I am very impressed with Modo’s capabilities so far.

My goal is to eventually replace all of the character work on this site with product and architectural visualizations like this, leaving it as a dedicated site to this kind of conceptual work.  All character and animation work will end up living on the Uncanny Tales website (www.uncanny-tales.com) with some big updates coming later this summer.

Check out www.uncanny-tales.com

The Champ

Ogre01

Ogre02

Ogre03

Ogre04

Ogre05

Ogre06

A 40 hour project to create a 3d concept of an Ogre.  My intent was to go from initial idea to final rendered composition within the 40 hour limit.
The concept behind the image was to explore the side-show nature of mythological creatures, and express this through a character afflicted by gigantism and elephantiasis.
Created using Blender, Maya and ZBrush.  Total time 39 hours.

Punk

An experiment in quickly concepting 3d cartoons using ZBrush and Photoshop.

Pan

Part of a canvas triptych created for my final Masters Project.  Created using Blender, ZBrush, & Photoshop.

Pan

Medieval European artists created imagery steeped in the Uncanny. Through the creation of representational religious imagery, they delved into the depths of the human psyche. The Devil, ubiquitous symbol in Christian faiths for the evil inherit in man, and his minions in corruption, were represented in canvas and sculpture. Serving as propaganda, decorating churches and cathedrals in reminder to the masses that Hell awaits those who Sin. This form of propagandised expression died out with the Enlightenment and the age of Reason. However, this formative age of Western Culture spawned some of the most Uncanny art the world has seen.

Artists creating these images had free reign to create their grisly depictions. However, certain influences shone throughout. Pagan culture was distorted, and its Gods became their Uncanny Doppelgängers, the Demons of Christianity (in fitting with Freud’s theory.) In this manner, Deities symbolising a celebration of life and the vital became tools of its oppression.

In depicting the Evils of Hell, these artists had free reign to create whichever horrors their imaginations could birth. Each creation an artist makes reveals something to the audience about the artist, as, as Hepworth argued, artistic creation was the convergence of the conscious and unconscious minds. In depicting the things which they were to repress, they were exploring those very acts within their fantasies. They were presenting their repressed desires, for the sole function of the repression of desire. Dreams are thought to be the allowance of the expression of repressed desire in a safe way to be processed by the mind. Artists, such as the Surrealists, often sought to explore these realms as a way to express and discover repressed and hidden wonders of the self and the external reality. These precursors to the pioneering dream explorers sought instead to use their dreams to create fear and prostration. As the desire to dominate and control could be considered an Evil human trait, the artists, even if they sought to warn the populous with their work, could be considered the Uncanny Double of their future counterparts.

Ape

Part of a canvas triptych created for my final Masters Project.  Created using ZBrush and Photoshop.

Ape

Ape is intended as an exploration into the Uncanniness of mimicry in the animal kingdom, and the repressed animal nature of Man. Take, for example, the Cuckoo. The Cuckoo is a parasitic bird which lays its eggs in the nests of other species. Upon hatching, the other bird treats the Cuckoo as its own, and the Cuckoo proceeds to starve out the host’s offspring by eating all of their food. Moths and butterflies disguise themselves as owls and other creatures for protection. People often hide their true nature, or their true beliefs, in order to fit better into a society they would otherwise be rejected by.

SleepyHeads

Part of a canvas triptych created for my final Masters Project.  Created using Blender, ZBrush, & Photoshop.

SleepyHeads

The most primal Uncanny effect appears to come from the confusion between the animate, or inanimate nature of an object or entity. This effect factors into Ernst Jentsch’s discussion regarding the Uncanny as an evolutionary defence mechanism. Jentsch elaborated upon this through an anecdote regarding a traveller whom sat upon a snake thinking it a tree root, recoiling in horror as it moved beneath. Upon realization of what has happened, one is gripped by a fear of mortality. The fear comes from the danger of being killed by a known foe. However, the most profound fear occurred before this realization, in the period in which it appeared that the tree moved in a controlled manner. This Uncanny horror, brought upon by the uncertainty over the animate nature of the travellers chosen seat, ensures the the mistake will not be made again.

This example is of an Uncanny uncertainty regarding the nature of external factors, and how it upsets the internal perception of reality held by the traveller. However, there is also the possibility that part of the Uncanniness came from a realization that the traveller had misunderstood his own internal perceptions, that reality was not as imagined. This disruption between reality and imagination – that the root was not actually a root, and whatever image the movement had conjured about its true nature before revelation – creates an Uncanny conundrum.

In a similar vein to the animate being mistaken as inanimate, the inanimate husk left after death can maintain an Uncanny power. Due to a preconception held that the corpse is animate as it once was in life^v, the dead appear as sleeping, almost ready to wake and rise. Seeing the dead acts as a reminder that at some point we will all die, and become a mere echo of our former selves. Our lives, hopes, dreams, and loves all lost, leaving only the broken machine of flesh.

SleepyHeads is intended as an exploration into these themes, and also the three-tiered nature of Man according to Freudian Theory: the Id, the Ego, and the Superego. The trinity of Id, Ego, and Superego represent the primal, instinctive, animal drives of Man, the conceptual “self”, the thinking, personality driven Man, and the sense of right and wrong, behaviour and control influenced by Man’s society and culture.

Drill Sergeant 3D Concept

3D Concept Art of a Drill Sergeant character.  Created using Pixologic ZBrush, Corel Painter, and Adobe Photoshop.

Slug

Slug

Slug

Slug character created for film maker Steven Crichton for a music video which was sadly cancelled.  Created using Blender, ZBrush, and Photoshop.