Illustration: rejected book covers

 

I worked hard on these for a client for use as a book cover and they were rejected so I decided they could stand on their own as art for art's sake. Made mostly in Blender with compositing done in Affinity Studio.

Animation:: 25 Years Later UPDATE -South End street

 It's been a very tough month. I am trying to restart my life and work again and picked up where I left off on my remake of my "25 years Later" animation. This film has MANY locations that need to be remade from scratch. One is the South End neighbourhood street at the start of the film. I made  a good number of townhouse "pieces" I can put together in different configurations to make any number of townhouses. The houses on the right side of the street and at the end of the street are just flat images with a transparent background (as out most of the trees) to keep the polygon count low and renders fast. They will be out of focus in the final shots so no need to make fully 3D structures. The final shots will mostly be closeups and medium shots. It might get a special treatment to make it look like it's in the past. I think having a visual distinction before the present day and the memory shots will make the story more clear.  

Above is the new version. It will need better lighting but I like that it looks much more natural. The original is below and while I like it still, it does have an oversimplified look and lacks proportional details. EDIT: I did more work on the image using a technique that lets me take a 2D image, the row of buildings on the right and in the background and extrude them to a 3D model so they cast shadows and react to light as a 3D model would. This will be a HUGE help in this and future projects. There are limitations work around, but not many and it didn't increase render time at all! 

Illustration: Leaf

 

Another leaf drawing. Have not done one in a while, haven't drawn much in a while! I just wanted to draw something and also to use Krita again. I am definitely out of practice. 

Animation:: 25 Years Later UPDATE - bike riding

 

Moving along with this project. I took the bike model and made it work for animation, meaning the wheels turn, the handlebars turn and the pedals turn and the whole thing can be moved as one object. Then I put the main character on it and, after a couple days of work, managed to attach his feet to the pedals so if they move his legs move and look like he is pedalling the bike.  I cheated on the wheels and pedals turning in a way. There is a technique for making them turn when the bike moves forward but it involved math so I just couldn't handle it. Instead, I animated them by hand for 10 seconds, long enough for any scene this will be in and can drop it in and it will look fine. There are no close-ups of him on the bike, just medium long and long shots. 

Updating older animations: 25 Years Later (2020)

 

Original: 25 Years Later (2020) 4 minutes 19 seconds

The story of a man taking a bike journey from Montreal to Boston, where 25 years earlier, he had taken care of a sick friend and the memories invoked along the way. Made in Cinema 4D.

New version.... about the same length of time I'm thinking. More or less. I cut a couple shots while making my shot list for this new version but I think some of the other shots will get lengthened as I try and improve on them. This will be made in Blender. The characters a re made the same as the first version but since switching to Blender I have a much better handle on how to make them more realistic. I am going to have much more cinematic lighting, I hope, and  more atmosphere to each shot plus better movement and emotions on the two characters. 

Above is the cyclist character in all the versions I will need throughout the film. The second character changes more dramatically and will be more of a challenge. 

A big challenge will be remaking all the sets. There was A LOT and I don't plan on cutting any out. Interiors and many exterior shots of cycling from Montreal to Boston. As this is a deeply personal film for me, I want it to be special, though I doubt even as many people who saw the first version will watch this updated one. 

A final gift from my friend Ralph Hodgdon.

 

My good friend Ralph died last April and this painting done by Walter Plunkett, MGM costume designer for Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz and others, is now in my home. Ralph and Walter were close friends and Watler sent this with the enclosed the letter explaining the symbolism in the work. The outer frame is real; the inner montage is all painted to look like a montage. Ralph and I often admired this and talked about it when I visited. I have to thank his friend Dan for making sure it made its way to me. It is now up on my living room wall. 

Illustration: Another look at a mortuary art piece.

 This one had many o the same issues as the last one. Missing textures but also it was too harsh looking and lacked the mood I wanted. 

I was able to soften it and also make the lighting look more naturalistic and bring the focus to the death and grieving man statues. 

Below is the original.

Illustration (take 2) Death as a Friend

 

I was happy enough with my first image but since I finished it I have tried to reopen the file and becuase. I changed computers and Blender versions it was missing textures and I decided to fix that. In the time between finishing it and seeing the problem I also learned a lot more and thought this could be very much improved and I think I had been . he skeleton is much more real looking and I used cycles to render it, which is much more accurate the EEVEE. Above is the new and below is the old so you cna see the difference. It took 90 minutes to render. I could have optimized it more but it is also poster sizedin case I decide to print it. 

Computer games: Riven (2025 Remake) Cyan Games

 I was very happy to play the remake of Myst when that came out but I have been waiting for a new updated version of the sequel, Riven for decades. They did release it in its original form for the iPad years back and it was fun, though a pixelated sort of fun, to go back to it and not have to load another CD-ROM disk whenever I made my way to a new island in the game. For years a group of fans had been trying to update the game with new graphics until Cycan Games finally decided to join with them and have an official new version. 

This is not just a copy of the original with updated graphics. They have changed some of the gameplay and have added additional places to explore, reworked the puzzles and simplified some aspects of the old game that were, frankly, aggravating. 

The Myst remake looked amazing but this is on a different level. The care and quality of every place you visit is on its own worth buying a copy. Many of the puzzles have been rethought out to be easier to manage and make more sense within the gameplay. There is new dialogue and additional lore to keep even those who played the original multiple times over the years feeling like they are doing something new. 

As with Cyan's games after "Obduction, the characters are 3D models and while they move better than in the Myst remake that might take you out of gameplay a little. It didn’t bother me. 

I made a huge mistake and didn't make notes and just thought I would just cheat my way through the game, since I was only revisiting its worlds only to have back track to get information that varies every time you start a new game. I did find getting around was not as annoying as it had been. The islands and getting around them seems more logical and easier to manage now. 

I do wish, as I did originally, that the game stayed open after the conclusion so you could just walk around and revisit some of the mazing locations but it does have a fairly definite ending and there is no way getting around that! 

I didn't have a computer with the Apple Silcon chips in it so this was the first time I was able to play this and it was worth the wait, even though I wish I didn't have to. 

Animation: 28 Young Men (2026)

 

This is a remake of a 2020 version I made in Cinema 4D and had a lot of technical restrictions that never sat well with me. There was no way the software and my computer could but 29 characters in a shot and even just moving them around, which worked as no one was going to count the men, was even more limited, since they could really move much or the app would crash. I do think it worked but lacked the look I wanted. 

This version made with Blender, I hope, is much more realized with more movement and a better, more detailed setting. Michael Z. Keamy and I were originally going to film this with live actors in Provincetown but getting 28 young men to cavort naked on a beach, even in P-town isn't as easy to put together as it sounds. So I went with animation and his great narration. The soundscape is simple. I added some seagull noises to round it out but otherwise it's unchanged. The structure is basically the same as well. I like the way I set up the shots but now everything looks better and has more going on in each shot. I gave the young men and the woman more character I hope.