Pierre's Portfolio

Another Howler image

2012-01-25T21:50:00.000-05:00

A quick followup to my earlier post about PD Pro Howler, I put this image together in about a half-hours time using some additional tools that come with Howler.

This image started as some fractal noise that was then extruded using the built-in 3D engine. Throw in some lens flares and a few adjustments and you've got an instant prog-rock album cover. Cool!

Howling with PD Pro

2012-01-25T20:49:00.000-05:00

I've been a long-time fan of a paint program that used to go by the name of Project Dogwaffle. Dogwaffle offered all sorts of fascinating brushes and effects, along with animation as well.

I left Dogwaffle aside quite a few years ago but recently picked up the most recent version, which is now called "PD Pro Howler", available at TheBest3D.com. The basic program is still there but it's been augmented with all sorts of new tricks, including new animated brushes called Orbicles.

Essentially, Orbicles are clusters of animated dots that move and swirl as you paint, creating a very nice paint brush bristle effect. I started fooling around with this feature tonight and quickly came up with this imaginary landscape.

I think PD Pro Howler and I will be spending a lot more time together over the next few weeks.

Jeanne d'Arc Fontaine 1924-2011

2011-11-19T20:30:00.000-05:00

My mother died early this morning. She was the most wonderful mother anyone could ever want and the kindest soul I've even known. She never had a bad thing to say about anyone and she was perpetually optimistic. She always saw the glass as half full, never half empty.

Thankfully, she never regained consiousness after her stoke yesterday morning and she died very peacefully around 12:20 am early today. She was well loved and lived a happy, blessed life. She will be sorely missed but we know that we will all someday be reunited in heaven.

24 @ MobileArtCon

2011-10-28T15:28:00.000-04:00

During the Mobile Art Conference the 24 Frames 24 Hours mobile filmmaking workshop took place at the ITP Tisch School of the Arts at NYU (New York University). The mobile video was produced in 24 hrs collaboratively by the workshop participants under the guidance of Max Schleser. All material was filmed and post-produced on mobile devices and tablets.

While I didn't contribute any video, I was asked to contribute some music. Max and I went over some music I've created on my iPod Touch and he picked a piece of music he liked which plays throughout the last two-thirds of the short film.

24 @ Mobile Art Conference from 24Frames24Hours on Vimeo.

Xewton's Bass

2011-09-30T23:17:00.000-04:00

I finally purchased an iPad 2 a couple of weeks ago. The first thing I wanted to do was try out some of my favorite music-making apps, so I installed Music Studio. I was happy to see that Music Studio is a universal app, which means that it's exactly the same on all iOS devices.

The biggest difference however is that the iPad 2 is obviously much faster than my old iPod Touch 2G. Instruments load up instantaneously and editing a composition is a breeze without the slight lag encountered on older hardware.

So, I managed to create this piece of music over a couple of evenings, and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out!

Xewton's Bass by Pierre Fontaine

Android paintings

2011-08-28T15:37:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple of images created using an Android tablet and a couple of useful painting apps. The first image was created using DoodleDroid and the second was created using Magic Doodle (and what's with all the "Doodle" names anyways?).

All told, the painting and sketching apps available for Android really do not match the quality or depth of those available for iOS but they are more than functional as well. With the addition of Autodesk's Sketchbook, there are some really great Android painting apps available, and hopefully there will be more to come.

Paper Furniture

2011-08-28T15:05:00.002-04:00

I did some paper furniture designs for FiddlersGreen.net recently and wanted to share some of the final designs.

Danny and The Dinosaur

2011-08-08T21:55:00.000-04:00

I did quite a bit of layout work on this film which was animated at DMI Productions in the late 1980's or early 1990's for Weston Woods.

DMI was a very small studio owned by Daniel Ivanick and was located in Nyack, NY. I worked there in a variety of positions for about a year and a half and had an absolutely wonderful time and a very fruitful learning experience!

Nintendo DSi Flying Fireball Animation

2011-07-06T07:10:00.005-04:00

This animation was done on my Nintendo DSi using the great animation app "Inchworm". This was a more traditional piece of animation which utilized the light table function to draw this flying fireball around the screen.

Nintendo DSi Animation

2011-07-06T07:00:00.006-04:00

I put together this little animation using the great animation app "Inchworm" on my Nintendo DSi. I used the DSi's camera to take some frames of my face before and after I shaved my beard off and then animated some lightning to "zap" the beard away!

My vocal debut! A Bob Dylan cover created on my iPod Touch 2G

2011-04-14T21:40:00.002-04:00

Friends of mine were hired to create two commercials for EscapeMaker.com's Green Getaways Local Food and Travel Expo happening in Brooklyn, NY at the end of April.

One of the spots required a parody to be sung to the tune of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". Knowing I enjoy creating music as a sideline, my friend provided me with new lyrics. Using my iPod 2G, my Akai Synthstation 25 keyboard and Xewton Music Studio, I created the backing track, which is pretty remarkable for a portable device.

Once everyone was happy with the arrangement, I copied the file to my low-end DAW software (Cakewalk Home Studio) on my equally low-end PC (and EeePc 901) in order to record the vocals using (you guessed it) a low end microphone I purchased at Best Buy.

I delivered the final track to my friends so that the song could be played back while the spot was filmed. All in all, I was very happy with the opportunity to provide the music for this fun spot!

A green building for EscapeMaker.com's Green Getaways Food and Travel Expo

2011-04-14T21:36:00.002-04:00

I provided the green building and glowing green sign at the end of this piece advertising EscapeMaker.com's Green Getaways Food and Travel Expo.

Inchworm Animation Trailer

2011-04-10T15:20:00.000-04:00

I've been waiting for this animation app for the Nintendo DSi for years. In fact, it was one of the reasons why I first purchased my Nintendo, not knowing that the app would take three long years to come to light officially. Well, the app will be released via Nintendo's DSiWare store on April 25 and will cost 500 Dsi Points (or $5.00). I can't wait because this looks so cool!!!!

Chilean houses

2011-02-26T09:24:00.003-05:00

Irecently designed some paper models for a company who wanted giveaways to help promote their project. They were bidding on the opportunity to build houses to replace those destroyed in last year's Chilean earthquake. Here is the front page to one of those models.

Mid-East Tension

2011-02-02T23:16:00.002-05:00

I did this piece of music over a couple of hours this afternoon using Xewton Music Studio on my iPod Touch 2G. I also used an Akai Synthstation 25 keyboard to play the parts. I basically started with this lovely middle-eastern string sound and built the arrangement from there, gradually making it bigger and more enormous.

It goes without saying that the music was inspired in part by the news coming out of Egypt this past week.

Monkey Magic

2011-02-02T13:17:00.000-05:00

I worked on this PlayStation game between 1998 and 1999. I worked for a multimedia company called "Music Pen", which eventually became "MPen". We developed a number of CD-ROM edutainment titles and somehow landed the contract to turn this anime series into a SONY Playstation game.

The game went through two distinct teams during the development of the game. The first team tried to develop the game using some very rudimentary development tools. They must have worked around the clock for months on ther concept of a free-flowing exploration type of game. Our in-house game engine really wasn't up to the task because it was built on the concept of manipulating flat planes of artwork in 3D space. The game looked interesting but that initial team burned out quickly. There was no real leadership and everyone seemed to throw whatever they thought would work into the mix.

After a dreadful presentation to the owners of the property, the game was put on hold for a short period of time. For various reasons, most of the people who worked on the first version left for greener pastures and a second team was created to help save the day.

Conceptually, the game turned into a platform game and I believe I came up with the idea of building the game out of predefined blocks so that the level designers could build their levels and environments and the artists could come in afterwards and replace the blocks with textured 3D artwork.

I was responsible for most of the 2D sprite animation, including the main character and most of his opponents. I also did a lot of concept art based on screen shots of the basic level layouts, trying to turn them into interesting environments.

John Schnell was responsible for most of the 3D assets (with the help of Vivian Luke). John was a brilliant 3D artist and really did some amazing 3D environments and texture work.

I know that Richard Guy is listed in the credits as a designer and art production co-ordinator. I remember he did an awful lot of texture design and I think he must have worked with the programming and 3D teams to turn our hopeless game engine into something usable. I don't really remember interacting with him a great deal, though I do remember him to be a very nice person to work with.

Finally, I have to thank Yee Ping and Philip who ran MPen and really were wonderful people to work for. I had a great time for the six years I worked there!

Revised City of the Future paper model design

2011-01-13T10:38:00.005-05:00

I designed a paper model a few years ago that was supposed to show what the future would look like, from the vantage point of the early 20th century. Basically, all the buildings would be outrageously tall and be connected with roadways and bridges.

The model turned out well but it never had the vertical height that drove home the concept. On a whim, I took my existing model and built a second set of buildings, then started stacking them in various combinations. The result is much closer to my original concept.

The original model is available here:

http://pierrespapermodels.com/for_sale.aspx

Cosmic Dream

2010-12-21T07:35:00.001-05:00

This was my entry for a song demo contest using NanoStudio, an amazing iPod Touch/iPhone app. It's compatible with the Synthstation 25 keyboard as well, which is great because I much prefer using a physical keyboard than the on-screen keyboard that NanoStudio provides. It's a great app and I hope you enjoy this short little piece of music.

Cosmic Dream by pfontaine

The outdoor creche at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church.

2010-12-08T20:57:00.003-05:00

Here's a photo of this year's outdoor creche at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Ardsley.

Every year I take home one or two figures that are in need of the most repair and do my best to fix them up and repaint them. I've also started to add some scenery so the two wall pieces are new as of last year.

By now mostly all the pieces have been repainted or touched up at some point. Next year, I'm going to add a backdrop so that we won't have to look at the dreaded pine branches any more!

Bug Ship done with Colors 1.1

2010-11-11T10:45:00.004-05:00

This image was done with the newest version of Colors, a homebrew app for the Nintendo DS. The DS screen is pressure sensitive so you get a lot of expressive response to the opacity and thickness of the brush line depending on how hard you push down on the screen. Unfortunately, the newer DSi models don't offer pressure sensitivity, though they are obviously touch sensitive.

Colors is very straightforward to use. There are no layers, just brush settings and a color wheel. I doodled this image in about an hour or so, trying out some of the newer features of the 1.1 update. There's a new natural brush setting in addition to the two standard brushes, and there's now the option to export your image to higher resolutions. The standard screen resolution for the DS Lite screen is 512 x 384 pixels, while this image was exported to 1024 x 784 pixels. The increase in resolution is quite dramatic!

Akai Synthstation 25 Keyboard Controller

2010-10-28T13:51:00.003-04:00

I've been waiting for the Synthstation 25 since it was first announced earlier this year. The promise of this item is great but what was delivered was slightly underwhelming. However, there are glimmers of hope for this device yet!

I have tons of music making apps on my iPod Touch 2G and I love playing with these apps and making my own music. When I first heard that Akai had created this keyboard and that it was designed to interface with their own music making app, I was pretty thrilled. It was soon reported that Akai would be releasing the information needed to any app creator to allow their apps to be controlled by this device. This sounded too good to be true but the thought of being able to actually play with apps like Xewton Music Studio or NanoStudio using a real keyboard was too tempting. I figured that Akai would do right and create a great app to go along with this controller.

My first impression was how small this keyboard actually is. The keys are not full-sized but are in fact mini-keys, much like the old Casio consumer keyboards from the 1980's. The controller does seem very well built however. My iPod Touch slides into the area designed to hold it and it sits there very firmly.

I thought that the Synthstation app would be included in the price as a free download from the Apple store. Unfortunately, that is not the case and you need to spend and additional $9.99 to purchase the app. As of right now, there are only two apps that interface with the Synthstation 25, Akai's own app and iVoxel.

The Synthstation app is actually quite deep and it comes with a huge number of pads, monophonic lead sounds and drum kits. However, there's little or no documentation about the app and I've yet to figure out how to overwrite some of the preset sounds with my own patches. There are quite a few additional problems with the Synthstation app but truth be told, as a synth app it's really phenomenal. I just don't think I'm going to be writing any songs with it however.

Another nice feature is the fact that the controller comes with left and right RCA audio outs, and a mini usb port to connect to your computer so that it can be used as a traditional controller for any DAW software on your standard PC or Mac. There's also a pitch bend and modulation wheel. Along with the 4 AAA batteries that are shipped with the product, that's about all you get in the box. There is no AC adaptor, there is no USB cable and no audio cables and no case to protect it when travelling. It's just the controller and batteries. Everything else will have to be an additional purchase. I know that asking for these additional items might seem like a lot for the $99 price but at the very least I thought I might get some cables.

The promise that other synth app manufacturers might release updates allowing the Synthstation 25 to control their apps is very important. There are tons of wonderful instruments available through the app store and the music composition apps that are out there are far more powerful then the Synthstation app. Right now, it's very early in the products life-cycle and other then the two apps already mentioned, nothing else is ready to go.

In closing, I really like the idea of the Synthstation 25 but I was a bit underwhelmed by what came in the box, and that the app itself was not part of the purchase price. I can't really fault Akai for this decision as they are selling the Synthstation 25 at a very aggressive price. If you factor in the additional $10 for the Synthstation app, it's still a very good deal. What you get is a fantastic, analog-sounding synth with tons of preset sounds. You get lots of editing features (though again, I still haven't figured out how to overwrite the presets) and you get a great sounding, though basic drum machine with an enormous number of drum samples to play with. I just wish the integration of all these elements were implemented better within the Synthstation app itself.

I'm not disappointed that I bought this item but again, the promise seemed so much greater than the reality. I hope that Akai continue to build on their success and make this item a really great music-making tool for wanna-be composers such as myself.

another Nintendo DSi painting

2010-09-26T18:29:00.004-04:00

I made this painting a few weeks back, again using the DSiWare paint app called "Art Academy". I was trying to reproduce a landscape painting I found in a book. It seems that the trick to Art Academy is to do a lot of dry brush work over the canvas to blend the edges together, creating a nice painterly look.

Paintings done on a Nintendo DSi

2010-08-04T23:04:00.008-04:00

Here are a few paintings I've done on my Nintendo DSi, and Art Academy. Art Academy presents you with a series of drawing and painting lessons, but it also has "free paint" mode where you bypass the lessons and go straight to the painting. It gives a reasonable recreation of pencils and paper, as well as painting. I'm very impressed by it and only wished that the images were larger than 640 x 480 at 72 dpi.

Fanfare For A Bearded Man

2010-07-25T21:00:00.002-04:00

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/fanfare-for-a-bearded-man">Fanfare For A Bearded Man by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Here's another piece of music created on my iPod Touch, this time using Xewton Music Studio.

It's all epic hugeness with lots of strings, brass and choir. Thankfully it's the shortest epic ever written!

Modulation Cruise

2010-07-25T20:28:00.002-04:00

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/modulation-cruise">Modulation Cruise by Pierre Fontaine</a>

I made this song over the course of a couple of hours on my iPod Touch 2G with a great app called NanoStudio.

It's a wonderfully full-featured app for making music, though there's always room for improvement. For starters, I'd love to see the ability to have panning knobs so that each track could be placed in the stereo field.

No matter, I'm extremely happy with this app and it can only get better with each new revision.

War of the Worlds TV pilot, part 3

2010-07-20T00:38:00.000-04:00

This video links to test footage conducted in the mid-1970's for a proposed TV series based on the War Of The Worlds novel and film. What's remarkable about the footage is that it incorporates an experimental special effects process owned by Paramount called "Magicam", which allowed the synchronized movement of actors on a blue screen stage to match the movements on a miniature set. The result was that the actors seemed to actually move within a miniature set while the camera panned along with the action. This was an enormous breakthrough that unfortunately was never properly exploited.

The Magicam process was intended to be used on the aborted Star Trek Phase II television series that was to air around 1977 to 1978.

The 150's - or a Cheap Synth Sound Collage

2010-06-09T01:05:00.005-04:00

This is a sound collage of two different, cheap synthesizers I own. The main sound is from a Kawai PH-50, which I purchased in the early 1990's. I recently refurbished it and wanted to record some of the stranger sounds.

The other synthesizer is a Gakken Analog Monophonic Synthesizer, which came as a kit you build yourself in a Japanese magazine. It's still available on ebay and some other online stores.

I recorded the two synths at different times, then combined them in my Cakewalk software with tons of added effects to tie the two together.

It's scary stuff but quite beautiful at the same time!

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/the-150s">The 150's by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Cartoon Guy

2010-05-25T13:56:00.001-04:00

Cartoon Guy
Originally uploaded by Pierre Fontaine

Another image done on my iPod Touch using ArtStudio, which is turning out to be my favorite art app. ArtStudio has a great set of brushes and find the workflow to be very intuitive.

This image was done with four layers, one for the line work, one for the base color, one for the highlights and shadows and then a background layer.

Digital Paintings

2010-05-25T11:05:00.003-04:00

Here is a digital painting done on my iPod Touch. Truth be told, this started as a photograph that has been manually manipulated in a couple of painting programs. The results were surprisingly rich in detail so I thought I'd share!

new paper model

2010-04-26T07:51:00.002-04:00

I'm currently working on my latest paper model, this time a commission. It's meant to be a simple model that a child could build, possibly with the help of a parent.

More iPod Touch drawings

2010-04-26T07:48:00.002-04:00

This was created using Autodesk's Sketchbook mobile for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Once again, sketched at church waiting for mass to begin.

iPod Touch drawings

2010-04-26T07:44:00.003-04:00

This was done using an interesting procedural drawing app called Harmonious. As you sketch, the app starts adding additional sketchy lines, especially where lines intersect, giving your drawing an interesting look. It's tough to control but I'm learning.

I sketched this from a stained glass window at my church while my daughter was having choir practice.

Tick Tock

2009-10-19T23:23:00.002-04:00

Here's another piece of music created with Xewton Music Studio on my iPod Touch 2G. It's another orchestral piece and given the limited number of instruments that come with Xewton, I'm very happy with how this came out!

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/tick-tock">Tick Tock by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Moonbase model sneak peak

2009-10-11T22:43:00.003-04:00

Here's a couple of photos of my latest paper model project. It's an extremely simple model to build, consisting only of simple geometric shapes that are glued together to create something really interesting. All the detail comes from textures and the whole thing is designed to be easily built by anyone.

I've got another round of revisions to make to the model, then it's onto an instruction sheet and documentation. My goal is to have it ready for the Paper Model Convention, coming up in a couple of weeks.

Longing For Home

2009-09-20T17:50:00.003-04:00

I made this song entirely on my IPod Touch using an app called Xewton Music Studio.

It's definitely the most expensive app I've ever purchased but I think it's worth every penny! There's certainly alot of room for improvement but I wanted to show what could be done on a handheld device in just about an hour's time.

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/longing-for-home">Longing For Home by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Incrediville

2009-09-19T22:28:00.003-04:00

These two digital backgrounds were created around 1998 (perhaps earlier). They represented two different environments for an internet portal called "Incrediville". The first environmentt was a kind of art exploration room and the other was a communications-email portal area. The toast character was designed by Peter Conlon, who is now a very succesful motion graphics designer in California.

Beethoven Lives Upstairs

2009-09-19T22:13:00.003-04:00

These were backgrounds I did for a children's CD-ROM project called "Beethoven Lives Upstairs". They all began as layouts in Autodesk Animator and were completed in either Fractal Design Painter or Photoshop. These are among the earliest digital pieces I've ever done professionally and date back to 1996 or so.

Haunted Middle School

2009-07-23T10:02:00.002-04:00

Here's the final image I submitted for the Haunted Middle School that my friend needed for his educational video. The final image is to have live action clouds dropped in as well as lightning flashes.

Days Long Ago

2009-07-21T10:47:00.002-04:00

Here's a recent piece of music. The song is very melancholy with just piano, cello and strings. Think of a rain day...

The song started as an improvised piano piece and then was "orchestrated" after the fact by splitting off bits of midi information and assigning different instruments to it. The bass notes became a cello and the high notes became strings while the piano part remained untouched.

I didn't realize it when I put it together but I managed to lift a chorus from the Marillion song "Go!". Oh well, at least my song is free so please don't sue me!

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/days-long-ago">Days Long Ago by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Elizabeth's Song

2009-07-21T07:36:00.001-04:00

My mother wanted to hear this song, so here it is. It's an awfully simple song but my daughter liked it, so it's named after her.

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.com/track/elizabeth-song">Elizabeth Song by Pierre Fontaine</a>

2D Animation Reel

2009-07-03T13:10:00.005-04:00

This is my 2D animation reel that I cut together a couple of years ago. Most of this work was done throughout the 1990's, either for DMI Productions or for Music Pen. In retrospect, I wish I had not included the 3D work as it seems terribly dated now.

However, I make no apologies for the music, which was composed about 10 years ago.

For the record, all the artwork and animation is mine except for the following:

Caveman sequence backgrounds: Joe Corrao
"Baby's Morningtime" (girl painting on hillside) backgrounds by Richard Lazlo
"The Magic School Bus" backgrounds: Peter Carella and Joe Corrao
"Toast Of The Town" character design: Peter Conlon

Haunted School sketch

2009-06-25T20:45:00.002-04:00

A friend asked me to create an image of a haunted middle school for a project he is working on. I created this sketch as a proof of concept. He liked it but wanted something even larger and a bit more gothic. Here's my original sketch. I'll post the actual image when I get my friend's permission.

some Twitter button designs

2009-06-25T20:30:00.005-04:00

Someone had asked me to create some Twitter button designs for him. I'm not certain they were ever used (or might be in the future) but I really liked they way they turned out. I was going after that Road Runner-type background for the sign and something simple but fun for the car chase.

Spinning off my animations to a new blog

2009-05-25T23:56:00.004-04:00

I've wanted to spin off my animations onto a blog all their own so that anyone who wants to see them doesn't have to sift through all my other stuff. My animation blog is located here.

The URL for all those in the know is:
http://pierreanimation.blogspot.com/

St. George Reeg paper model

2009-05-25T23:41:00.004-04:00

This is a photo of a paper model I designed for an organization committed to restoring the St. George Reef Lighthouse out in California. This project was interesting because I have never been to the lighthouse, but only had photographs to go by. Thankfully, the person I was working with was extremely understanding and patient and I'm really happy with how the model turned out.

If you want to build your own, the model is available on ebay right here!

Paper Model website is online!

2009-03-22T17:30:00.008-04:00

My paper model website is now online. I've got three models for sale and three free models to download. Come on over and check out what I have available!

The URL is:
http://pierrespapermodels.com/

Before & After

2009-02-05T22:21:00.005-05:00

I do a lot of Photoshop work for my place of employment. We often purchase stock photography for our packaging images. Often, I delve into my own personal stock of photographs that I've accumulated over the years.

In the case of this assignment, we wanted an image of a haunted house. I had a photograph of the Irvington Historical Society's building in Irvington, NY and decided to use it as raw material for a product shot we needed for our packaging image. These kinds of assignments are lots of fun to do and hopefully have saved my company a bit of money in the process!

2009-02-05T22:08:00.003-05:00

I've never been much of a traditional painter. I have dabbled in watercolors a bit and thought that this one turned out rather nicely.

Hammond Eggs

2009-01-28T15:40:00.000-05:00

I always wanted to be Keith Emerson when I was a kid....

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.mu/track/hammond-eggs">Hammond Eggs by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Evil March

2009-01-27T22:41:00.002-05:00

I really like progressive rock, like Yes and Genesis. This was an attempt to do something similar. This was recorded a long time ago and sounds terrible but the song is interesting...

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.mu/track/evil-march">Evil March by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Honky Tonk Times

2009-01-27T22:31:00.001-05:00

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.mu/track/honky-tonk-times">Honky Tonk Times by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Garbage Man In The Rain

2009-01-27T22:26:00.002-05:00

I love to play honky-tonk piano. I composed this song a long time ago and it's the only song I've ever written lyrics to. However, I'm not much of a singer so here it is in all its instrumental glory.

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.mu/track/garbage-man-in-the-rain">Garbage Man In The Rain by Pierre Fontaine</a>

A Peaceful Night

2009-01-27T22:24:00.001-05:00

This is a piece of music I composed in the summer of 08. It's a peaceful tune with a gentle rhythm and some groovy mellotron flutes.

<a href="http://pierrefontaine.bandcamp.mu/track/a-peaceful-night">A Peaceful Night by Pierre Fontaine</a>

Multiplane experiment

2009-01-27T20:04:00.007-05:00

I love the multiplane camera shots in Disney's classic cartoons such as Pinocchio or Bambi. The multiplane camera was invented by the Disney people to create a sense of depth to what is essentially a two dimensional medium. This was done by painting layers of artwork on panes of glass and then moving them horizontally and vertically in front of the camera giving the illusion of enormous space. Eventually with "The Rescuers Down Under" in the early 1990's, the effect was created digitally using a computer using Pixar's CAPS system.

I've been playing with a program called Moho, which is now called Anime Studio 5. Anime Studio allows you to place various pieces of artwork along the Z axis, which gives a wonderful sense of depth as the camera moves side to side or in and out.

As an experiment, I quickly created a scene in Photoshop. Each layer of artwork was created on a Photoshop layer. The various elements were easily made using some wonderful brushes I downloaded from deviantart.com. Each layer was then saved out as a PNG file, imported into Moho and then spaced out along the Z axis. The effect worked wonderfully and I'm going to really try this effect out more extensively in the near future!

More paper model designs

2009-01-19T20:09:00.003-05:00

These models are quite old and were never intended for distribution. I designed them because I couldn't afford to buy the actual garage kits! I then thought it would be fun to build some sort of environment and composite some of the models so that they looked like they actually were real. The old looking building is the Tarrytown Music Hall.

Glass designs

2009-01-19T20:07:00.003-05:00

Part of my job is to design products and then visualize them so that the powers that be can get an idea of the what the finished product will look like. Here are two plastic glasses that I designed last year.

Quick and dirty futuristic warehouse

2009-01-19T20:02:00.002-05:00

I put this together over a few lunch hours, using Carrara 3D. The purpose was to teach myself the fundamentals of UV texture mapping. It could still use alot of work but it turned out pretty nicely.

Really Old 3D artwork

2009-01-19T19:58:00.003-05:00

This goes back to my Commodore Amiga days, perhaps around 1990. I made this image using Caligari. Caligari is now the name of the company that produces Truespace. I always struggled with 3D but Caligari was the first program that truly made sense to me since you always worked in a 3D environment. That program was way ahead of its time.

Character Designs

2009-01-19T19:55:00.003-05:00

I designed these two characters for two different computer companies, both of whom wanted animated presentations that showed off their products. The guy on the left was "Global Guy" and the guy on the right was based off the logo for "Tiny Computers". I seem to have a thing for floating hands! It makes the characters so much easier to animate!

Hudson Valley Paper Models

2009-01-19T19:52:00.002-05:00

Here's a CD cover for some paper models I designed. The buildings are Sunnyside in Irvington, NY and the Armour Steiner house, also in Irvington. Paper models have always been a huge passion for me and I eventually want to start selling these online.

Online game design

2009-01-19T19:49:00.003-05:00

This was an on-line game that I did the design for when I used to be an designer for a multimedia company called "Music Pen". The game was a simple tile game but I designed this elaborate environment for it, including hulking robots and mad scientists. Truth be told, a fellow employee named Mike Foran used to draw these great mad scientists and I just wanted to see if I could do one too!

NCB Singapore Web Portal design

2009-01-19T19:46:00.003-05:00

Back in the day when I was a multimedia designer, I designed some environments for NCB Singapore's broadband portal. This one was meant to bring you to a series of games if I remember correctly. I designed the little lightbulb character too and was very happy how he turned out.

Flying the Helix!

2009-01-19T19:44:00.003-05:00

This is actually one of my first paintings done in Photoshop. I believe this image is close to 10 years old but it was a pretty successful image. By the way, that's me in the driver's seat...

DSN&A Cartoon

2009-01-19T19:41:00.004-05:00

For many years, I drew cartoons for a company called DSN&A in Mamaroneck, NY. All the cartoons had a nautical theme, and many concepts were unfamiliar to me. Still, I drew what they asked me to and this one is one of my favorites.

3D Sculpting experiment

2009-01-19T19:37:00.003-05:00

I've toyed from time to time with various 3D sculpting software. This was done with a really great program called Curvy 3D that came in a magazine some time ago. Even though the sculpting was done in Curvy, the render was done in Carrara.

Sunday Rising Films logo treatments

2009-01-19T19:19:00.004-05:00

Some time ago I was asked to contribute some logo designs for a Christian film company. The owner gave me some specifics and I sent him these designs. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out and wanted to share them here.

JellyTelly Bumper

2008-11-11T23:18:00.003-05:00

When Phil vischer (of VeggieTales fame) asked for bumpers to be used on his new website, I submitted this animation. It's a bit dark and downbeat but I like how it turned out anyways. The 3D animation was all done in Carrara and the 2D animation was done in Moho (now Anime Studio).

New Paper Model

2008-07-03T00:16:00.003-04:00

This is my latest paper model. It's the model of the Providence and Worcester Railroad depot in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It was recently used as the location for an upcoming Lasse Hallstrom/Richard Gere movie called "Hachiko: A Dog's Story", which will likely be released sometime in early 2009.

The image above is a composite of the finished model with the two sheets required to build the model. More work is needed to finalize the layout of the individual sheets as well as the construction diagrams, but I hope to have the model completed within the next couple of months.

Jelly Telly logo animation

2008-07-02T23:50:00.004-04:00

Here's an animation I submitted recently to Jelly Telly, the new project from Phil Vischer who's best known as the creator of VeggieTales. I was inspired by the Flash animations of my friend Mike Foster and thought I'd try my hand at an animation.

Of course, I had grand ideas for this animation, but since this is my first animation in many years, I decided to stick with something very simple. I managed to complete this in a few hours using Moho, a vector animation program that uses bones to manipulate the vector artwork. Moho is now called Anime Studio.

I hope to submit more interesting animations as the weeks go by. I'm still getting the hang of Moho and will likely be teaching myself Flash soon as well. Watch this space!

Woonsocket Opera House

2008-03-17T22:11:00.005-04:00

The Woonsocket Opera House was located off Monument Square, just a short walk from the Stadium Theater. The Opera House was built in 1888 and was in active use as the New Park Theater until 1963. It was slated to be demolished in 1972 but a group of citizens tried to save the theater. Sadly, the Opera House was destroyed by fire on September 22, 1975, along with the adjoining Brown Carrol building.

The Globe Mill

2008-03-04T15:12:00.005-05:00

The Globe Mill used to stand on Front Street, up the hill from the Market Square area of Woonsocket. The mill bordered the Blackstone River, from which it drew it's power. The mill was dismantled in the 1950's. As all the other historical recreation animations on my blog, this animation was created in the now discontinued Canoma.

Woonsocket Hotel

2008-02-26T08:38:00.004-05:00

This is an animation of the long since destroyed Woonsocket Hotel, which was located in Market Square area of the downtown Woonsocket. As with many of my other historical animations, this was created in Canoma, after first being edited a bit in Photoshop.

Ballou Mill-Woonsocket

2008-02-26T08:23:00.004-05:00

This is the long since demolished Ballou Mill, which stood just before the waterfalls in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The animation was created by compiling a few images in Photoshop and cleaning them up. I then brought the images into Canoma and mapped them onto geometry to create the final animation. There's still a few problems with it but I'll replace it as I continue to work on it.

Chris Foss Inspired Space Scene

2007-11-25T18:08:00.001-05:00

Here's an image I made in Carrara 5 and Photoshop. I was trying to get that Chris Foss look, which I think I managed to do quite well!

The ship was constructed and textured in Carrara, and the explosion was a fire object within Carrara that rendered at the same time as the ship.

The two small ships were lifted off the space scene directly below, which I did last year.

The background was done entirely in Photoshop, where all the final compositing was done.

John Berkey Inspired Space Scene

2007-11-25T18:06:00.000-05:00

This 3D image was done about a year ago. This scene was my homage to John Berkey, whose paintings have been a huge inspiration to me.

The 3D work was done in Carrara 5 and the compositing was done in Photoshop. Interestingly, I wasn't that confident texturing objects when I did this image so I rendered out a plain model with no textures and then painted the textures onto the model in Photoshop. All the elements were rendered seperately and composited together to create the final image.

Curvy 3D Created Space Scene

2007-11-25T18:04:00.000-05:00

Here's something I put together today. The four legged machines were created in a really great program called Curvy3D.

Curvy3D is a spline-based modeler that allows you to create shapes, then modify the shapes by drawing directly onto them (sort of like ZBrush), thereby creating a displacement map in real-time. You can then paint the color map directly onto the object. Any of these image or displacement maps can then be exported into Photoshop, where I usually increase the resolution and then clean them up.

This model took literally about an 30 minutes to make, which is a miracle to me since modeling in 3D is something I have a very hard time with. In order to get the images from Curvy into Photoshop, I made a screenshot of the model, brought it into Photoshop and composited it onto a landscape which was rendered in Carrara 5. All the post work was done in Photoshop. Also, I tend to work in CMYK color space in order to do whatever color correction I think is necessary.

If you would like more information on Curvy3D, please go to http://thebest3d.com/curvy/index.html

Verizon Flash e-brochure

2007-09-22T09:41:00.002-04:00

Here's another flash animation that I made while at Mentor Communications. I storyboarded and directed the animation production. The art was done by myself as well as the art production staff and the programming was done by Steven Bean. The script was by Chuck Fuoco.

Click Here to view the e-brochure.

Global Guy Flash Animation

2007-09-20T17:23:00.002-04:00

Here's an animation created for a company called Global Pathways. Global Pathways was dedicated to providing high-quality, low cost computers to those who needed them. The decision was made to include an introductory animation that anyone could view that could explain how their new computer operates. I designed, storyboarded and did the animation artwork,while Steven Bean did the actual Flash programming and animation to create the final movie. The script was written by Chuck Fuoco.

Click Here to view the movie.

Mentor Commercial for HSN

2007-09-20T17:18:00.002-04:00

Here's a Flash animation I designed while working at Mentor Communications. I oversaw the graphics, animations and storyboards, though the characters themselves were designed by Herta Silva. The animation was programmed by Steven Bean. The script was written by Chuck Fuoco.

Click here to see the finished animation.

3D Model derived from photographs and drawings

2007-06-17T22:19:00.000-04:00

Here's an experimental animation that I did in a program called Canoma, which sadly didn't survive it's first release. The software is pretty limited but I liked the concept of being able to generate 3D models and animations from photographs. So, I've taken it upon myself to recreate parts of the city I grew up in that no longer exist.

Interactive Design Concepts

2007-06-17T22:09:00.000-04:00

This page shows some of my design work done while I was at Music Pen, an interactive CD-ROM company in New York City. Sadly, Music Pen is no longer operating but it was a place that I hold dear to my heart. The owner allowed her artists great latitude when designing projects and I feel I really came into my own as an artist while employed there.

3D Illustration

2007-06-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

Here are some samples of 3D illustration I've done, either professionally or for my own enjoyment. I've found I can use my 3D skills at work to create product prototypes and packaging/catalog illustrations.

Otherwise, my love of sci-fi illustration shows through on some of the other images. Many of these images were rendered seperately and composited in Photoshop.

Paper Models

2007-06-15T22:29:00.000-04:00

Here's my real passion! I've been designing paper models since I was a little kid. My father always had an interest and I slowly learned how to fold paper to make just about anything I wanted.

When I purchased my first computer and color inkjet, I realized I had all the tools I needed to create the same kinds of models I used to labor over as a kid.

Most of my paper model work is architectural in nature but I also enjoy doing various sci-fi related models. I hope to post some of these soon!

2D Illustration

2007-06-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

This is a sample of some of my illustration work. As you can probably guess, I love architectural subjects. I'm also a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki's work, which is why I painted the mural for my daughter's room.

Character Design

2007-06-15T21:06:00.000-04:00

I'm using my blog as a place to show off some of my work. I'm trained as a 2D animator but have done my fair share of both 2D and 3D animation and illustration.

Here you can see a page from my portfolio that shows off some of my character designs that I've done over the years.

Most of these characters were designed while I worked at Music Pen, a now defunct multimedia company in New York City where I worked as a senior artist for six years.