JJ Abrams digs Gnomon!
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
This month’s issue of Wired magazine features guest editor JJ Abrams who was awesome enough to mention Gnomon in the playlist section! JJ swung by Gnomon a couple months ago and this was extremely exciting not just for me, but definitely for the many students who got to see him poking his head in classrooms and walking through our labs. JJ has hired Gnomon alumni at Bad Robot and, as it turns out, discovered Neville Page by watching Neville’s Gnomon Workshop DVD. How cool is that? Neville has since worked with JJ as the lead creature designer for Cloverfield and Star Trek.
Here is the pic published in the magazine with a link to the Gnomon Workshop. Some people think that is supposed to be me… hmm. lol.
The Art of Steambot Studios
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
Come one, come all, to the opening for Exodessey, the art of Steambot Studios, at the Gnomon Gallery… This Saturday, May 9th at 7pm. The artists will be there as well as snacks, drink, DJ and more. The event is open to the public and it should be a great way to spend your Saturday evening!
More info is at the Gnomon Gallery site: http://www.gnomongallery.com
Master Class Demo
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
Here is the creature I made for the Gnomon master class entitled ‘Creature Head Texture Look Development’. I made some style variations in Photoshop starting with a simple layered comp rendered from Maya. About 30-40 minutes each. Very fun to do! I create these at 4096×4096 so that I can project the image onto my model in Bodypaint as a solid startpoint for final texturing. Click on the image for a high-res version.
Gnomon Master Classes
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
I recently organized a bunch of super cool master classes that will be running the week of December 12th-19th. I can’t wait to watch them all!! Check them out the Gnomon School site.
Tags: 3dsmax, compositing, gnomon, lighting, master classes, mattepainting, maya, mental ray, modeling, mudbox, texturing, zbrush
Jordu Schell at Gnomon Gallery
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
So tomorrow night is the opening for Jordu Schell at the Gnomon Gallery at 7pm! If you’re in or around Hollywood, swing by and check out some amazing creature sculptures.
-Alex
Wordpress!
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
So the home page may look the same, but my friend Dani just installed Wordpress so that I can more easily update news in here! (Thanks Dani!!!). So now I have a bunch of news posts with zero comments. Looks a little sad I must say… heh. Anyhow, I look forward to updating this blog a little more regularly now that it is so easy. 
For those of you who have been posting comments in my guestbook, thank you so much… all of the feedback is very much appreciated! To Abhay in Mumbai, India… yes, I need to get back into production of some new tutorials! I just got the beta of 2009 so perhaps you’ll see some new stuff from me this fall.
-Alex Read the rest of this entry »
Gnomon Gallery closing party!
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
Hi all… so the Gnomon Gallery Rabbitholes show is having a closing party (open to the public) this Wednesday, September 17th at 7pm. Swing by and check out the work! The images are really stunning in person. www.gnomongallery.com Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: gnomon gallery, rabbitholes
Guardian
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
 Image made with Maya, Zbrush, Mental Ray.I started this as a head sculpt/sketch from a sphere in Zbrush, but then added the torso… then the lower limbs… then decided it needed a background… then some bugs.. then some smoke.Since I didn’t start with a design, I just poked at it from time to time over the past couple months. So I guess the image evolved over time, but I’m happy with where it ended up. The final image is 4500×8000 to be printed at 30″x54″. |
Tags: Guardian, maya, mental ray, sculting, sketch, zbrush
Fume
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
 Same guy as below… it was tough settling on an angle to work on him from. I’m still not even sure if this was the right choice, but time to walk away from it. I shot a bunch of photos of smoke specifically for this image that I comped in Photoshop… and now I am a big fan of smoke photos. They’re purty. |
Tags: fume, maya, photoshop, smoke, zbrush
Ember
Posted by alexalvarez | Filed under News
 So I recently started shooting friends/models with the initial intention of finding interesting poses/lighting to use as reference/inspiration for my 2D + 3D stuff. I’ve been taking photos and tweaking them in photoshop to create possible directions for a 3D image. In the process, however, I’ve found that I kinda like how some of them turned out on their own, without the need to become just ‘reference’. I thought I’d post one of them in here just to share what I’ve been doing… |
