District 9 Trailer

The trailer for Neil Blomkamp's new film, 'District 9' has just been released and it looks great. The team at Weta worked on this while I was there and I was lucky enough to be a part of the Design Team and help out with some 3D modeling. Can't wait to see the finished product!


The trailer is here.

Halo Adverts

I've tracked down a clip of the 3 halo commercials cut together to form an uber military sci-fi geekfest. You get to see a lot more of the Warthog that I worked on, and also some of the overlaid motion graphic (HDUs, security cam footage, Warthog camera systems, and Satellite/Chopper tracking Systems, and also the tracking system locking onto the falling asteroids) that me and a friend produced for the folks at Origami to integrate.

All up, I reckon it looks awesome. As always, there's a lot more work put into everything than will ever be seen (especially at you tube res), but I'm getting used to that.

Scott Spencer Workshops

One of the wizz kids of digital sculpting came and visited us here at Weta Workshop last week. We spent three hours every day for a week while he showed us Z-brush tricks and taught us various nifty things. He showed us a lot a things he's learnt but also some personal methods of his own that he will gift to the wide world in the form of a book written by the man himself.

I'm not sure when it's due out, but I expect it to be awesome.

The classes were interesting, I felt comfortable enough because of my 3d background, some of the traditional sculptors had to find their feet with the computers, but more than made up for it with the awesome sculpting skills and control of form.

Anyway, enough jibba jabba - here's what I did in one of the classes - I need to do more.

Weta Work: The Red Star

And here's even more stuff I've been up to at work (suddenly it's in a rush to get public eh?) - the latest edition of the uber-indi Red Star comics - The Sword of Lies issue 2 has just been released and is available at comic retailers now.





















Here's how Wikipedia describes it: "The Red Star is a graphic novel by Christian Gossett set in a sci-fi/fantasy world described by Gossett as "Mythic [Soviet] Russia". The "Lands of The Red Star" were inspired by both Russian folklore and military history. The series is thus heavily reminiscent of a post-WW II Soviet Russia mixing technology and sorcery."

Myself and some of the designers here cranked out all the digital painting work, working with the lovely pencils of Mr Gossett. I has been an awesome experience to work on a graphic novel and one of my life-long ambitions. I was very lucky to have been involved and hope that it will lead to more work in the comic industry in the future.

And did I mention that it was oarsome? huh?

Weta Work: Automaitre'D

Okay, so here's something I've done here at Weta Workshop. And you can see it finally... I've been wanting to show this to people for fricken ages.











And a hi-res image:





















He's a mechanical butler from the Rayguns universe - an Automaitre'D. He was designed by Dr Broadmore and 3D modeled by myself and is possibly one of the most complex 3d models I've created. I shouldn't show any images that haven't been posted on line already, but let me say that the back of this dude is a right jumble of extravagant detail and steam-powered, cog driven antics.

He joined the team at Comic Con in standee form, serving up comics and collectible for all and sundry. Hopefully one day he may join Weta's impressive set of collectibles.

Weta Work: Halo Warthog

Well, it's on the Weta Workshop site, so I'll take that to mean I can show you the images. Now if you think this looks cool, it's cooler. It's real, it has a turbo motor, it has 4WD, it 'Crabs' and it has a frickkin massive gun on the back. A frickkin gun!

Trust me, it is a thing of green beauty. The Weta details are here.

Weta Work: Halo - Arms Race

Well they released this earlier than I expected them to, but here's one of the projects I've had my little finger stuck into recently here at Weta Workshop. Note that my finger was only one of many (much more talented) fingers here also inserted into the pie that is the Halo: Arms Race thingie. I think it looks pretty tight, congrats to all fingers involved; Bungie Studios, director Neill Blomkamp, WETA Workshop and Origami Digital LLC

Rad.















And here's a dodgy youTube version: