantastic... so...well you all get a late xmas present ;)

It always seemed a pity to me that the majority of my videos can't e seen unless you bought them or are already a Mudbox user. While some people worked out ages back most are just as useful to Zbrush sculptors as Mudbox users, But a lot of people without the spare cash to buy them missed out, and relied on either piracy or the free videos. Now let's not kid ourselves that this is an easy undertaking...this is a massive logistical undertaking that I have dropped like a H bomb on Cris who runs 3D-palace.com about 30mins ago. He took it well without passing out at all lol.

Getting the ones that are not on servers uploaded and out is going to take a little time, but it's already started. So tonight the 1st DVD's goes 'From the Ground up: Wave 2' the Dentist, hard surface sculpting by hand in Mudbox. Vol 5 of the Mudbox Masterclass series 'The Minotaur' and an oldie but a goody the siggraph 2009 masterclass. Those are the ones I can find right now on the server and the only reason why these are up 1st.

MUDBOXLIVE.com

Bookmark this as this is where my entire DVD range is going one by one for free!

1st FREE DVD: Mudbox From the Ground Up Wave 2 'The Dentist'

2nd FREE DVD Mudbox Masterclass Vol 5: 'The Minotaur'

3rd FREE DVD 'Autodesk Mudbox Masterclass Siggraph 2009'|

Autodesk Mudbox Masterclass Siggraph 2010 also coming (with parts never seen.)

Also while I'm at it I have removed some of the older time lapses and tutorials that I feel are just too old or not good enough to stick around. Sorry but I do have some sort of quality control lol. I would say that remember the last DVD I recorded and released was about 2 years back so remember these are not indicative of the current quality of my work. (if you spread them around I would ask you to point that out please as the last thing I want is old work been seen as my current work regardless of how good or bad it may be.) There will be a lot of hours worth of DVD's here that would have cost you a fair old penny to buy.

So as of now I consider the DVD format for tutorials dead. For me it dies tonight and the only place you'll be able to see my classes is either by taking part in the FXPHD MOD301 and MOD302 courses or at live events.

I told you there would be some changes this year ;)

ADDITIONAL:

Once they are all out I'll be organising things onto MudboxLIVE.com a bit better.

Just to make it clear, this isn't some promotional gimmick where they will disappear in a set length of time..they are free now for ever..until either planet earth explodes or a zombie apocalypse kills us all lol. Also these DVD's were making money right up till this morning. Coz if your going to give someone a gift its best to make it worth something. No I'm not doing it for some glory thing as I honestly don't have time to pimp this over half the bloody internet. if your lucky you may see one or two posts , but only if I have time. I'm relying on the users to promote this amongst themselves as I'm way to busy right now.

MOD301 & MOD302 about to Start at FXPHD

2012-01-12T03:11:00.000-08:00

I have two courses you can take part in this term at FXPHD. In case you missed it last time MOD301 Advanced environment modelling is being shown again, and yes this means I will be answering any questions you may have during the 10 weeks on that in the fxphd forum. Also I'm doing a brand new course MOD302 3D Digital Environments. So lets have a quick breakdown of what each course is about:

MOD301 : Advanced Enviroment modelling

This 10 week course covers from start to final renders the creation of a full cathedral interior based on Durham cathedral for use as background to some green screen shots. The final asset is photoreal and looks rather nice even if I do say so myself. The courses uses 3d Max and Mudbox although many followed along well with Maya and / or Zbrush (as there are a few extra videos covering both. It is not a beginners course and is hard, but as anyone who has taken the course will tell you 'you will learn stuff'.

MOD302 : 3D Digital Environments

Lets 1st get out of the way that this is not a one shot course. It is also a hard course to put it mildly and covers the creation of a number of photoreal full 3D digital environments. That means no camera projection, no 2.5D cards... so basically it means no cheating. We are living as artists in an increasing stereoscopic environment where both TV and films have made the step into it. As such many of the old tricks either no longer work anymore, or look terrible if used. The only solution is a full 3D environment in most cases.

This course will be using a combination of Vue 10, Mudbox 2012 and Maya 2012 and will be using real production examples from the 'Joan of Arc' short film being made by FXPHD. Some stills you can see on the main part of my site (www.dashdotslash.net) while others you can't because...well the script isn't locked down yet. The last 2-3 lessons will cover the creation of the external shot to accompany the interior shots made during MOD301. (Although both courses have been designed to be stand alone.)

The shot we have to match the cathedral, set dressing and any environment changes to is a complex long shot taken by Mike Seymour on the Red in New Zealand. This will work the initial reveal of the cathedral, in fact I would strongly urge watching the O day video over at FXPHD to get an idea of exactly what that will entail. We will be using suppplied tracking data and not only creating the assets for the final shot but compositing them as well in Nuke so we have a final shot.

This has been a widely anticipated course since it was annouced about a week back and I will outline again this is not a beginners course and is the highest level that FXPHD run (the other levels being 100 and 200 level courses). Again this course features a series of hardcore practical examples from a high end short actually in production.

I've also been told that an interview with me is in the latest 3D Artist magazine, I've not seen it myself yet, but keep your eyes open for it. You may also want to keep your eye on the next issue as well. ;)

A Massive Change

2012-01-01T15:21:00.000-08:00

Today is rather unique for me as an artist. In fact I'm pretty sure that such a fundamental seismic shift in style doesn't happen to artists very often. Many of you have read and seen me banging on for years about how sculpting isn't all I can do. But I've shown very little evidence of that...mainly as I rarely get a chance, to being quite honest.

I always remember as a teenager a mate and myself were watching a documentary on the life of Pierre Mondrian on TV and being amazed at how basically he woke up one day and went from being a traditional artist painting normal stuff to painting fucking coloured squares and lines in the space of a single nights sleep. It just didn't appear to make any sense...well it does to me now. I totally understand how it can happen to an artist. Maybe that's being overly dramatic but I think releasing what I have done today and a total change of style that goes with it allows me that privilege. PMSL

I'm known as the 'Mudbox guy' or the 'creature guy' or 'that annoying git who sculpts really fast' or 'that guy who moans like a bitch on his YouTube videos' or variations on that theme. From today I'd like to think that changes maybe just a little.

You'll have noticed the main site (www.DashDotSlash.net) has have a major facelift and a massive load of new content. Very few of the images added are monsters or what I'd call my 'usual work' that you have seen for over a decade now. So watch the following video before you read any further.

While talking with Mike Seymour from FXPHD a month or two back about what my next course for them would be, we got talking about the other things I do that I rarely, if ever show. We decided maybe it was time to start showing one of those 'hidden skills' of mine as part of the course I'm giving this term at FXPHD. It is called MOD301 3D Digital Enviroments. For more details on the course I'd strongly advise watching the zero day video introducing this and other courses this term at FXPHD. Those of you that know the way they rate course difficulty at FXPHD know that they have 3 levels, 100, for beginners, 200 intermediatte an level 300 which is far more advanced. If there was a level 400 course,then this could be it, this will not be an easy course I can promise you that, but you will learn a lot.

So in preparation for the course I was tasked by Mike Seymour to basically produce a few full 3d non projection / non 2.5d mattes that used none of the usual tricks and could support any camera move needed. So I did ...and sort of went a bit nuts in the process with joy making a total of over 40 different mattes in a 30 day period (that included the xmas and new year period). I've picked a handful of these for the video, the course promotion and my site.

Now as you can imagine, Mike had only wanted a couple or so ...so when he started multiple finals most days he got a bit of a shock lol. The poor bloke probably feels like he's been under siege. He even dropped a few hints about what I was doing on the last FXPHD podcast and said some very nice things here : http://www.fxphd.com/fxphdod/fxphdod-%E2%80%93-december-21-2011/ (hint: its in the last 5 mins of the podcast)

For a while I've started feeling creatively bored with creatures and whatnot and wanted to put more 'art' into my art. I felt I was being overly limited by the 'mudbox guy' and 'creature guy' label. One thing that I took from the whole episode of making my short 'Of Gods and Men' that I pulled , was that no one realised it was a mix of both real back plates and full 3d back plates.... (Now maybe people were just too busy watching the crappy dragon animation I had to do in 10 mins after being let down by the guy who promised to do it months earlier lol).

It was intentional that I never told people what shots were 3D, or even if there were any full 3D shots in it, or even what was 'proper' footage. Mainly this was as I wanted to see if people would be able to tell if they were not told in advance. If they did, then they never said, so on that score those shots hit their aim of being invisible as 3D. :)

Back then I came up with a workflow that now allows me to create these full 3D matte's very fast using a combination of Mudbox, Vue and 3D Max. (now, 'Matte' is probably the wrong word really as these are really full 3d environments capable of any camera move a director wants to throw at them and not just static scenes or plates) Although the ones you see that I've released today are all created using 3dmax, the course will be using Maya as its used more in high end film production. (...and many of those guys regularly take FXPHD courses.)

When I 1st started 3D I started in apps such as Bryce and Vue, but back then and to some point, even today they weren't seen as 'real 3D apps'. Its only in the last 2 years that we've seen Vue especially become a hardcore production tool and my bet is nearly every film released in 2012 that has effects work in it will have had vue used somewhere. So the time is right to make sure you know it well.

Yesbefore you ask I'll still do my speed sculpts and other sculpting stuff, but now I'm starting to show the other areas I can do things in. So I have a feeling this will be an interesting year.

Enjoy.

A look back on 2011

2011-12-29T04:51:00.000-08:00

So here I am sitting here with my shiny new keyboard (a Microsoft sidewinder X6 for those interested, which should add some useful time savers with the programmable keys ;) ) And it’s time once again to reflect on the previous year. It’s the 29th December, and only 2 days away from what could well have been a very big line under my career. As I mentioned way back at the start of this year, things were not going well for me after I was awarded the 1^st Autodesk masters award for Mudbox (My friend Neil Blevins of Pixar just got awarded the 2^nd one... A big congrats to Neil as he deserves it), let’s just say this didn’t go down well with a certain small amount of people in the digital sculpting world. It was felt I didn’t deserve it and that I only got it due to ‘popularity’ (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean anyway). So they started a whispering campaign that ended up costing me 80% of my freelance work and a lot of opportunities as a result.

Nothing focuses the mind like not having any income coming in and a family to feed trust me! They say desperate times need desperate measures, so nothing was off the table as a solution. I ended up that ironically although my tutorials could be found at just about every major fx house on the planet, and that many people now have careers thank to the knowledge myself and others have imparted over the years to be flat broke and to be honest with little prospect of this changing. So I had to sign on the dole, something I never thought I’d have to do again.

I also gave myself a deadline for my career. The plan was that if I didn’t find a solution to this by new years even this year I would pack it all in. (As I’m not really in this game to dick around.) As you’ll have noticed New Years Eve is just a couple of days away at the time of writing. So could I do it? Could I leave 3D behind and call it a day? Yes although it would have been hard and destroyed a little part of me to do it. But like any husband and father feeding your family has to come 1^st.

My 1^st idea was the infamous ‘of Gods and Men’ short that to be honest I blame for the stroke I had within a few days of ‘finishing ‘ it. Now I use the term ’finishing’ loosely as there were a lot of problems with that short. It’s a shame as if I’d pulled it off, then it would have been an impressive feat. But I got into a mindset that I had to ‘prove’ that I was still relevant as an artist and claw back my career which was pretty much dead at the time. I was so focused that when work was actually offered I turned it down to keep going on the short. No it wasn’t really very sane to try and do as was originally planned an entire film quality short in 4 months on 2 hours a night sleep. It was even less sane that after the backup drives containing all recently backed up work on it went sort of ‘boom’ that I then said I would do it in a few days over 1 month.

While to this day I remain proud of the stuff no one ever spotted as being 3d, the final animation was an abortion. One massive reason was I was let down at the last moment on the animation for the dragon. As the dragon was the main focus to carry the story forward, I ended up having to animate it myself. Now I’m the 1^st person to say I am a shit animater. I had so little time before things had to be sent off to the render farm to render that some shots were animated in 5 mins. That was never going to end well and if it wasn’t for the sense of panic at the time I would have realised this. But I was so focused on it to the exclusion of everything else...I didn’t.

Now I’m not an idiot I did realised that only sleeping 2hrs a night and working the other 22hrs was not healthy. But I thought that if I could pull this off I could once again feed my family. As I said desperate times call for desperate measures. But as I sat at the End User Event in Holland it started to dawn on me after having a few days away from actually seeing the damn thing that when I did something was very wrong.

So I blame the mini stroke I had while there on the shock of realising that for the 1^st timed in my life I’d badly and publicly failed at something. That along with the crazy hours, overwork and stress it was causing were the root cause. But when you get desperate you do stupid things.

Once back from Holland (we’ll skip all the medical shit as that’s a dead issue now and as you’ll see in the New Year hasn’t impacted my work in any negative way) the short lasted less than 12 hours before I pulled it. I was left feeling like I’d wasted 4 fucking months of my life, was no further forward and could theoretically ruined my career. That’s how I felt at the time. Out of the sky Mike Seymour arrived just before Holland and had asked me to do a course for FXPHD. Mike to his credit let me show for once that I was not just the ‘Mudbox guy’ or the ‘creatures and monsters guy’ but could do other things. So the MOD301 cathedral interior course was born. As luck would have it most of which ended up being done in the aftermath of the stroke. Turned out pretty damn nice even if I do say so myself. It also served to do what ’Of Gods and Men’ never could.... that I could do other things and do them pretty damn well.

I will not forget that Mike and the staff of FXPHD stood by me when my heath was at its lowest point and when anyone else in the field would have ran like the wind. They stood by me and believed that actually I could do this. I did and it kick started work coming back in again. This year hasn’t been a good one for me in many ways, but the 2^nd half actually was a life changing thing. I learned finally that my body and mind does have limits and that I can break it if I don’t ease up. So while the 22 hour marathon sessions of work may be gone forever, I still do what some would call long hours. Why? Simple put because now I am in the position where I know for certain where my breaking point is.

So it turns out that I won’t have to give up 3D on New Year’s Eve this year. Things while not totally A1 on the work front and I’m producing work I’d not have dreamed of producing just 6 months back. Your about to witness next year a fundamental shift in the sort of art I do. Sculpting, whilst important to me is not all I do and I intend not getting as walled into it as I have done. The main reason being there are only so many things you can sculpt before it gets a bit blasé. I’ve always needed a new challenge every day. Now I have a roadmap of sort’s mapped out for next year on a purely creative level I am happier than I have been in years.

So while I realised that people who seem to spend more time having a go at me and others in 3D like me that try to actually help people improve and learn may be annoying, and can become ways be catalysts to problems such as I’ve had this year. The buck always had and always will stop with me. To quote a mate of mine: ‘the haters will keep hating regardless’.

Let’s face it if someone really doesn’t like you there is fuck all you can do to change their mind. So I don’t intend to try. Rather I intend to stretch myself as an artist and continue to make software do things it was never intended to do. Come next New Years Eve I want to be able to look back at the work from this year and say ‘Jesus what I load of junk! I’d better remove that from my site’. You know what? I’m confident that I will make that happen as well as believing in myself I have an idea of where my boundaries are in a very clear way. So it turns out something my dad used to say to me a lot growing up was true:

‘Know your limitations, then you can do what you can do better’.

Extra:

For those of you wondering what I’ve been up to the last month that I’ve kept so closely guarded, no it’s not a short film and certainly n ot redoing ‘of gods and men’ (also to be honest I’m not stupid enough to do that again solo without some serious back up lol.) It’s something completely different to you’ve seen me do. I can promise that unless I lapse in the next 4 days then not one creature will be seen anywhere in the new work I’m about to show lol. ‘D Day' is 2^nd jan 2012, BTW I didn’t pick the day. ;)

This Years Christmas Card

2011-12-13T03:54:00.001-08:00

"Watch out!! because this year Santa's using AT-AT's to deliver the toys"

So here's this years xmas card I'm sending out to clients and friends, done as is my usual rule. My rule every year is to spend no more than 2 hours or so on it from top to bottom and everything must be 3D (Although I didn cheat a bit 2 years ago as I couldn't be arsed to make a santa sack full of toys lol). No cheating on this one...but also something a bit different for a Christmas card. (It also shows you can use mudbox for more than monsters and wrinkey old men).

So here's wishing a merry Christmas to you all and wishing you a very happy new year.

...and for the insanely curious the wireframe while I was working on it last night

Busy as a Nymphomaniac Rabbit

2011-12-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a strange few days to say the least. It's been like everyone and his dog want a piece of me and to throw opportunities at me. This of course is very good, but odd that it all comes at once. What makes is stranger is that I'm working on things at the moment that are different to say the least that I'll be showing some time early in the new year.

So over the course of 2 days alone I've had:

Interview thingy for 3d Artist magazine agreed
email from games firm sounding me out about a job
Finding out I'd been put forward for another job at yet another games firm
Agreeing to do some articles for 3D Artist magazine
and an email from LucasFilm asking me if I'd like to send them a CV.... (which for the record I don't expect to get)

On top of this the stuff I'm, doing for the FXPHD course I'll be doing next year has been going down VERY well with Mike Seymour. But I'll let that speak for itself once the time comes. There is also possibly yet another trip to Holland on the cards and might be speaking at the London 3Ds Max user group at some point as well. in fact while I may seem to be incredibly quiet on the image front of late I can promise you I'm working my arse off on a number of fronts. You'll see some nice stuff in the new year and I can promise as Monty Python would say 'something completely different'.

Sorry for the big tease but as usual some stuff I can't go into details about and other things I won't just at the moment.

9 years ago a Woman Walked into a Party......

2011-12-01T10:11:00.001-08:00

WARNING: sloppy lovey dovey shit ahead!

9 years ago I was sitting at a party in Stevenage that was one of the only times I partied surrounded by people didn't know in a strange location. When a woman walked into a party it was love at 1st sight and I swore that was the woman I'd spend the rest of my life with. We're still together and now we have 2 kids.

Like any relationship it hasn't been easy especially in the early days when I would commute by train from Durham train station to Dover just to spend time with her. Anyone who knows me it takes a very special person to make me do that. Everyone we both knew repeatedly said it wouldn't last and that we were wrong for each other...everyone except a small handful of people. The majority were wrong and we're still together 9 years later.

Like any relationship at times its been far from easy but like anything that's worth doing, it's worth it. Kat hates her photo taken and hates being on video even tonight when filming a timelapse of putting the xmas tree up she refused point blank to be anywhere near where the camera was. So most of you reading this won't know how beautiful my wife is. But of a shame really. But in a rare moment of sloppy lovey dovey shit... so all my love to the one woman able to put up with me for any length of time apart from my mother. For that reason alone she deserves a medal as big as a bin lid.

Death of a Wacom Tablet

2011-12-01T03:59:00.000-08:00

Today is a sad day for me. This morning at 3am my old Wacom Intous 3 died. 'But Wayne its only a bloody tablet, get over it' you're probably thinking. So why does it need a dedicated blog post? Well that was my 1st 'proper' graphics tablet years back that I bought for my 1st ever DVD (which also happened to be the 1st one released by anyone on Mudbox by the way). Me and that thing have been through a lot.

It's in many ways been a very long quality test of an Wacom Intous! It's been abused in many very horrible ways including:

· having a total of probably in excess of 1000 cups of coffee split on it.
· Repeatedly dropped when going through customs by customs guys who seem unable to hold it without dropping it.
· Stabbed by my then very young son with a pencil, a pen and even a metal rod he found leaving the centre portion dead. This is why old time lapses you see me sculpting things to one side and not centre of the screen lol.
· Nearly set fire to when I was putting some deodorant on one day and some had landed on it when my cigarette was next to it, making it burst into flames. Amazingly that left it unscathed.

So it's been through a lot and until this early hours it still worked. It helped me produce literally thousands and thousands of models in its lifetime. Although it was no longer my 'number 1' since I got the Cintiq a couple of years back, I still used it on my laptop when downstairs working in the early hours, and it went with me on most of my travels around the world. So its fair to say those Intous tablets are built like tanks. If it can take everything I (and my young son) threw at it, then normal careful use should give it no problem. This is why I recommend it to people when asked.

So RIP Intous 3, I think it is fair to give it a nice rest on my shelf for the rest of its days (or until it gets in my way lol).

Practice......

2011-11-20T15:43:00.000-08:00

Close but no cigar.....

No one is good at everything.... remember that if your starting out as its important. Like everyone out there I'm not infalible, and there are things I'm not so hot at sculpting. The big ones for me are likenesses and caricatures (in a time less than a milion years.) A side effect of speed sculpting is that (for me at least), its less suitable for any sort of likeness as you really do need to take your time. So I have figured its well overdue time I nailed with problem area. But in usual style I'm trying to integrate it into my speed sculpting. It took me about 2 years of producing total unmitigated crap to get anywhere near where I wanted when speed sculpting 30mins -1 hour speed sculpt (or less) many years back.

So I fully expect it to take a while. My plan is to hit the problem area from two fronts. Firstly keep speed sculpting likenesses as I have time and secondly to do somewhere I take much more time (ie as slow as shit). Eventually the two will mesh into one way of doing it fast. At least thats the plan. I'm only about 25% happy with the sculpt above so theres a long way to go. Like with sculpting anything its a matter of practicing till your sick to death until you get it right.

A Door for a Dracula

2011-11-14T09:50:00.001-08:00

Note: I upped this by mistake a week or so back, and pulled it once I'd realised I'd got the broadcast date wrong, so apologies if you were one of the few who saw it before I took it down.

The asset as handed over ready for lighting

A few weeks back a last minute freelance job came in from the guys at Space Digital when they needed a asset super pronto with no existing design. It was for the kids TV series Young Dracula and they needed a trapdoor. After a bit of head scratching (and also knowing that worst case I could make a very simple iron manhole cover type thing, acted as a backup plan and gave me a bit more room on the concept.) So after a day of thinking about things and some rounding up of some inspiration and reference, I decided to go along with an idea of Matt's over at Space Digital and head in a slightly steam punk direction.

I didn't bother drawing any concept art as I had it in my head and this projects development time wasn't long enough that I was likely to forget it. So I made the basic door in 3dmax and a fully working clockwork system by importing some cog shapes from illustrator and then converting these into polys and extruding them.

Untextured raw polys

Texturing was aiming for one thing only..make it look nice and render fast using Renderman. This of course meant changing the whole scene over to Maya (as my max to Renderman plug-in I've been working on is not stable enough for production work). Then it was tweaking of lights and shaders and get it to the guys ASAP.

Sculpting and texturing the inside of the tube leading from beneath the trapdoor to the pit of lava was 'interesting' as texturing and sculpting inside of a tube with inverted normal's is never ever fun...not even a little bit lol.

So Wayne..how do you come up with all these sculpt ideas?

2011-11-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

That's probably the question I've been asked most over the years. I've heard it said many times that doing monsters and concept sculpts is 'easy'. But people often find that if you sculpt enough you start to run out of ideas or repeat yourself a lot. I've sculpted thousands upon thousands of concept sculpts and speed sculpts ad very rarely repeated myself. So how do I keep coming up with the ideas? Well these ideas I'll be outlining in this and other blog posts aren't new for the most part an many have been done in 3D and 2D before. but it amazes me how many people don't know about them. I figured it was time to change that.

So here's a couple of videos that'll be far more helpful if I explain what the heck your seeing.

Pareidolia

Using a random picture of clouds

Pareidolia is something I've found very useful over the years and the best thing is I can tell you what it is and how and why it works but as each person is unique, chances are you'll always end up with something that looks different. The chances that you have exactly the same brain as me or any other person are very very slim. This makes it powerful.

The best way to explain Pareidolia is the way you can look at clouds or random shapes and 'see' shapes that make sense within them. Our brains are hard coded to recognise faces and patterns so if there is a often random arrangement it tries to make sense of it and often you see a face (for example the 'face on mars' is nothing more than pareidolia).

I use this either with 2D art or images (or sometimes even in real life) to 'see' shapes that I later sculpt. I also sometime use it on an existing sculpt of mine by turning it upside down and then seeing what shapes and forms pop out at me that I then develop into something. It also works well along side the next tip and I consider them 'twins' that work very well together.

Now the brain is like any muscle in your body if you keep exercising it you'll find you get better at seeing different shapes to other people see. In my opinion some of the best 2D concept artists work in exactly the same way. I can promise it'll always be a source of new ideas.

Using a Random Starting Shape

This is something I've developed over the years as making something truly random is actually harder than you think as the brains ability and need to have order in chaos and see 'patterns' can have you ending up with a not so random shape. I've recently added to this using the technique my son came up with that allows me to have a truly random starting shape. The trick is to have a shape you wouldn't normally use as your starting base shape but not so odd that it would be impossible to sculpt anything meaningful with. In the video shown here I start 'gently' by doing some random pulls on a sphere (which I find works best for me, but feel free to adapt that if you want). I then see if I can see a shape in it....

Sometimes you hit lucky as I did with the 1st sculpt of 5 I did in 70 mins and it looked to me like a sort of weird elephant guy. So that's the direction I headed in. Now my tip is not to go nuts on details like fine wrinkles and skin pores. Why? because to be blunt you could end up polishing a turd. If something looks good without the fine details it sure as hell will look just as good (if not better) once you do a proper sculpt of it with all the details and textures.

However...... if it's a weak idea then no amount of polishing is gonna make that turd smell sweet. So what you do then is to move onto the next sculpt. Never get too attached to your designs when concepting, they are disposable and treat them as such or you can paint yourself into a corner figuratively speaking.

The 2nd sculpt is a far more standard shape which I immediately saw as a sort of bird guy. As for the 3rd sculpt, well you remember above I mentioned sometimes you hit on with a nice shape straight away? well other times you don't as in this case. So this one I skipped through fairly quickly as I knew chances are it'd not end up as a design that I would ever be using. now this isn't to say that you or anyone else can't see a really fantastic idea in it..that's what makes the ways of concepting so powerful they work differently for everyone.

Number 4 & 5 work together as sort of a 'ideas set' as I think of them. I start with puling a shape and adding a neck and lower jaw to it, then once I am done with that sculpt I then remesh it to a low poly level (about 68 on Dynamesh in this case as I was using Zbrush for this..mainly as it makes it far easier to explain and how). Then I moved onto using random meshes added to it as explained in the workflow my son came up with a few blog posts back. in the case of this one I 'saw' initially a weird Japanese geisha, but didn't want to do another cartoony one after that damn star shaped thingy, so looked a little longer and saw a character from my daughters favourite TV show. (The TV show is 'ZingZillas and the character is 'Tod' by the way). So the damn show has nearly drove me nuts I took the 'tod ' character and did sort of a slightly evil twist on it.

Now I finished on this one (even though its technically a existing character), because it illustrates another problem you can come across from time to time, where you do a random shape and cannot get past seeing a well known character in it. in this case I saw another one after the geisha but before the 'Tod' character. As it was so well known a monster / creature it meant I had to have an 'exit strategy' so I could continue concepting and not simply get walled into a series of existing shapes from a character that's already around. IN my case all I could see was the damn predator lol. So a large comedy monkey janitor from a kids' TV show was preferable in my case as there was more 'wiggle room' for creating either something new or an acceptable alternate version.

Now what I haven't mentioned is the steps I take mentally (simplified a bit) but often it is just a matter of taking your shape, seeing something there and then wrapping /warping human or animal anatomy around that shape. It sounds simple and to be totally frank it is, it just takes a bit of practice.

Now I have many more ways I've collected and came up with over the years and I'll share more of them as I have both the time and inclination to. But for the love of all that's holy don't get caught up on the 'how's of sculpting when learning these techniques, leave those for other sessions and simply enjoy coming up with designs you can later use. Technique and anatomical knowledge is important but its best kept for separate practice sessions, especially if your just starting out. I often twist and warp anatomy to see how far I can take it before it 'breaks' and cases to make sense. But to do that you have to have that knowledge as a starting point.

So there you go, I'm not in the habit of teaching people 'how to think' but in this case I feel it's a rewarding enough way for some of you to do lol. I'll cover another few ways as I have time etc....

Some Tuesday Doodles

2011-11-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of doodles form yesterdauy (Tuesday) The 1st one is unfinished and a Zbrush one and I have no idea what it'd have turned out to be as I was completely freestyling it. The 2nd was done in mudbox and still freestyling but turned out a better design.

Turntable:

Nothing so far today as been having a lazy 'can't be bothered' day.

A Few Doodles

2011-11-06T13:46:00.001-08:00

As a side note I'd like to say a thankyou for the goodwishes and emails I recieved after the last blog post. Apart from a mention on my video blog on youtube I'll not be banging on about it any further.

A couple of doodles from last night or two. Tonights went awol due to a crash, so as recompence here's a few turntables....

The Stroke You Never Knew I'd had

2011-11-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

Back in the early hours of 1st July this year while only hours away from my final lecture at the End User Event I suffered what turned out what was diagnosed when I got back home to be a mini stroke. Up till now only a handful of close trusted friends in 3D have known this even occurred as I've waited until I felt things were back to normal. I was intending to never mention the whole thing as it could feasibly be a kiss of death to my career, but a mate in 3D pointed out it was such a crazy story I had to share it at some point. Plus as I primarily work as a freelancer anyway its less important than if I was intending to work for a company. Because let's face it after this no company on earth would want to touch me as minor strokes are big health risks and scare the shit out of them.

But I digress...

No doubt you want to know the why's and wherefores..so let me explain what happened from as much as I'm able to remember or have managed to piece together. On the night of the 30th of June after months of only sleeping 2 hours a night working on my short (that very few people saw before I canned it), 'Of Gods and Men', I was on the ragged edge and felt at least twice my age, looked worse and was mentally drained. I felt worse than I ever had in my life. As this was the 1st public day of End User Event 2011 and I had done my lecture during the day, some of the guys from the Autodesk 3D Max team and a few others went for a drink alongside myself till well into the early hours. Without going into the gory details we all had probably a one or two too many and I know I was taken back to my hotel about 3 or 4am.

I passed out face down fully clothed on the bed (something I never do...well not since I was 18) and woke up at 5am feeling very strange indeed. Although I didn't realise it at the time this was directly after I'd had a stroke in my sleep. It's probably the hardest thing to describe in any way that makes sense as its impossible to put the parts you are probably interested in into words, but it felt like I was living with someone else's brain and body. My entire left arm was numb and my coordination was well off . So much so that it took me 15 mins to get to the bathroom (large amounts of liquids will do that to a person lol). I couldn't think straight and it was like having a food mixer in my brain.

As I stood there taking a leak trying to work out why my left arm refused to move the way I wanted it to and why I felt like I was thinking through treacle, I came to the conclusion that it was a combination of way too much alcohol and maybe I had been lying on my arm... so I thought. I made an 'executive decision' that as I wasn't due to lecture till 2 or 3pm that I'd go back to bed and 'sleep it off'.

I got a call from Joep Vander Steen who is one of the guys who run's and organises the End User Event (and a good mate of mine as well) asking if I was still alive. Apparently word had gotten to him about the 'epic night out' the night before and he was a tad worried. My speech slurring, I told him I'd be there in about 45 mins and proceeded to try and get ready. I'll spare you those details but suffice it to say this was far from easy as my body was not cooperating and I had to concentrate more than I ever had in my life just to get my damn pants on without falling over. Buttons proved particularly troublesome as they didn't seem to make sense to me.

By the time I'd gotten to The Florin where the End User Event was held my arm was less numb although my middle finger was still totally dead and remained that way for over a month. The very 1st thing I did was get myself 3 espressos and down the lot one after another. I was later told this was in that particular case the best thing I could have done and it may have saved me from having another massive stroke within 12 hours after the 1st one. I sat down outside next to my mate Alex Morris and vaguely remember telling him I felt as rough as hell and my finger was numb. I probably sounded still a bit pissed I imagine, my memory is sketchy of that part of the day to be honest.

I got through my lecture which was no mean feat and had I been without my notes I'd not been able to do it (we'll cover why in a moment), and the day after next I flew back home.

For weeks I still felt terrible, my head was permanently spinning like I'd been on a rollercoaster day and night, I had suddenly got to the stage of being unable to sleep more than 2 hours at a time (I seem to have been left with this as an after effect of the stroke). I had lost all my knowledge of organic sculpting and couldn't understand it..it was like I'd never done it before. Everything I'd ever learned or knew was wiped out in a single mini stroke. But still I put off going to the doctors.

I couldn't think straight, I had massive holes in my memory and have lost amongst other things, entire years of my life and the memories of the births of both my kids. I found it weird that hard surface and non organic were totally unaffected. Which was lucky as I was working on the cathedral for FXPHD at the time. So whenever I see that model now I remember with pride it was done in the aftermath of a mild stroke, that I managed to tackle and rise to the challenge in the face of one of the worst moments of my life. I am proud of it for that reason alone above all others. I will also always remain grateful that Mike and John at FXPHD kept faith in me when any other people would have run a carpet mile.

Eventually my family became worried enough to gang up on me one afternoon and make it very clear I WOULD be going to the doctors whether I wanted to or not as something was obviously very, very wrong. I think in my heart I suspected something but hoped if I ignored it, then it'd go away.

So I got an emergency appointment with my doctor. He did a load of tests, asked more questions than I've ever known him to and immediately dialled for an ambulance to rush me to the stroke unit at Durham hospital. When he told me he suspected I'd had a stroke I thought he was joking as he shares my own often dry humour. But when it dawned on me that he WASN'T joking it hit me like 10 ton of shit. You know those bits in horror movies where the foreground rushes towards camera and the background rushes away? That's what it felt like when I was told. It floored me.

I wasn't keen on going to the hospital but as it was over 3 weeks since I'd had the stroke I was told I was in extreme danger as the type of mini stroke I had are usually followed by a massive one inside of 28 days! I was put on some pills and treatments that would stop a 2nd bigger and far more damaging stroke. But there was a catch.... the pills would take nearly a week to be fully active in my system and in that time I was in danger of the massive stroke. So for a week I had to remain totally unstressed and even tempered and keep off caffeine and cross my fingers that it was enough to stave off the 2nd stroke that was hanging over my head. Thankfully it was.

I made a couple of decisions then such as I started learning myself to sculpt organics again. I had the best teacher in the world....me. I relearned from my own videos, books, articles and tutorials by lots of hard slog. Luckily the muscle memory was still there , so the rest was just 2 months of cramming and wall to wall practice as I was determined to get back to where I was. I now believe I have and also explains to the more astute of you that noticed a bit of a slight change in my style here and there. It also explains why I am using Zbrush as well as Mudbox again as I started sculpting in zb and then moved to mud, so had to relearn in that order. After relearning myself from scratch in2 months I'm hesitant to drop it again, so now I use both....I think I've earned it lol.

Now The hospital still aren't sure how much damage was done so I finally had my brain scan last week after being on a 'emergency waiting list' since the end of July. Although I won't get the results of it till December. There is damage that the doctors know for a fact it's done, it's just a matter of finding out how much and what percentage of my frontal lobe is affected. Also compounding matter is the fact I've suffered from a very rare brain condition since I was 17, and not even the neurosurgeons knows how that'll affect things.

But it seems the way I've recovered that damage is either minimal or just knocked out a load of memories. I'm not at deaths door so don't get the wrong idea for gods sakes! But it proves what everyone probably knew all along, that doing months and months of 22 hour work days is not healthy and certainly not when combined with my coffee intake each day. It's meant I had to simplify my life and so I passed mudboxhub.com to Cris from 3d-palace.com to run and stopped the DVD's and free tutorials. If and when I start doing them again is open to debate really. I am certainly back up to speed and more than capable of it both skill and health wise, but the desire right now is not there. Plus I like doing the stuff for FXPHD and will always feel that I owe those guys a debt for sticking with me when everyone else would have ran like the wind.

I didn't outline at the time what was going on because firstly it was a bad time for me and I didn't want a zillion questions, and also I didn't want to mention it until I was sure I was back to my old skills. So those of you who I told and kept the secret, thank you. So there you go, the ironic true story of how I ended up having to relearn sculpting from my own damn videos. Which I have to say is a surreal experience listening to yourself teaching something that you have no memory of ever doing.

It's an experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and could have been so much worse. I count myself as lucky to have got a warning. Yes its left me with years of my life now with no memory but that's a small price to pay. It's a journey I am proud to have came out of the other side of and one that has changed my attitudes forever.

Now I realise this could be the kiss of death to my career but in reply to anyone or companies that feel like that I say this:

"In the aftermath of my mini stroke I started and finished the image below. So I don't think you have anything to worry about. ;) "

Rant:: Stop with the crazy emails already!

2011-11-01T03:16:00.000-07:00

It pains me to have to post another blog like this, but after the massive increase in the weeks following the last lot of vids of mine to be pirated we've had the usual influx of crap emails.

OK I'm going to say this one last time....

I've asked nicely (and sometimes a bit less than nicely) to please remember I am not a extended version of Autodesk's tech support for Mudbox. Do not send me emails about how your viewport suddenly has large floating pigs in it or you mesh exploded taking half your house with it. (Or indeed any variations of the above).

It is not my job.

My job is a freelance artist, tutor and sometimes author, I am not here when you cannot be bothered to read a help file or search Google. I am certainly not here to solve problems you may have after you've bid for a freelance gig you realise you have no idea how to do or as a allegedly faster version of Mudbox tech support.

I also do not want to hear about how lucky I am to be asked to work for free on an 'awesome project' of yours that pays nothing, has no one working on it and of course has you as director lol. As the joker said 'if your good at something you don't do it for free...' No artist worth their salt will work on a free project from someone without a good track record unpaid, and certainly not (if they have any brains at all) when the only person working on it is a guy no one knows who insists 'its awesome'.

If I do something for nothing for a person you can bet your arse they are either:

A - A friend

B - someone with a vast track record who I like both in their job and as a person.

C - it is to get a person from either A or B out of a hole they are in by no fault of their own.

D- they are famous lol

E - It's someone I know well

It will never be for:

A - someone I do not know

B - someone I have never met

C - someone with no track record

D - someone who wants someone else to do all the work on 'their awesome project'

E - Someone who wants to use a model of mine in a fan film as they are too lazy to make one themselves or hire someone to do it.

F - That coincides with one or more of the above as well as shortly after a DVD / book or whatever of mine has been pirated.

I do not care how amazing you think it is, I do not need the 'free publicity' as I'm more than capable of making as much of that as I need myself. I am aware you think your making the next big thing and you think it will be so totally awesome it'll make you a millionaire, but trust me when i say this...99.9% of the time it won't. I realise you think you are a special little snowflake but your not, your the same as everyone else. After 40 years on this earth thats become very obvious.

So stop with the emails already! Jesus its getting beyond a joke, if you cannot do something then do what the rest of us do ....and learn. If it is outside of your skill set and you don't have time to learn then be prepared to pay as you wouldn't ask any other profession to work for free so please for the love of god don't do it with me or artists like me.

So that's my very simple rules... respect them and you respect me, ignore them and expect an email telling you to fuck off (and that's if I'm in a nice mood....which most times its only fair to warn you..... I'm not lol).

Doodles

2011-10-31T15:00:00.001-07:00

I love doodling stuff as most times I have no idea what's going to pop up until its nearly done. In fact anyone who has watched me sculpt knows that for 75% of any speed sculpts I do it looks ropey as hell until the last few mins. The exception is of course pre-planned pieces. But it's sort of a trademark of mine...

Anyways, here's a few doodles I've selected from the last few nights, non are serious and all done in my typical 'I have no idea what I'm going to sculpt' mode. I may be able to show a client pice done for a kids TV thing I did for Space Digital soonish..in fact I may be able to now, I've not checked yet lol. Not because I have some mega halloween thing planned, because it may suprise some of you to find out I actually hate halloween. (Mainly because like guy falkes night and carol singers it means people knocking on my sodding door when I'm trying to get shit done. lol)

Sort of lost my way on these ones when my son decided to come and 'help daddy' lol