OVERVIEW GALLERY

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UNTITLED DEVELOPMENT PROJECT Exoatmospheric powered armor. My client and buddy Charlie Gibson wanted something reminiscent of a classic space suit or deep dive suit, but up-armored with plating and visible strength augmentation.

TRON

TRON High-resolution style guide provided to VFX for the detailing and materiality of the Recognizer. I combined 3D geo generated by Darren Gilford and Rob Johnson with graphics by Dave Scott and added my own panel lines, tech details, and finish breakups.

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TRON VFX style guide view of the Throne Ship, Clu's flying HQ. The Throne Ship grew out of earlier work by Darren Gilford, Joe Hiura and myself on the bridge of Clu's Rectifier cruiser. When it became necessary to make the bridge set a mobile command center, Kevin Loo did a quick 3D extract and I styled the exterior up to a certain level in 2D and 3D. Ultimately Joe Hiura did a gorgeous Solidworks model of the exterior, which Phil Saunders and I polished into the final, fully textured image (among others) seen here.

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TRON I got thrashed for this one by all the fancy transpo designers, but it's the only car I did for Tron so I thought I'd throw it in!

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PERSONAL A military police sentry bot done as a demo for my friend Steve Jung's Red Engine school.

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PERSONAL A maintenance ROV/drone for use in a large-scale zero-G industrial facility. An old piece but I think the design holds up pretty well next to my most recent professional work. It's not appropriate for everything, but I really like a straightforward, engineered design aesthetic.

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AVATAR A quick study of the bioelectrical network inside Hometree, represented as some kind of scan data display. Rick really wanted to play up the analogy between Pandoran bio-networks and the human nervous system, so in creating this I used textures derived from a preserved Victorian extraction and display of all the body's nerves.

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AVATAR I had the lucky task of developing Jim's concept for the ISV Venture Star interstellar vehicle, starting from Jim's sketches and copious technical notes and delivering a partially textured 3D asset which was adapted for final shots by Blur studio (which uses Softimage and could open my native scene files). Enormous help with design, detailed modelling, and even texturing came from three brilliant friends - Tex Kadonaga, Joe Hiura, and Rob Johnson. I was the master planner of the ship but these guys designed a lot of the critical components. It was not unlike the real development of the ISS! More info in this io9 article.

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AVATAR It was ultimately decided that only two CryoUnits and a single cluster of lockers would be fabricated for photography. These would be undertaken by Stan Winston studios (now Legacy FX), and I was asked to do an additional finishing and prep process on the geo before handoff. This is a screengrab of my geo with final details, interior elaboration, graphics textures, etc..

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AVATAR Francois Audouy did some preliminary work on the AmnioTank, but as seemed often to be the case on Avatar I was brought in to detail and finish. All elaboration was based on the functional requirements of the tank as it nourished and protected the growing avatar bodies on their interstellar voyage. The tank is shown here with its transit case, which we see being removed in the film. More info in this io9 article.

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AVATAR Francois Audouy and Andre Chaintreuil did a lot of great work on the LinkUnit before I got to it, but I did a bunch of design on it as it pushed to the final build. A particular emphasis for me was the look of the interior, which needed to be studded with sensor tech. Rick pushed my first, more basic pass toward something more anatomical, where the sensor arrangement creates a graphic icon of the body and nervous system.

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AVATAR Scott Baker did an exterior modelling pass in NURBS and SubDs after my initial 2D attack. Afterwards, to help NZ with fabrication, I took the coffin element of Scott's model (the basic shape of which was partially derived from Andre's earlier model), refined it a bit, and then texture-mapped it with high-res textures into which I cleanly painted the desired part lines and details in "trompe-l'oeuil" technique. There's no way I could have modelled all this! UV'd geo, textures, and ortho renders were then handed off to fabrication.

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AVATAR It was important for Rick and Jim that the biomed graphics in the Avatar linking scenes would explain the linkage process in a fashion both beautiful and understandable. Many studies were done, including some absolutely gorgeous stuff from Leri Greer and Aaron Beck of Weta Workshop, bits of which are pasted into my final link sequence - one frame of which you see here.

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AVATAR Link Room. Closeup design pass on the center med tech console.

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AVATAR Final concept for the HoloTable base. Imaging emitters would be later added to the central plane by Tex Kadonaga. All the high-tech consoles and desks for the Ops Center were fabricated in Los Angeles under the direction of Sean Haworth, and shipped to NZ for shooting.

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TRANSFORMERS A detailed first study of Optimus Prime in a hypothetical "native Cybertron" form. Chest design follows from a rougher study by Tony Kieme.

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TRANSFORMERS Head weathering study for Optimus Prime. Done by rendering and painting over ILM's work-in-progress head geometry at that time. The inevitable decision to make the robots' eyes glow had not yet been made.

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TRANSFORMERS Final back view of Optimus Prime.

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TRANSFORMERS First pass illustration of Bumblebee, where I still had his taillights on the front! This is the '74 Camaro version.

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TRANSFORMERS Test render of the art department's final 3D Bumblebee model, which was developed my myself, Louise Baker, and Karl Strahlendorf from a 2007 Camaro robot restyling by Tony Kieme.

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TRANSFORMERS Autobot protoform folded into a spheroid for intergalactic transit and atmospheric reentry.

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TRANSFORMERS Protoforms entering earth atmosphere.

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TRANSFORMERS First pass at the MH-53 Pave Low Decepticon.

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TRANSFORMERS My 3D design for Frenzy, a sneaky Decepticon which was realized in VFX (by ILM and DD) and as a full-size puppet (by KNB). The prop version was stereolithographically grown almost directly from my geo.

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TRANSFORMERS Frenzy head study using a glowing modification of a nice, mean Ryan Church eye design.

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TRANSFORMERS Final design for Scorponok, based in part on great earlier studies by Ed Natividad and Harald Belker.

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TRANSFORMERS Final 3D concept of the Allspark cube. This was used as a guide for VFX and also prop sculpting by Jamie Miller.

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TERMINATOR: SALVATION VFX concept for the Harvester robot.

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JESSICA SIMPSON "A LITTLE BIT" Unused background dressing for music video. A "jellyfish drone" which would drift past in a virtual world.

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NEXT NEWS NOW Globe design for an ill-fated TV pilot. I did this based on verbal suggestions from Syd Mead (aka The Man), and in his style as much as possible.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 An enormous "wheel bot" based on the mighty O&K/Terex RH400 mining excavator. Michael was really pushing for new robot anatomies on the second film, and the wheel concept caught his fancy right away. The initial sketch had only one wheel but Michael asked for the second so the robot could do an end-over-end bashing motion as it rolled.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Vehicle form for the Twins during the initial Shanghai sequence. I would ultimately do detailed graphic and aging studies for the physical build. I even wrote several of the bumber stickers though I can't take credit for "Decepticons Can Suck My Popsicle".

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TRANSFORMERS 2 My first sketches for the Reed Man infiltrator bot were too similar to my Frenzy from film 1, but this odd, praying-mantis-inspired version caught traction.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Containment device for one of the Allspark shards.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Prop design for the Matrix of Leadership.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 A mean quadruped Constructicon. Never used, but one of my favorite robot designs I've done.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Unused design for a Model T derived Autobot. We did a number "vintage Transformer" studies in response to early story ideas for the film, and I think it could have been really fun to see something along these lines onscreen. It was fun to use wood and leather in a robot design.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Partial reveal of Decepticon which is disguised as a hot college coed.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Autobot based on the Osprey aircraft. Not seen in the film because his transport capabilities were no longer needed once the SR71-bot was given teleportation powers in a later script.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 The big aircraft carrier destruction in TF2 was originally conceived as an attack by a submarine-derived Decepticon leviathan. This was an early rough.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 Designs for Soundwave's alien satellite form, as well as the American MilSat he is...coupling with.

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TRANSFORMERS 2 First and nearly final design for the Steve-Buscemi-voiced obnoxobot. Paul Ozzimo did some further refinement based on the real RC truck prop.

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SUPERMAN RETURNS Update to the classic Superman baby pod. Built practically but not seen in the film.

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PERSONAL Figure drawing sample from college. I am still horrible at drawing people, but I did some decent sight-drawings back in the day.

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PERSONAL One page from a booklet of etchings I did as a student in Rome. I was fascinated with the city's quirky, Italian-made "Ape" ("Bee") 3-wheeled light utility vehicles.