The Tower

Here's a model of a tower based loosely on the Scott Monument in Edinburgh. Enjoyy.

BEST: Seeing the final product, all lit and textured and rendered. Made all the arches, and architectural detail worth it.

WORST: Watching the clock ticking while deciding how much detail I could afford to put in. Also figuring out how to use C4D, not the most self explanatory program but incredibly functional once you figure out what all the buttons do and what all the shortcuts are.

Coming up next, Isengard! Haha just kidding. I choose life.

plankton: Siphonophore

The assignment: illustrate the structure, story, or setting of any plankton. Of course, I chose the thing with a million tentacles because what's the point of doing a simple illustration when you could just pull all your hair out? 8D
Meet the Portuguese Man O' War. It's a siphonophore and it is not a jellyfish!
Worst: Those crazy gastrozooids and gonozooids. Trying to find out which was which and how to differentiate/whether or not it's possible to tell from whatever distance was just terrible. Most closeup photos or videos of the siphonophore were unlabeled or only vaguely eluded to which parts were which. Mostly because, at this distance, the gastrozooids and gonozooids look the same. However, under closer microscopic observation they would look vastly different.
Best: After the line work was done, painting this thing was really fun. Also, solving the challenge of finding shortcuts for drawing a million zooids without it being obviously cheated/copy pasted was rewarding.

Egg Timer Exploded View

ASSIGNMENT: Pick an object with an outer casing and do an exploded view of it.
Who doesn't love exploding chicken? This is what the inside of an egg timer looks like. More parts than it seems from the outside.

BEST: Breaking it apart was pretty fun, and modelling it was great once I got into the rhythm of things. This was definitely a great learning experience for figuring out how winding, time keeping mechanisms work.


WORST: Measuring everything accurately down to the last thousandth of an inch. Also, I very cleverly [sarcasm] decided to model this in sketchup and import it as a pdf into illustrator. Stuupid move. There was a lot of fixing that had to go on in illustrator as sketchup does not like curved surfaces and insists on creating jagged edges. I absolutely had the time of my life fixing those springs in illustrator.

generic Plant Cell

Here's a plant cell illustration with images of what multiple cells look like and what the membrane structure is made of. Learn something new everyday =D

BEST: I've always loved biology textbook illustrations so it was cool to be on the other end of the information communication system.

WORST: I chose to work with a limited colour palette so differentiating all the different organelle, especially the ones that look similar [golgi, ERs] got really challenging. And overall getting little details correct.

Conceptual SLR

Conceptual model of an SLR camera showing the movement of light through the lense and body of the camera.

Also, thought I'd share this TEDtalk on 3D printing human organs. Crazy, cool stuff!

Talent Show Poster

Old poster design for a talent show.

axonometric BATHROOM

Axonometric of a bathroom including a cabinet oblique of a tissue dispenser. At first I tried to fight the pink but at 12am, I decided to stop fighting what came naturally and just go pink. Especially since the breast cancer awareness campaigns have turned pink into an icon of femininity, it seems to be fitting for this graphic.

And I added in the little bathroom people as a sort of instructable because not everyone knows how to use the bathroom ;]

Botanical

Traditional timee. Here are some botanical ink illustrations using different techniques.

nib

Stippling! That's right, 1/10th of the way in,
I already regretted using that 005 micron.

Brush. Shading perpendicular to the veins.

Brush. Shading following the light

Okay this one is actually done on Illustrator using the pen tool.
First time doing something like that with Illustrator.

Nature Journaling

Some nature journaling sketches. I gotta say, as a nature noob, pretty much everything looks interesting and new to me.


Woah, some of the colours are reproducing kinda psychedelic. Put on some sunglasses and look at them, it'll look more like the original =D

Great Horned Owl WING

Woohoo, it moves! [Easily amused].


Also, if you're in Toronto this weekend, it's Nuit Blanche time! Who doesn't love running around post modern art in dt Toronto until the wee hours of the morning?

Also, is this not the weirdest animal you have ever seen? [Gerenuk]

OWL.ca

Hey Guys,

Check it out: Owl.ca launched with the logo design I did for them and currently working on stylized species images. We're experiencing difficulties with transparencies, can you tell? =[

All owls every day.

Bombardier Beetle

Hey guys!
I just finished my last assignment for the year. What a weird feeling, to not have anything due next week.

Anyway, the objective was to illustrate some sort of process or function of a bug. I chose something more internal because bombardier beetles are amazing on the inside.

Enjoy and for anyone who is having great weather [as we are], hope you're savouring it!

it's a SHED

Hey guys!
Here's a simple garden shed design, modeled in Sketchup and rendered in Kerkythea.

rendered front and back

rendered exploded view

instructive exploded view

GGC Easter2012

front

Hey guys,

Just a quick update. This is an invite postcard I did for Grace Chinese Gospel Church's easter event.
Enjooy, and come if you happen to be on this side of the planet...and free.

back

Humanless

Hey Guys,
So I did the Kony piece, but I haven't gotten around to photographing the published page so I post this instead.

It's always amused me that we put different connotations into the words that define who we are. I feel like that in and of itself says a lot about our species.

Enjoyy =]

Infographicsarefun!

Hey folks!
Sorry for the silence. It's been busy, which I know is no excuse. Bad me.
Anyway I took a break from school work to do this. The debate of whether or not to release information regarding suicides on the TTC subway is on going. The largest fear being that of copycats. Statistics like this were, however, released on February 2009. Unfortunately, further statistics have not been forthcoming. Regardless, I think it's an interesting topic of public awareness as well as protection and it was definitely eye opening to have a look at this.

Hope y'all are doing well. And if, for some reason, you have been living under a rock and have not seen it, check out Kony2012. I've been asked to do an illustration on it so researching that has been an eye opener as well. I'd be interested to know what you think, whoever you are. So if you have a moment and an opinion, I'd love to hear it!

BIRDS [cont.]

So I forgot to upload these with the bird diagrams. Here are some sketches and rough research to accompany the hawk wing and ani topography. Fun stuff!


The hawks were drawn from two visiting hawks from the Peregrine Foundation. All the other birds are referenced from the ROM's stuffed collection.

BIRDS

Hey guys,
Here's a topographical study and wing study of a Smooth-billed Ani and Red-tailed Hawk [respectively].


W O R S T :
I think the biggest challenges for this project had to be those feathers. Dang birds got so many of them all over the place. How is anyone supposed to know where one part starts and one part ends?!

B E S T :

Most enjoyable part of this was definitely having the opportunity to get a close up look of a Red-tailed and a Harris hawk.

Enjoy!

SMAUG

Hey folks!
I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings and recently I've been reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien [for the first time]. The imagery used in this book is just SO rich and inspiring. This particular passage describing the worm, "Smaug", was especially vibrant in my mind. Sadly, school work and other inspirations have sort of pushed this project to the back of the line but I thought I'd share the little that I have so far. It does not at all do the story justice but hopefully I'll get back to it soon. If not, just reading Tolkien's work will complete the rest of the picture for you.

DINO

Hey Folks!
Here's a process book for a toy project. This project taught me that dowels suck. Drawing them, sanding them, painting them, it all sucks! But I do love how the little guy turned out. I am very pleased indeed.