I started this over the weekend. I worked on it on Saturday and Sunday, on and off while watching TV. Lots to do. Face, hands, pants, arms, boots, etc are very basic models right now. I'm happy with the amount of work I managed to do in such short period of time. Of course I started from a previous model, the Old Swimmer, from who I stole the goggles that will lately be replaced by a new model that matches Ranx's ones.

Ranxerox comics was a great inspiration when I was teenager. The technique used by Liberatore always impressed me a lot. Anatomy and colors are just amazing. I've seen some artists copying his coloring and trace style but you don't trick me! ;)
Anyways, Liberatore was also influenced by some amazing artists so it's all good

Ranxerox is a modern age VERY TWISTED, politically incorrect, cyber-punk android Frankenstein monster... come on, who doesn't love Frankenstein? Of any kind, they are always fun.

Here I'm just trying to pay a little tribute to the master Liberatore. More progress to come.

-Kris

Images updated on 4.25.08. Some more progress:





First personal work in a long time (over three months without even opening Maya or ZBrush at home). This is one of my all time favorite movie monsters. It's fascinating how believable the creature is even today, past almost 80 years since the movie was released in 1931.

The idea of modeling him happened last week, when I was searching at Sideshow Collectibles website and just for a change, they don't have any of the cool sculpts. So frustrating to see the images all over their website and don't be able to buy it! Come on, if you don't have the products available, just take off those pictures from there already...

So, out of frustration, I decided to model my own version of the monster. I spent a couple of hours on it during the weekend, starting from an old base mesh. It's really rough and blobby right now and the likeness needs a ton of work. The plan is to get the likeness improved before I can think about adding fine details. I'm posting here, in it's early stages, just to show that I'm trying to slowly get back to my personal stuff.

Rick Baker did an amazing job recreating this monster in ZBrush over 2 years ago. But hey, he is THE MAN.

I'll replace those images with newer ones as soon as I get some more progress done on this model.

-Kris

*Update: I'm matching the lighting using a picture as reference. This is the only way to find subtle details on her face. I noticed lots of little things to fix like the tip of the nose, shape of the maxilar and chin, lips shape and volume, makeup details, scar position etc etc etc. I'll be fixing them and posting the progress here. The hair is just a quick and dirty paint over. I don't use any kind of blue prints on my personal work and this makes really tough to work the likeness, even more when you only have a few lowres pics from internet. It takes days and more days to get the likeness looking ok so I still have a long way to go.


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I started this one over the weekend, to rest a little bit from the monster (which I have a TON of things to fix). Two days work so far. Still working on the likeness and model detail. The texture is just a quick polypaint and the hair is an ugly place hold. More progress to come:



-Kris

I'm very happy to announce that I got hired as senior artist at ILM's digital modeling department.

It's impossible for me to express in words how happy I am right now. Being a long time fan of everything that ILM does and having the respect that I have for the artists and the work involved in such mind-blowing VFX that inspired a generation of CG artists like myself, this is really an honor and a dream coming true, as stated in my previous post just a few days ago.

I like to thank everybody at Lucasfilm Animation for making me feel so welcome, keeping me around for the past 8-9 months. Working on the TV show was a great experience. I had the chance to meet an amazing team over there. I can't wait to see (on the big and small screens) the results of all that hard work. You guys are awesome and deserve just the very best, from the bottom of my heart.

To everybody at ILM, specially to the digital modeling team, I can only say: THANK YOU SO MUCH for having me aboard! I have a lot to learn with all of you. I feel great knowing about the challenges I will face, that will push my limits and will make me grow immensely as an artist. I'm also scared (in a good way) to work with such AMAZING artists. I'm so excited and inspired with the opportunity. I assure you I'll do my very best to help the team on any project you put me in.

To my wife Celinha and all my friends, thank you very much for the constant support. I love you all (Celinha first!)

Sincerely,
-Kris

I finished uploading a bunch of clips to the brand new "Reels" session. If the menu doesn't show up for you, just refresh this page by pressing "Ctrl+F5".
The reels show some of the work I did for Pan's Labyrinth, Evan Almighty, Barnyard, The Mist, Lucifer (short-movie) and my old Plumber animation test.

-Kris

Other than living apart from my wife for almost 4 years, who I dearly miss every day, life is good. Things never stopped happening since I left Brazil back in Jun 2004, when I got my first job in the USA. I moved from Omation Studio (Character Animator) to CafeFX (CG Artist) to Lucasfilm Animation USA (Senior Modeler). My short career in this field switched quite a bit and I'm so glad I had those opportunities to meet such amazingly talented group of artists and the friends that I made along those years. You know, for a Brazilian that not long ago was working as a banker (for over 15 years of my life...), doing CG as a hobby, had no demo reel to show and got to the USA speaking barely no English, I'm doing alright. In fact, those almost 4 years have been quite a ride to me. New country, new language, new field/job, away from my family and friends, so many new challenges. Everything at once... not easy, I tell you that.

Looking back and remembering of all the not-so-cool things that happened in my life, like losing my mom 11 years ago, who was my best friend and such strong person or don't even having a chance to meet my father who passed away only two months before I was born, at age of 32 (I'm 36 now and I can't even imagine this happening to someone like him, so young and probably full of dreams just like this dreamer that writes these long lines right now...), I still think I'm a very lucky, fortunate and positive person. I have this energy that drives me and makes me look forward, even when things are not all that promising. Maybe I am just plain stupid and alienated enough to don't notice when things are going wrong around me. Maybe it's just my choice to simply do not allow things to "immobilize" me. I guess I just try to pay attention to some signs that normally don't come clear but after some time and reflection really start to make sense.

I'm probably just a dreamer after all, who believes that things happen to people who are constantly searching for answers and challenges in life. I believe that people can't just sit and wait for things to come in their direction so easily. I can't imagine a better way to do that other than working hard and most of all: being passionate about what you do. Like the Zen Buddhists use to say, being Zen means living every moment in plenitude, doing everything with passion/dedication no matter how insignificant the action seems at first sight.

I know we are no plants. There are no roots under our feet. We have to keep walking. That's the only way to experience new places, new things, new "flavors" in life. That's why I try to keep walking, always looking forward. Looking back too, but as a reflexion to help me to improve myself as an artist and a human being. The only certain thing is that I'll never, ever allow the past to serve me as the chain that keeps me away from my dreams.

So, why all this nonsense now? Because I'm happy, really happy actually. A long time dream is about to come true and I just can't wait (but I have to) to let you know what is that all about. I'll probably post the news in about 2-3 weeks from now. In my mind, it's just the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new moment in my life and career. So, stay tuned. It's good stuff that I like to share here at my "online mess".

All the very best,
-Kris

So, for the past 2 months I was away from any personal CG work. I didn't even open any 3D software at home since December! The reason: I was working on a long time dream I always had, to have a customized arcade machine at home. I mean, one of the main reasons I got to this whole CG thing was because of the videogames I used to play on the arcades since I was 7 years old (that means 1978-1979...).

So, I bought a cabinet kit and a ready made control panel, because living in an apartment, I don't have the space to build it from the scratch. BUT, I did assembled the whole thing, wired everything, designed and applied my own custom artwork (based on my MachineFlesh Challenge entry ) and configured the computer to run transparent, without even showing a little trace of windows on it. It looks and feels very pro

The monitor is an actual 27" multi-sync arcade monitor (now you can have an idea of how big this monster machine really is...). That means that it can synchronize CGA, EGA and VGA resolutions! You know those scan lines visible on the old games? Well, it looks EXACTLY like that! No comparison to a CRT or a LCD monitor. This is THE REAL DEAL!
Just for fun, I installed an actual coin door that really works with $0.25 dollars, just to have a "true" experience at home. The artwork was printed in huge self-adhesive ultra resistant-water proof vinyl and the quality looks amazing. Those images posted here really don't make justice to the real thing.

The controls are: 2x 8-way joysticks, 1x 4-way joystick (for old classics), a trackball, a spinner, pinball buttons on the sides and an additional front one to release the ball (google and youtube "visual pinball" to see the best pinball emulator in action!).

Well, that's it for now. To check the building process and see a ton of more images, visit: http://www.antropus.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=83

Cheers!
-Kris