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This weekend I went to the San Diego Comic-Con to hang out with some friends, but I really went to meet Ray Harryhausen. He was there signing books, DVDs, figures and comics that were for sale. I went first thing in the morning to the booth he was at, and I was relieved, and amazed that there weren’t more people lined up to meet him.
Harryhausen was one of the handful of heroes to my friends and myself as we made our way into the SFX and animation industries. We used to study his films on super 8 in search of the magic secrets of animation. When I met him, and shook his hand, I was still hoping that some of that magic would rub off. Ray Harryhausen inspired at least two generations of filmmakers with his superhuman efforts; there must be some sort of medal available for a man that animated seven skeletons fighting live actors, in an era when video tap wasn’t even a concept, let alone a reality.
After half the day wandering around the con and having lunch with friends, I went back up to my hotel room to relax, and the next thing I know I’ve got my computer on, with ZBrush loaded, and continued sculpting a CG figure of the Cyclops from 7th Voyage of Sinbad, that I had started earlier in the week. I got so involved with it, that I never did get back down to the convention that day. And by the time I couldn’t see anymore and had to call it a night, I was determined to go back to the Harryhausen booth and buy a DVD just so I could meet him again.
It’s not every day you get to meet a guy that was a one man genre, single-handedly drawing, sculpting and animating virtually every frame of film he ever worked on. And it’s not everyday you get to shake the hand that shook Willis O’Brien’s hand. So I was determined to make the most of it. Unfortunately, I was very much tongue tied, but I was at least able to tell Mr. Harryhausen how much he means to us, and the effect he had in steering us in the directions that we eventually went.
The images posted above are of a work very much in progress, it still needs much more sculpting and detailing before it’s done.
kartooner said,
July 25th, 2006, 1:20 pm
Looks awesome, Rocco. Of course at first I thought maybe Harryhausen himself had created a CGI version of the cyclops. Is ZBrush easy to work with? I’ve read some good articles on the software itself including some subtle praise by Rick Baker.
I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Harryhausen about 5 years ago (at the San Diego Comic Con) and kick myself to this day because I never made it over to his booth. I have good memories of Clash of the Titans and other films he worked on. His stop motion techniques were ahead of their time, even before CGI kicked in and took over.
That said, how many hours do you think you’ve put into this guy already?
Rocco said,
July 26th, 2006, 12:07 pm
Hi Kartooner,
I LOVE ZBrush. It’s really intuitive for a person who’s used to drawing. It’s like sketching in 3D. The interface takes a bit of getting used to, but all in all it’s a blast.
Actually, for me the sculpting is the easiest part of this program. The tuff part for me, and others that have posted on ZBrush Central, is the exporting and importing to and from your CG app of choice. I’m using Maya, and the renders above are from Maya. Unfortunately, they don’t look exactly the way they did in ZBrush. I know it’s user error somewhere along the line, and I’m currently taking a ZBrush class in order to smooth out those bumbs in the pipeline.
That said, I’m raving about ZBrush to everyone I know that is a creative artist and is interested in making a transition to CG, or even just interested in playing around with it.
This figure took me a couple of days of work so far, and has more to go, but that’s due to learning curve. The post below this shows a couple of figures that I did when I first got the program, and they each took about a day’s worth of work.
When I get a couple of minutes, I’ll post the images I have of the Cyclops within ZBrush, then you can see what it’s really supposed to look like.
Take care,
Frank
Pat said,
August 2nd, 2006, 1:55 pm
Wow, Thats awesome stuff. Didn’t know thats how it works