Project Review: Onward Disney PIXAR Feature Animation Key Art 2018

3D logos for Onward feature Animation-A heavy Steel Title treatment with an inward extrusion with added design details inside. A little Middle Earth feel to this title.

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- A wood title with some gold inlay with a motif taken from a staff in the film that held a crystal. 

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- An almost Center Bevel with a really heavy bevel in iron. The crystal was a main light source here between Disney's and PIXAR's Logos. 

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- An amber Crystal that was based off the Crystal used in the staff in the concept art.

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- a simple wood with softer edges and no sharp bevels was a Sub-D model with 4 levels of turbo-smooth added for displacement.

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- an extruded near flat with a lighter edge bevel done in an Indiana Jone like palette. 

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- Using the above model with a custom red inset texture map as well as a spline based micro strip this was in a red as steel look. 

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- This reverse extrusion inset into the title used a fabric texture sourced in the concept art for the Van back curtains. The film revised the curtains so this was not a match after concept phase work. 

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- a combination of wood plates with multiple bevels and a metal face at the top of the stacked design. 

 

3D logos for Onward feature Animation- a Plaid material based on the Character Ian Lightfoots shirt. I did a pillowed soft face in a chrome frame.

 Project Review: Onward Disney 

PIXAR Feature Animation 

Key Art 2018

 

Client:  PIXAR via Leroy and Rose
Creative Direction:  Melchior Lamy 
Project Date:  November 2018.

     Today I am covering a large series of 3D Logos I was contracted to develop for PIXAR's Onward from back in November 2018. I was happy to work on non traditional looks for the 3D Logos with a wide range of looks. My typical fare is in metal logos and glass as the most common ones I am asked to do, so I enjoyed the variety in this gig.

    Leroy and Rose often called me for Feature Animation Key Art. I have a background working in Animation as a Conceptual Designer, Art Director, as well as Layout, Character, and Prop designer in Phantom 2040, and the New Adventures of Flash Gordon. My first full time job was for Hearst Animation Productions, so I love this genre of entertainment.

     Doing anything for PIXAR is an honor as they were trailblazers in 3D Animation. This work I did was before any 3D animation was sent out to vendors so I received some pre-vis and sketches to work off of mostly.

 

    I did this work on Key Art 3D Titles at a development stage, so you can see a wide range of looks. I used textures and elements from the reference in the logos as well as materials like Wood, Crystal, steel, as well as fabrics used in the film environments and characters themselves. I also combine multiple materials as well stacked and inlaid as well in the visual development.

 
    Just one set of vector files provided to us by the client were used to create multiple solutions in the 3D models. Some are flatter and extruded, while others are chiseled with heavy bevels, and some were displaced with high poly count geometry for the wood versions so the wood grain was dimensional in 3D and not merely a bump map fake. One file can be made dimensional in so many ways. Pixar ultimately chose a 2D flat logo with a bevel effect

 

     The three dimensional thinking skills I developed in Industrial Design really gets used for this kind of work. I see many 3D solutions to one file, and here the agency allowed me to explore a bit. Love that!

 

     I am full time doing freelance while I hunt for a full-time place to work at, so if you need a bid for a 3D Illustration or 3D Logo, or a 3D Model feel free to contact me for a quote. I am open to Hourly gig's, Work Retainers, Part-time, and mostly Full Time opportunities [ Open to relocation ] would be best. I have worked remote since 2009, so I am ready to help you on your projects!

                                 Cheers, THOM

Project Review: 3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4 November 2013

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- The Tusk concept design for Key Art One Sheets was my favorite one of the bunch for Game of Thrones Season 4. I has this as my desktop background on my phone for years.

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- This is the Z-Depth Mask produced at render as a render element from Cebas Final Render GI plug-in for 3DS Max. Perfect for distance based editing on the image.

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- This is the Ambient Dirt shader pass I provide to add grunge and depth to the color 3D render pass. I use this pass on nearly all my 3D renders stills and animations. In post work like in Adobe Photoshop it allows the Art Directors and Designers to take total control over a baked in dirty color pass single render. very useful for them.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- A screen grab clay shader showing wire frames and surfaces only. There were hundreds of swords hand placed as blades of grass as well as blood droplets and piece of busted and chipped metal flying in the air. I really enjoyed taking the simple tusk shape and giving it ridges and a twist before I bent them into the final arched shape to get nice organic ridges to catch light off of.

 

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- a close up on the scene as a Behind the Art wireframe showcasing the build.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- The 30 sheet billboard wide comp was a sea of swords layout that was to be used for multiple formats and comps. Flying debris in the center with the fingers of God lighting via a Volumetric Lighting set up.

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- a Screen grab textures showing wire frames. You will notice I use different colors for the objects wire frames since I didn't build 100+ swords and I need to mix them up so I use the colors to ensure a variety with the 28 or so I did build in 3D. Also the same goes for the debris groups I move around as well.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- A Z-Depth pass render is always provided unless the client does not want it.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- This is the One Sheet version built from the above 30-Sheet wide shot. I dropped in a stone version of the GOT Logo as well. I moved the swords around to make sure I had a good composition as well as scale changes with some bigger hero swords.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- A screen grab Clay shader image shows the level of detail in the mesh. these are built as Quad Sub-D[ Subdivision] assets so they can be up-rezzed with more divisions for a wider use from one file.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- A close up Screen grab showing some of the Sub-D on the Hilt of the weapons.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- This final render was the Throne itself destroyed. Nice dutch camera angle with swords everywhere. For this I followed a concept art painting as directed.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- This Clay shader Screen Grab shows the wire frames as well as the Quad Subdivision modeling in the wall and stairs along with the destroyed throne.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- A Z-Depth pass with 256 levels of grey for distance from camera post production editing needs.

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 4- I final Clay shaded screen grab showing how the scene is built for the camera locked in so I only put objects that are seen in the comp. Theatrical print work has very fast turn around and tight budgets so you need to work smart and render only what is needed.

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 2- 

Re-posted Finished Image Crown Image: The full post can be found here

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 2-  

Re-posted 2nd Crown design for Boy King Image: The full post can be found here  

 

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 3-  

Re-Posting of The Throne I built prior. The full post can be found here 

 

 

 

 

3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations for Game of Thrones Season 3-

 Re-posting of the Throne I built prior at a low angle. The full post can be found here

 

Project Review

  3D Key Art Logos and Concept Illustrations

for Game of Thrones Season 4

November 2013
 

Client:  HBO via Buster Design
Creative Direction: Neville Burtis
Project Date:  November 2013.

     Today I am posting some really fun work I did for Neville Burtis a decade back when he was at Buster Design for Season 4 of Game of Thrones. I first met Neville while he was still at Art Machine, and interviewed for a 3D Creative Director role. He left soon after that time, and we ended up reconnecting years later and worked together on a freelance basis for a while.

     I have posted in the past work I did for Game of Thrones with a few finished including the main Logo and the crown used for all Key Art Finishes for Season 2 here, and Season 2's boy king crown here. I also did concept work for the Throne itself here as well for Gravillis Inc. here.

 

     I did a series of 3D Logos and tag lines but today's post is focusing on a really fun concept that Neville came up with and let me go with. It has to do with a massive amount of swords, so many that in the first read it looked like tall grass. Add in a lot of action with blood and parts flying and the concepts were a go. My favorite was adding in the Woolly Mammoth tusks protruding up from the filed of blood and steel. I also had to destroy the throne itself for one concept that was after that huge battle concept.

    Today's post shows the delivered work along with Behind the Art assets with Z-Depth masks, and wireframe screen grabs showing the build out itself.

     I really enjoyed all the projects I did for Neville there, all were high concept work with 3D Logos and 3D Concept Designs, which was always a good mix of things to keep me busy.

     I am back full time doing freelance as I hunt for a full-time place to work at, so if you need a bid for a 3D Illustration or 3D Logo, or a 3D Model feel free to contact me for a quote. I am open to Hourly gig's, Work Retainers, Part-time, and Full Time opportunities [ Open to relocation ] would be best. I have worked remote since 2009, so I am ready and experienced to help you.

                                 Cheers, THOM

Project Review: I-Robot [2004]- 3D Gear Logo-PART II

 The Main first design I did of the iRobot 3D Icon Logo in brushed steel with a cool blue reflection.

I did this alt with a black-and-white reflection map and lighting set-up in 3D, so it was mostly monochromatic.

 I then rendered out this fully transparent version. I had done a transparent glass Walther PPK for the bond series at BLT,and this was referenced for the look.

The legibility with glass is a serous issue to deal with so for the next pass I put a wider softer diffused highlight on the face of the logo to cover some details out front. 

This was a post FX built comp in Photoshop, that I had overlay and underlay shuffling with the two versions of steel and glass to create a transparent aluminum captain!

  The base exterior 3D Logo build file in ambient wireframe for iRobot.

 The exploded view shows all the bits and pieces inside this 3D logo. This was referenced for my Astroboy Logo with robot parts inside years latter, as seen here.

Close up details included heat-sinks, gears chains, fans and various resistors etc.

 I scaled and fit these parts to fit inside each letter.

Retainer springs posts and some sub structure was needed inside these letters.

A reverse shot shows the hollow face type that was filled with these pieces.

The chain was comp'ed in fast so I did not go fully around the gear[ not enough time].

I also did this alternate, a reverse with the type cut fully thru the "I-box". This is the steel render. 

The transparent version with a very electric blue based on the light color on the robots from a film shot we finally received to match color to.
 

 Another combo version with metal and glass rendered out and painted over in Photoshop by the AD's

 I did a final version for this type layout with a volumetric light coming out of the 'type hole' in this darker 3D render of the 3D Logo for iRobot I did back in 2004.

Project Review
I ROBOT
3D Gear Logo
PART II

Client: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. Via The Cimarron Group.
Art Director(s): Chad Robertson and Calvin Sumler.
Project Date: Late Fall 2003.

My first job for The Cimarron Group was to do some 3D logos for the upcoming i-Robot feature with Will Smith. I had worked with Chad Robertson over at BLT so this was a continuation of our working relationship, just now moved over to another company, so we explored transparent logos with gears and misc. machinery inside the type.

Today I cover in detail that first concept I did in PART II.

I was asked to build out a hollow logo with robot parts inside, so as usual I was given the type layout, this time as a bitmaps, so I used Vector-Magic to convert it to an Illustrator file to build off of,and I proceeded to fill the logo with parts.

None of the logos finished, but it was a good exercise that helped work out some challenges with transparent logos that were used a few more times over the following years.


You can review my first post with a small overview here.

Look for more posts on this project in the future.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: Sand's Bethworks Casino

An I-Beam Profile Logo built with heavy steel.

The Iconic Bridge still standing at the Steel Mill is used here in the Logo as well.

It is always fun to bend a Logo in half having one word on one side and another on the second one as seen above.

A glowing Metal 3D Logo designed by me.

One of my favorite Icons with the block of Iron with the Logo on it.

A cool steel version of a Logo with Holding Device.

A Warm Steel Logo with Holding Device. A bit closer to a Crest design.

Glowing metal from behind. A two pass render using Sub Surface Scattering to get that proper internal glow in the HOT IRON.

The Big Heavy Chain indicates the weight of this Design.

Andy's Final Design Proposed for the exploration.

Sand's
BETHWORKS
Bethlehem PA.

Clients The Sands via The Cimarron Group.
Art Director: Darren Keller and Andrew Marciniak
Project Date: Summer 2007.

I did the occasional project for the Home Entertainment Department when I was in-house at The Cimarron Group, and back in the Summer of 2007, we did a 3D logo exploration for a new Casino built in an old steel mill in Bethlehem PA.

This was a fun project in that I got to build heavy metal Logos with rivets and rust, and best of all HOT steel. Glowing metal produces a unique look, and with Sub surface Scattering[ internally translucent] in all major Global Illumination Renderers these days, and this project was perfect to do some experimentation on that front.

Very Fun Project all in all.

Cheers, THOM