Sketchbot Custom Show Sneak Peeks!

We're one week away from the big show and the sneak peeks have started to trickle in. I've been Tweeting updates throughout the week, and thought I'd show a few more not yet seen here on the blog to whet your appetites. ;) This represents just over a third of the collection that will be on display.

I have to say that I'm genuinely blown away by the level of A-game people are bringing to their customs! It's encouraging to see my fellow artists embrace what I hope will be a new platform for customizers to use as an alternative to the plethora of DIY canvases out there.

I've got something especially mind-blowing in the works for my custom and will be putting the finishing touches on it early next week. Check back for a special sneak peek before the show opens next Friday!

Mission: 10,000 Rockets

I just wrapped up a pretty cool project for the agency Creature based in Seattle. I was one of three artists chosen to interpret three winning drawings (out of 10,000) of rockets of the future from school kids around the country for the Mission: 10,000 Rockets project developed by Bing™

The entire progression can be viewed at this Flickr set.

They had seen my Sketchbot 3d prototype and were interested in getting something created in a similar fashion. Of course, I was more than happy to get another chance to print out a 3d design, and jumped at the chance to participate. Mission: 10,000 Rockets Turn Table from Steve Talkowski on Vimeo.

This is a 3d turntable render of the rocket I was commisioned to create for the Bing™ Mission: 10,000 Rockets project.

The final model will be on display at the winning entrants school.  There will also be a book published in April that will contain every drawing submitted to the contest, along with the three final art pieces.

I'd like to thank Creature Art Director Eric Larkin and Project Manager Sarah Faulkner for making contact and including me in such a fun project. Also, HUGE thanks to Dave Gittleman and Michael Gulen for 3d output.

SDCC 09 / Summer Vacation Wrap-Up

We've got one day left on our 2-week West Coast adventure. First stop was visiting family in AZ, followed by 2 1/2 days in San Diego at Comic Con, a 3-day visit to LA, and wrapping up the final week in Cambria with more family visits. Unfortunately, I've spent 10 days very much under-the-weather, as I picked up a nasty sinus infection amongst the 125,000 Comic Con attendees. I did manage to get some antibiotics earlier this week and am starting to feel much better.

A few quick thoughts on Comic Con. This year seemed even crazier than last year.

Preview night saw people rushing the doors like it was black Friday! The lines to every panel were longer, and the crowds more jam-packed than ever, and this was just Thursday and Friday. We drove to LA Friday night after the show, so I can only image the weekend was even more intense. More SDCC 09 pictures up on my Flickr here.

I was excited to have the Sketchbot prototype on display at the DKE TOYS booth, and got lots of great response. This thing is finally becoming a reality! Met a slew of folks from my Flickr and Twitter contacts and lots of familiar faces from the year before.

One of the highlights was getting into Hall H to see the Disney/Pixar presentation. John Lasseter talked about the Toy Story series, a new 2d animated Frog and the Princess, and the highlight was bringing out Hayao Miyazaki and showing an incredible clip from Ponyo, which hits theaters in the US August 14th. The other panel that got me excited was seeing Peter Jackson present Neill Blomkamp's District 9. REALLY looking forward to seeing this one. I missed the Iron Man 2 panel (it was on Saturday) but the HD trailer for TRON Legacy made up for it in spades. The artists over at Digital Domain are doing an amazing job on this and being a huge TRON geek, I can't wait to see this on the big screen.

Alright, time to enjoy our last full day on the California central coast. We're gonna take the dog over to the beach and dip our feet into the ocean. Will be back in Brooklyn on Monday, have a great weekend!

Sketchbot Customs... In Glorious 3d!

Sketchbot DIY MadL from Steve Talkowski on Vimeo.

This project started out as a proof-of-concept for setting up the Sketchbot blinking eye rig. I haven't started to rig up the bot itself, and thought I'd apply the animated texture map to a 3d MadL that I cranked out. I've been in a 3d customizing mode the past week, and figured I'd explore my first MadL concept. Possible candidate for the next artist series?

If you have the capacity, I encourage you to download the HD version of the animation on my Vimeo page.

I've also been presented with two paper templates to customize, and thought it'd be great to bring them into 3d and do some photo-realistic rendering. The first one is a design from Sharim Gubbels, called "Ghostboy." The second template is by Gareth Lancaster, aka "moopf".

I do have an original paper toy based on Sketchbot in the works and hope to have something available for download in the not-too-distant future.

Honey Nut Cheerios Sci-Fi Spot

SciFi Cheerios "if" Spot from Steve Talkowski on Vimeo.

I worked with Hush on this spot a few weeks ago. My role entailed rigging up and animating the bee character, modeling the honey wand and subtle honey animation, and full lighting of the character. A hero Cheerio was animated landing and bobbing in an imaginary plane, and this was repeated numerous times to fill out the foreground splashing bits of cereal. The spot was composited and colour-corrected in After Effects.

Check out Hush's website for more killer work, including another spot I animated on, Sony Ericsson's "Dance Off"

KickToys Launch Party @ Toyqube

After enduring a hellish 45-minute traffic clusterf*ck on the L.I.E., we finally made it to Flushing for the Kicktoys' Launch Party at Toyqube. There was a great turnout for such a modest show, considering there were only 10 custom pieces on display. Met the entire Kicktoys crew, who are really nice people. Congratulations on the launch, and we are definitely looking forward to some of the newer projects that were displayed on the video monitor. Funny how the ride home took less than 15 minutes!