YEAHHhhhhh

My Hot Toys Terminator T-800 finally Arrived!

PIXAR Master Class 2010 Report

Made this report for office, it's employee responsibility, i feel it sort of sums up what i experienced during the short session. I thought i'd share it here :)

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Class outline:

To invoke the understanding of form and shape through the process of sculpting. Students are presented the techniques of armature building, and initial clay built up.

My feedback:

As I entered the classroom I was greeted by the hearty Jerome, I took my seats and he immediately began the lecture. After introducing himself formally, he presented to us a slide show of various sculpture build ups he had acquired over the web. Soon after, there were pictures of is own work, and his own progress of sculpture.

Jerome's highlighted particularly the fact that form dominates finish. That the strength of a sculpture is dominantly dictated by the quality of it's shape and form. Be it roughed in of smoothed on, a sculpture with distinct and clear definition of inter changing shapes on its mass has the better qualities of a sculpture.

We were taught to create quick armatures, simple and efficient ones and his sculpts are usually massed in quick and dirty. We then proceeded to displacing the armature with some aluminium foil, and then start to bulk up the clay. He constantly stressed to maintain a good overall form initially, to preserve the outlining shape of a design, rather than the details that litter within it.

Along the way, he was continuously showing us more behind the scenes sculpts he had done for PIXAR, from Toy Story to Nemo. Countless renditions of characters were sculpted and re sculpted before they ever get into a 3d software. This shows how particular PIXAR directors are at their direction before committing to digital output.

The sculpting session was very hands on, and Jerome would personally sit by your side and critique your work personally. It was a pleasure to have been under his guidance, despite it being rather short-lived.

Here are points that summarize the knowledge gained from this masterclass.

1. Form dictates finish

2. Detail just needs time and effort, form however, needs acute judgment in mass and shape.

3. Sculpting in the creative industry is a transparent process, where there is an continuous cycle between the drawn art, the director's vision and the film practicality

In no more than 4 hours, it would be impossible for me to gain any form of skill upgrade.

However, I did gain a wealthy amount of knowledge and ideology behind sculpture. As well as a personal view regarding this art from a veteran professional sculptor for the world's most loved animation house.

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Happy Reading :D

PIXAR Sculpting Class in Singapore Science Centre

Wooh, just got back from Singapore from a short but informative stay there. I attended the PIXAR Sculpting Masterclass, but wouldn't really call it a masterclas since it was only 4 hours long.

It's a shame really, the sculptor present, Jerome Ranft is a veteran sculptor and pixar staff, and in his brief time with us, managed to share a good load of stories and ideologies supporting his career and art. Plus, he was a really nice person, a hearty guy who enjoys eating! I really wish it was an intensive 3 day course.

We were all assigned to create a sculpture bust during that session, and 4 hours is definitely not enough! all i managed to do is make a quick armature and block out the general shape of the sculpt.

But i've learned a good fare of things from this, and i can't wait to share all the emotions behind the sculpting at pixar. Bear with me as i will try to post up pics of the sculpt i did there soon.

cheers and happy sculpting!

Some low poly doodads

Made this on and off during work.
Next gen head with ao and normals, as a little practice :)