Video Art: Time Lapse Portraits

A time lapse of two portraits I drew of two of my classmates. The portraits took thirty minutes each, and were drawn from life using vine charcoal and charcoal pencil on white sketch paper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjNZvWKNdZY&feature=player_detailpage

International Twig Station

Our fourth project in 3D Design involved the use of multiple objects to form a larger object. The multiplied object had to be related to the conglomerate object in some way, either by way of comparison or juxtaposition.

For my project, I decided to juxtapose, and build a model of the International Space Station out of twigs. The ISS is arguably the single most advanced chunk of technology ever assembled, and the twig is the first tool used by our primitive hominid ancestors millions of years ago...

The station's main truss is a single dowel rod painted black, about which a scaffold of twigs is glued. the scaffold anchors the eight main solar arrays.

The station's modular habitat is suspended from the truss by loops of wire. The modules themselves are cylindrical pieces of black-painted foam, wrapped in twigs.

Mona Jebediah

Photos of my latest painting: Jebediah Kerman of KSP, in the style of the Mona Lisa...

Unmasking Tali'Zorah (*in before the big reveal!*)

Before Mass Effect 3 comes out and Bioware inevitably destroys the character forever by taking her gorram mask off, I had to take a stab at a Tali'Zorah concept myself.
Heavily inspired by Darth Vader, and for good reason. Being packed inside an airtight enviro-suit for your entire life can't be healthy...

Little attention was paid here to the differences between Human and Quarian faces with regard to texture, forehead ridges, etc. The possibilities there are innumerable so I didn't bother too much with it. We do know from the ME codex and ingame conversations that Quarians have two eyes with lids, lips, teeth, a human-ish nose (seen through visor) and something not entirely unlike ears. Those facts have been accounted for. I did experiment a bit with the nose, adding slits that curve around from the nostrils much like a dog's, but otherwise her nose is human.

I was going for a very unhealthy look here, the face showing signs of irritation from contact with suit components. The constant presence of a feeding tube has left the corners of the mouth inflamed and the lips chapped. 
Whatever skin pigmentation was present at birth is almost completely gone due to lack of contact with natural light. The skin is now pallid and nearly translucent, showing obvious veining. 
Eyes are bloodshot and shadowed from years of strain, both from adjusting to visor-refracted light and flickering holographic HUDs.
The scalp and brow sport a few wispy grey hairs. A medical treatment similar to chemotherapy is used to prevent hair from growing inside the helmet, removing the need to dangerously expose the face to the elements every month or so for something as trivial as a haircut.
The nasal tubes reach into the trachea and would be very difficult to unintentionally dislodge. From an artistic perspective they're there to emulate endotracheal tubes used in real life. In Tali's case, they could serve a variety of purposes, from rapidly administering antibiotics, to monitoring the respiratory system via connected sensors, to preserving oxygen supply in case of windpipe constriction due to allergic reaction.


So, no, I definitely wasn't going for a "cutesy" look here (or absurdly hideous) as most fan artists have tended to. Many of Mass Effect's female characters are sexualized to a ridiculous degree, and Tali's suit is already unnecessarily (and implausibly, given its function) form-fitting, so there's no need to compound the problem and cheapen the character by stereotypically idealizing her face too.
Realism has a way of separating the men from the boys, so to speak.


Later, I hope to redesign the entire suit as well. Will post if I ever get around to it...

3D Design - Second Project

The goal of this project was to create a wireframe model. I chose to replicate the SSV Normandy SR1 from the original Mass Effect in honor of the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3, as well as for the nerd points of course.
I chose the SR1 over the SR2 mainly both because Mass Effect was the better game, and the original Systems Alliance design is more complex and interesting than its Cerberus copycat.

The model was built from copper-coated welding rod. Parts were soldered together at first, but I later found hot-glue to be much stronger and easier to apply. I didn't have a digital 3D model or blueprints to work from, and based most of my measurements on Googled screenshots and in-game cutscenes.

Here're a few photos of the ship under construction. At this point I had finished the fuselage and begun construction on the two primary fusion torch nacelles...

Here is the completed model. Sadly, it's unable to reconfigure it's thrusters for stability reasons, but looks pretty shiny nonetheless...

 

Some more KSP fan art. This is of course based on Riess's (of Our Intrepid Crew) splash screen for the game, which was, in turn, inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Decided to try one of my own, both because the original is so damn cool, and also in light of the (hopefully) fast-approaching first official release of the game.

Enjoy!

3D Design - First Project

In my 3D Design Class at Bellarmine University, our first project was to create an object out of cardboard that could be installed somewhere on campus, playing off of the installation space in some way.

Seeing two parallel pipes running along the ceiling of the art studio gave me the idea of hanging a cable car on one of them to give the room the appearance of a train station.
This was the result:

To begin, I cut, out of a sheet of cardboard, an approximately five-foot long silhouette of the car I planned to build, as well as four cross-sectional ribs, each equipped with a hook on top to attach the whole thing to the pipe.
Cutting notches into both the ribs and spine allowed me to fit them together to form a skeleton, around which I would fit the hull.

The main section of the hull is a single sheet of cardboard, scored such that it can fold around the ribs at their corners, creating a seamless shell. The windows were cut into the sides once the hull was wrapped.

The back of the car consists of a fifth cross-section with extensions on each face. the extensions were scored and folded in to fit within the hull. Spring tension holds the stern flush with the hull.

The nose was constructed last. Inevitable inaccuracies combined with warping of the cardboard spine due to water damage prevented me from attaching a clean net of the nose. I built the nose piece by piece, measuring gaps and filling them with custom-fit panels. The panels were fixed together with cardboard tape and hot-glue.