Unity Engine gallery test scene 0.01

A very basic test scene in Unity 2.6. The aim is to create a series of viewing rooms to show off the digital works produced during my studies.

Crow Scrimshaw (Actual)

I finaly recieved my first 3D print of my works from shapeways printers in the Netherlands.The piece is to be a part of my “Day Works”, a series of portrait busts and drawings, which look at human animal archetypes, specifically bird and human hybrids. The image/archetype stems from my early childhood on a farm in Zimbabwe. The image of the Zimbabwe bird was often reproduced in the soap stone sculptures produced by local people and has always been a poignant symbol. As a child in Zimbabwe I grew up with skeletons and taxidermy in people’s homes, all a part of my childhood heritage. The mounting of animal heads and sculptural busts have a similarity in presentation and it’s a need to monumentalise nature and create totems of remembrance that I explore with these and other works.
I have always felt an affinity to animal symbolism in Jungian psychology – there has always been an underlying mythological, animal theme to my art.

Day Works : Ibis/man study

A purely digital work - one of my pieces explored in my "day works" - part of a series of portrait busts, which look at human animal archetypes, specifically bird and human hybrids. The Ibis image/archetype stems from my early childhood on a farm in Zimbabwe.

Along with the Ibis and its associations to Thoth, the god of the death/underworld in ancient egyptian mythology the image of the Zimbabwe bird has always been a poignant symbol in my mind. I grew up with skeletons and taxidermy in people’s homes - The mounting of animal heads and sculptural busts have a similarity in presentation and it’s a need to monumentalise nature and create totems of remembrance that I will explore with these "day works".

Whale Work : v1.0

When I was away on vacation fishing up on Frasier island- there was a beached whale (Southern Wright juvenile male) not far from where were staying- This piece is going to be a homage to that beached whale, which for whatever reasons beached itself and died, and was later on the higher tides torn apart by sharks. I took photos mostly of the front section of the body, mainly the mouth and converted it into 3D data via 3Dsee which I am reworking and sculpting in 3DCoat - the drawn sketches I have put together have so far been quiet abstract - I don't know at this stage what the final form of the sculpture will take. The beauty of the shape of the mouth that seems to to come into play in the sketches a lot of the times reminiscent of the Whalebone arches used in Inuit building materials for igloos.

Video of work shown on Big Screen Project

The vid:

Big Screen from Jake Hempson on Vimeo.

Works on Big Screen

I recently uploaded a selection of video works to QUT's Kelvin grove big screen - So this is my first public exhibition of my works. The video I uploaded has no sound - which in the end worked out well - as I had no intention of evoking an auditory mood.
The big screen project is a student initiative which allows staff and students at QUT to display their works on giant projectors on the Glasshouse Z2.

Mask II, III

Recieved some really clean base mesh data for voxel sculpts from 3DSee today - David has adjusted the app/maths beatifully - and the results from the photogrametry is near to perfect - I will now have to start creating additional user errors to create unpredictable results. Also shooting a decent set of images certainly helped - but I have to say 3DSee is now where I want it to be. RESULT!!!!!

Mask (WIP)

Mask (WIP) from Jake Hempson on Vimeo.

A time lapse sculpt based off of photometric data of workmate – resulting in a mask. An exploration of his underlying bone structure.

CrocSkull from Jake Hempson on Vimeo.

Starting with photogrammetric data based of off my own photography of a crocodile skull from the Brisbane museum, reworked and edited in 3DCoat.
Rebuilt (with re symmetry)with the original natural errors of the original artefact.

Exploring Sculpts in 3DCoat

Some more recent work done using 3DCoat - rebuilding meshes generated from 3DSee-



Crocodile skull - blocked out.

Cow skull- is now moving into a more kutna hora feel with the addition of sculpted human femur-

Base vox of cowskull in progress.

Rhonda Beta out

Well I have downloaded the beta of Rhonda and will have play this weekend - I just love the way the characters evolve it reminds me of the wire cars that kids used make back in the lowveld in Zimbabwe.

3D scanner Videos

David scanner:



Also downloaded a demo of this - will see if it is useable in my workflows

PlayTest - 3D Coat

Voxels, voxels I tell ya are the future, Ever since I played Outcast back in the 90's I have wanted em - now we do have em - 3D coat has a voxel sculpting section - which allows you to create holes lumps whatever you want - no restrictions- Just started playing around with it- In demo mode. Think it may well be worth a buy- has re-topology tools and UV mapping poly painting- the works bloody lovely and the interface is relatively normal and intuitive(Maya esque).

StGiles_V1.1

The original stone sculpture that this digital sculpt based on is in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland a digital sculpt based on photogrammetric mesh data (generated by 3Dsee, based on an original photograph by David McKinnon). I then re- topologised and re-sculpted - intentionally ignoring the original photographic image. The head of the character in the relief is pure digital, sculpted for the scene, based off of a combination of deer and duiker skulls - a European and African hybrid.

Amazing HC interaction/App:

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

CrowSkull Redux V1.1

Flower skull with atmosphere.

A (my) version of a memento mori (a reminder that we all will die)- combined with quetzalcoatl flower skull symbol- Old world meets new world skull symbol. All a part of my personal terror management.
I have got to reference my trip to Mexico way back in 98 when I went to Teotihuacàn just outside of Mexico city (DF) .To me the combination of the skull and the, what I saw as flower petals made a long standing image - an archetype that I have revisited in this image.


This revisiting of birds and specifically bird skull imagery - there is something in the shape, a mask like quality that appears- the same mask shape was used by plague doctors in the middle ages. It all seems to tie in with death/life.

CrowSkull_Redux

Working towards my passion for bones, taxidermy, sculpture and CG animation – Reworking the skeletons in my closet

AKA : Using found art as a means to integrate the tactile into the non tactile digital medium.

After a leave of absence from my studies I have decided to return to my original orientation for my masters which is my digital sculpture work.

Examples of my earlier found works (1994- 1995- artwork part of Rights of passage, graphic novel).

By using the tech with the ACID vision imaged based modelling software to drive my goal of sculpting and reworking of found objects in the digital.
I am exploring imagery from my childhood in Zimbabwe- I have always seen bones as beautiful sculptures –I remember visiting friends ranch as 5 or 6 year old and seeing a huge elephant skull on their front lawn and thinking “Wow! Amazing I want one for my room!”
As a child I used to practice taxidermy with my older brother, skinning cane rats, duiker and snake and monitor lizards – I always saw the remains of creatures a great big jigsaw puzzle waiting to be solved.

Everywhere I went as a child in Zimbabwe I saw skeletons and taxidermy in people’s homes – it was a part of my child hood culture- Both my siblings still have skeletons and as their bric a brac and home clutter. It seems to be a part of our heritage of growing up at that time in that place.

Close up detail of deer skull (skull courtesy of Brisbane Museum).

This passion for this aesthetic was also reinforced by HR Geiger’s creature creation in the film Alien- but my work hopefully doesn’t have the same associations – as for me there is a purity of form – almost a landscape to the topology of bones.
I also have an illogical interest for Xeno Taxidermy but without the need for getting into the blood and guts of it so to speak. And there are the health and safety issues- hell let’s admit it - space. I live in a flat with an 8 month old child now, not a big farm where I can bury carcasses and dig them up later for fun jigsaw times.

3DSee

I am working with David McKinnon to integrate the Acid vision/3Dsee application into a computer games studio workflows- demonstrating its potential commercially as well as using it as a practicing digital sculptor/vfx artist. My goal is to further develop/promote the Acid vision software in my field of expertise. Which is character modelling for real time 3D applications, simulators, games and digital sculpture.


I am also using 3DSee to convert my photographs of animal bones from the Brisbane museum to create a model and texture library to create useable (animate-able) 3D props for an animated sculpture /vfx piece, (A sort of software art piece).



This technique of mixing media real and virtual would allow me some creativity in the form of re-manipulating the bones - reconfiguring them making new species – (Digital Xeno taxidermy).
I have been looking at artist and naturalist Sarina Brewer as well as Jan Svankmeyer’s animation work as a source of inspiration for future works.

Prix Ars submission

Its been a long time since I have updated my blog-
I have been working on a less educentric approach to my work - I have veered away from the educational videos back to digital sculpture - aproaching digital sculpture from it use as a virtual archiving tool as in use by 3Dsee and instead using its library of assets (as well as my own) in "found art" aproach- butone in which I can then manipulate and edit.



BirdSkullVideo_Process from Jake Hempson on Vimeo.




Prix Ars submission info from Jake Hempson on Vimeo.