Creative Journal

Friday April 4th 2025 - The Beginning

8:02 pm

I've been thinking about making some kind of blog website for a while now. Now that I'm out of school and I am relearning how to be a creative on my own without the direction or guidance that is preparing to go to Think Tank, and then attending Think Tank, what is it that I want to do?

I have been preparing to try to be a professional for so long that it became my everything. My reason for getting up, my reason for pen on paper, my direction, my motivation, my life. Now that I feel somewhat secure in where I am, without a job but hunting and waiting patiently, I get to reflect on this creative journey of mine. Where will it go next?

So we find ourselves here. A place to explore, play, wonder, and wander down any road. Motivation is not without habit, without repetition, without persistence, so I want to use this as a place to document, share, and continue my work, whatever that may be.

So cheers to my first blog post, and to the begin of my creative journal.

Monday May 12th - Lets make a Dinosaur!

2:49pm

This website is built and running, I'm aiming to get my mini project Jalgs wrapped up by the end of this week, so this morning I started working on researching my next project.

I want to make a dinosaur!

I started thinking about what I want to do for my next big project months ago while working on my final at Think Tank, I want to do feathers was the only real thing I had in mind. Think Tanks campus is right beside this huge indoor market called the Lonsdale Quay, an on the second floor is a bookshop / toystore where I found.

I'm not home right now, will add photo when I get back, but inside this book I found concept art for a dinosaur called the Coelurosaur. An ancestor to the bird, an what I decided my next project would be.

After doing some research, I have learned that this dino is not a particular species, but what as known as a "clad", or the larger ground that contains several species. Meaning "hallow tailed lizard in Greek", these are a group of theropods that are more closely related to birds. So now we may not be taking the exact concept from this book, so I'll be doing some more research into the various species within this group.

My current learning goals for this project are (in order) :

• Feathers in Houdini.

• Learning how Paleo art and reconstruction is done.

• Rendering & Look Dev'ing in Arnold.

• Muscle sim in Houdini.

• Comping with real footage and have it camera tracked in the scene.

Let's get making some dinos!

May 16 2025 - Dino's are getting put on pause.

Friday May 16th - The Face Project

3:36pm

Faces, I love creating weird and wacky creatures, and my goal is to work in the VFX industry, Someday I want to watch one of my creatures thunder across a movie screen. But to get there, I need to break into the industry, and right now, my portfolio is missing the more realistic work that studios are typically looking for.

So that brings us here. I'm starting what I call "The Face Project". This will be a 2 part project.

Part 1 : 31 Faces

I will make a head sculpt everyday and study everything I can about human faces and their construction.

Part 2 : Likeness

I will take one of these faces, and spend another 2 months bringing it to production level quality using Zbrush, Mari, Houdini, Marvellous, and Arnold.

So cheers to a new project, let's begin.