>click for larger
I will be showing the new Bodies in Motion site for the first time in public at London’s Industry Workshops event on the 10-13th of September (soon!). There is going to be incredible art talent presenting at the workshop, so if this kind of thing interests you, sign up! I am presenting Saturday afternoon, hope to see you there.
click for larger
I am excited to show the first images from a recent collaboration with fellow artist Jason deCaires Taylor. I designed and sculpted the four Shire horses with oil-pump heads for Jason’s installation The Rising Tide currently installed on the Southbank of the Thames, right outside the MI6 building (for all you James Bond and secretive intelligence agency fans out there).
The piece is a powerful commentary on man’s relationship with the environment. Throughout the day the sculptures are submerged and revealed as the tide cycle waxes and wanes. As a long-time scuba diver I am delighted by Jason’s epic underwater works, so it was a pleasure collaborating with him on this piece.
click for larger
My work on the piece involved the design and digital sculpting of the 18-hand tall Shire horses. Interestingly, over the past few years I have sculpted quite a few horses. First my centaur, then work on Mark Wallinger’s White Horse (also installed in London), followed by the horses for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, and now these petrochemical Shires.
Nearly high tide. image © Jason deCaires Taylor
ILM is in London!
I’ve just finished six days of anatomy masterclasses for Industrial Light and Magic, London (yes, the Star Wars guys). This isn’t the first time I’ve been to ILM, in the past I’ve run workshops for both their San Francisco and Singapore offices, but this is the first time it was just a tube journey away (not a nine-hour flight). It is great having Industrial Light & Magic in London!
our digital horse in action
I recently kicked off a series of pastblast posts digging up old but interesting projects that I didn’t have time to write about when they were happening. One of the most interesting and enjoyable visual effects projects that I have worked on is Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of War Horse.
The story follows Joey, a farm horse in rural England, onto the battlefields of World War I. Being a war story, you can imagine there are a few upsets along the way, and Joey inevitably finds himself in very dangerous circumstances – circumstances too dangerous in fact for real ‘horse actors’. Cue our digital Joey.
CREATING THE DIGITAL JOEY
Our digital horse stretching his legs
click for larger
I recently completed a tutorial for 3dArtist magazine about the making of this facial anatomy ecorche. In the article I go through the steps used to create the digital sculpture in ZBrush and about the importance of understanding facial anatomy and why it helps improve portraiture. The tutorial is in issue 81 of the magazine.
Our Megafaces project takes home a gold cube at the ADC 94th Annual Awards in Miami. If you haven’t seen the Megafaces facade in action, there’s a nice little intro video for the project on the awards page here.
click for larger
We are proud to introduce our latest design – the Moai iPad docking station. Inspired by the serene, eternal vigilance of the monolithic icons of Easter Island, we’ve upgraded and remixed them for a tongue-in-cheek poke at the persistent distraction of modern digital life.
click for larger
click for larger
My life-sized bronze sculpture of Amy Winehouse has just been unveiled on what would have been her 31st birthday. The memorial is located in the Stables Market in Camden, London – Amy’s home for many years.
The piece was commissioned by Mitch Winehouse and I hope is a fitting tribute from a father to his daughter. I have immense respect for Amy as an artist and wish she was still making music.
click for larger
Our Megafaces Pavilion for the Sochi Olympics won the 2014 Cannes Lion Grand Prix for Innovation. Created by architecture studio Asif Kahn Ltd, engineered by iArt and with art direction and graphics tech by yours truly, the project was a monumental collaboration that tied together amazing creativity and a mountain of technology to create a compelling visual experience for visitors to the Olympic park.
Find the official Cannes submission video HERE.
Celebrating the Grand Prix in the green room
click for larger
The White Horse is finally installed in London. This is the project of artist Mark Wallinger and was originally planned as a towering 50m tall horse (as tall as the Statue of Liberty) to be erected in the countryside of Kent and visible from the Eurostar. But around the big crash, arts budgets downsized and so did the scale of the horse. Now it is only a very average ‘life-sized’, but it is still striking in its crisp white finish and realism. About a year ago I worked with the team from Sample & Hold to refine the digital version of the horse, based on a scan of Mark’s actual horse. I spent time adding anatomical accuracy and life to the head, face, legs, and hooves (at the time my horse skills were primed, having just finished Spielberg’s War Horse).
click for larger
After a bit of massaging the data was sent off for fabrication. Through a combination of 3d printing, CNC machining, and casting, the piece was brought to life – albeit at a scale smaller than originally intended. But if you are in London and want to check it out, it will be on display on the Mall (just off Trafalgar Square) for two years.
fabrication, in progress
lit at night. © Copyright Sutton Vane Associates
We are excited to have our Hercules XIII tablet stand and the lovely Venus of Cupertino iPad docking station as raffle prizes at the National Portrait Gallery Gala. As two of only 40 raffle prizes, they are in exclusive company along with a Philip Treacy hat, a Gucci handbag, and other amazing prizes.
All proceed support the National Portrait Gallery and its acquisition fund for acquiring exceptional works of historic significance.
click for larger
Every so often I get the chance to work on fun, creative visual effects projects. I was approached by Realise Studio in London to help them with a character design for a commercial – an Ogre. The script had potential – a father has been transformed into an ogre by the pressure of his day-to-day life, a much-needed family holiday transforms him back to himself. Short and sweet. The proposed methodology combined prosthetics with selected digital-face replacement, as good strategy to reduce the amount of work in post-production (as opposed to creating a fully computer-generated face for the entire commercial as in the Audrey Hepburn piece).