New 3D work:

I finally finished the 3D environments I've been working on for years at INSIGHT. They are digital reconstructions of the Mayan site Chichen Itza in the Yucatan.

A little over three years ago I went with the team to capture 3D scans of the ruins as they appear now, white washed, broken crumbling etc.

That scan data provided the base to create these digital reconstructions, that and the help and expertise of numerous archeologists, technicians, artists, and lots of patient effort.

These environments are by far the best 3D work I've ever done, and not coincidentally the most tender loving care and attention to detail I've ever paid to a 3D scene.

The final renders have been printed on the cover of a German visual effects magazine, given a front page spot on the Fry Render site (the renderer I used) as well as featured in the gallery of the xfrog site (aided in the creation of the vegetation)

So below are links to the medium rez renders on my site
www.artofali.com/osario

Sideshow dissolves between the different render passes used:
www.artofali.com/3d

The article on the Fry Render website:
www.randomcontrol.com/image-of-the-moment

and the article on x-frog's site (earlier unfinished versions of the scenes):
www.xfrog.com/2011/06/insight-chichen-itza/

As an extra nerdy side note if you right click on any of the final renders at www.artofali.com/osario , and view image in a new window/tab, and change the version number associated with the image name in the url, you can see the previous versions of each render.

No Talking Tuesday # 192

The List:

I'm supposed to meet
Dennis and Phil at
a party, want to come?

near campus

I'll probably only stay
for an hour or two

Monterey Market Kindness

The Cool, Cool River



Anger and no one can heal it
shoves a little bump into the momentum
but you feel it
in the creases and the shadows
with a rattling deep emotion
the cool, cool river
sweeps the wild white ocean

my radio tuned to
the voice of a star
lightning pushes the edge of a thunderstorm
and these old hopes and fears
still at my side

the rage of love turns inward
to prayers of devotion
and these prayers are
the constant road across the wilderness
these prayers are
these prayers are the memory of god
the memory of god

and I believe in the future
we shall suffer no more

and these streets
quiet as a sleeping army
send their battered dreams to heaven
to heaven
for the mother's restless son
who is a witness to
who is a warrior
who denies his urge to break and run

who says: hard times?
i'm used to them
the speeding planet burns
i'm used to that
my life's so common it disappears
and sometimes even music
cannot substitute for tears.



Paul Simon - The Cool, Cool River

Anime Class

This summer I'm teaching 8-19 year olds how to draw anime and manga. The class is at a community college in Walnut creek.

Apparently anime is all the rage with youngsters, and they had been complaining that there wasn't an anime focused drawing class. So I was enlisted.

Though I must admit, since going to a geeky media arts focused art college, my love affair for anime has rapidly dropped off. Non the less, it's a fairly simple vocabulary of figural abstraction, so I wasn't intimidated at the prospect of teaching a class in it.

Now that I'm a few weeks into the course, I've actually been surprised how much easier drawing in this style is for me than I remembered. Over the last few years my understanding of light, form, line, design, body mechanics, proportion, is vastly improved and I've been surprised to find drawing in this style is much easier than I remember.

Here are a few drawings I did as demos:

No Talking Tuesday # 191


No list. Nothing special to report.

No Talking Tuesday # 190


No list. Nothing special to report.