My kids Halloween 2023

We did our yearly Halloween photo again. This year’s themes was KeKe’s Delivery Service (One of my favorite Ghibli films) and DragonballZ (Goku & Vegeta)

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. “

3D Model | My re-imagining of "Steamgear Mash"

I’ve been on a retro gaming kick, and studying the Sega Saturn the last month or so. I came across this game Steamgear Mash. I’ve been wanting to 3d model characters with simple geometry to practice before jumping into my own characters that I wrote up recently.

Steamgear Mash was released in 1995 for the Sega Saturn (I’ve tested it on emulation, ebay has been playing with vintage prices these days) The game is a 3/4 isometric puzzle/action game. Simple arcade fun. (second image in slideshow below is of isometric view, how it would look if I tried to recreate the game exactly like the orginal)

I think physical media/content should make a come back. People would appreciate the art/tech efforts of developers and creators more with something to hold and keep in good condition. But if digitizing all content is a better way to avoid over using the earth’s resources, then it’s best to go digital obviously.

Robo & playing around with AR

A digital storefront I made for a brand I've been developing

I always wanted to own a shop of some kind. I figured that in the digital space we can still build that feeling and environment we want to convey.

This is still technically unfinished, but I’m at the point where I don’t like stringing along ideas and projects, when you stop working on it, it’s done..

First Mech render... Mazinger Z

No character sheet, just referenced some toys and images on google. I’m definitely a fan of Mechs and Kaiju media so I’m proud of this one.

Mazinger Z 1972 to 1974. Never watched it but I just like listening to the intro music. I discovered Mazinger googling it because it resembled Voltron’s design.

My pokemon starters

3d model, elements match their personalities

made a render of one of my favorite instruments/computers

I bought an mpc 2000xl off of ebay when I was 19. A piece of equipment that helped my life creatively. So I randomly made a 3d model of it with no logos. I’m thinking of getting one of the modern versions. I still make music.

Kill_Jill ... low poly Dreamcast design

A lot of mistakes being made, just recording the process. Eventually I plan to learn Unreal to throw rigged characters in and give commands.

Playstation/Dreamcast graphics always looked cool to me..

Low Poly PS1 model look. 1st Mixamo test. 1st Aero AR Test.

My take on Megaman Exe

Made a twitch overlay the other day

Over the past few months I started streaming live to my friends on discord for fun even if no one was watching. Now I’m thinking of streaming some retro gaming on twitch so I modelled and made this overlay design to have a unique look. The sideview is where the chat (if any lol) will live. No one wants it Smash either. Unfortunately I’m quite good

Random animation

A random animation I made last month.

My daughter helped model some of the Japanese lettering and chose some of the colors for shading.

Virtual Gallery Concept mock up | Lë FØŪ

The other day I was chatting online with an artist/friend Lë FØŪ. He shared some of his paintings with me and the guys on Discord. So I came up with the idea to take his painting scans/photos and 3d model a digital art gallery for fun as one of my weekly projects. This makes me think of maybe virtual reality and augmented reality possibilities for the future. I’m still learning and trying to figure things out.

The natural textures from his real life paintings, made me want to try this after UV wrapping this image onto a cube. Which I eventually used for the floor design. Nothing beats real life hand touched art/things, that’s why his textures look so good.

Trying, learning

I’ve been back on my independent animation lessons. I got discouraged before attempting characters a few times and then went to strictly hard surface pieces. But I’m forcing myself to get the theories and workflows down. Still not sure why I’ve been learning 3d/animation. Video games? Just animation? Visual Effects? Maybe all of it. We can do anything that we put our minds to. Let’s set goals and do our best.

1st time using Grease Pencil in Blender

Tackled the first part of a Dedouze tutorial utilizing grease pencil (hand drawing in a 3d space) It was a bit rough because I don’t have a tablet/pen and had to deal with this project with a mouse. But it still ended up coming out cool. The second part is an animation tutorial but I’m skipping out on it since I usually try tutorials to get the fundamentals of a technique and then try my own things. Dedouze is a great teacher and speaks at a good pace and his art style is comforting.

My kids watched Power Rangers so much I started to hate it....so........

(above, watching the last episode of Zyurangers after 50 episodes, us hyping the kids up but we low-key enjoyed it more than them lol)

Before the 2020 lockdown and tv watching grew to insane heights, my kids were binging Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Netflix. Then the next series, Zeo, then Turbo, then In space…..then….and then… It was bad enough that looking back we see how bad the show was spliced together with Japanese footage and how cheesy it was. But when my oldest son said “can we watch the first power rangers again”? I just couldn’t do it. I’ve always been a tokusatsu/mech fan through Godzilla, Eva, etc. etc. so I planned to one day find some original Super Sentai on dvd and show the kids. Luckily I randomly went on Tubi and seen that they had about six versions of Sentai up for free to watch with subtitles. The show has been on for over 30 years but the ones on Tubi parallel the first handful of releases of the American versions of the show.

We started watching… my wife and I take turns reading subtitles aloud so they can understand plots and names. We fell in love with the original version of the show. It has death, and loss, Kami vs Satan, all kinds of things that American audience are told they can’t digest, and this is a kid/family show. We watched all 50 episodes of Koryu Sentai Zyurangers (Dinosaur Squadron Zyurangers) a completely different show then what I watched as a kid. I saved a lot of my Power Rangers action figures from my childhood and gave them to my son. Even bought some extras that were lost off of Ebay. A friend of mine bought some for the kids too. The toys now have more meaning that they watched and love the original.

It’s been interesting seeing them digest the names and culture, which they already do at times because they watch anime with us, but this was way more hands on. Instead of Megazord its Daizujin. Instead of Rita it’s Bandora, not Tommy but Burai. A main character even dies. The bad guys’ motives were way higher stakes.

We finished this series and since moved on to the next one Gosei Sentai Dairanger, which they’re surprisingly loving just as much as the last. The subtitles helps motivate my 5 years old to read along, and understand the plot is a big deal here because one of our rules is if you don’t understand what’s happening lets turn it off and find something else to do. Glad they understood it and enjoyed it. I just wanted to blog and share. If you’re curious go to Tubi its free and doesn’t need a login, fire up Zyurangers and watch what we never seen that was left on the cutting room floor. Be safe.

My kids Halloween 2020 | Goku & Bulma

Work in progress... brainstorm

Rendered in two different engines. Building 3d game environment. Modern RPG. {Our protagonist would come go to the local corner store a lot when he was in middle school, his brother was a senior in highschool. They would stop by on the drive home, get a snack and then play fighting games in the back of the store with whatever change they had left. Now 19 years old, a year after his brothers passing.. With the mystery and depression surrounding his brothers death, our protagonist sometimes comes to the corner store to play his big brothers favorite fighting game. Sitting in that chair heals him, replenishes SP and acts as a game save checkpoint. The store also doubles as a shop to buy items and equipment, needed for the adventure.} April 4th 2020/IG

2019 Webby Award: Vh1's All Jokes Aside: Black Women In Comedy

Few years ago, I believe 2018 the VH1 Digital team put together a documentary called All Jokes Aside: Black Women in Comedy. I was able to shoot, post produce, and edit on this project. In 2019 to our surprise the doc won a Webby Award (Below) which went to the EP Oj Lima. Eventually I reformatted this project for broadcast on BET HER with Supervsing super producer Remi Williams. I’m not really into awards but it is cool to be apart of things that gets recognized, especially if you and your colleagues worked hard on it. This project went from many small packages then being consolidated into a full piece and that was a task. The doc features Tifanny Haddish, Luenell, Amanda Seales, and more.

The doc All Jokes Aside: Black Women In Comedy is currently living on VH1’s Youtube Channel if anyone cares to watch. (And no the shot above was not shot, lit, or set by me, no no lol)

Things you find on hard old hard drives

A design I made a long time ago. That’s me in Pre-school.