Nic's Portfolio

Jurassic World: Blue (VR)

VR project

Corrective modeling and cleanup on several dinosaurs.

Everything from muscle shaping, interpenetration fixes, blinks, tongue movement and anything else that would help polish the final dinosaur look.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Corrective modeling and cleanup on several dinosaurs for 10+ shots during the end breakout sequence.

Everything from muscle shaping, interpenetration fixes, blinks, tongue movement and anything else that would help polish the shot for final

Solo: A Star Wars Story

I was a hardsurface and character modeler for the show.

Started with building the hardsurface AT-DT Imperial Walker for the Mimbam battle sequence early in the movie.

Finished with the large task of concept sculpting and building the space creature during in the Kessel Run. We called it the space-to-pus, but in lore it is now called the Summa-Verminoth. It was technically challenging due to it's large size, but was a blast to sculpt and model.

Transformers: The Last Knight

I jumped around on a lot of assets for the film, filling in where needed.

Worked on the huge Cybertron asset, kitbashing and forming it into large chunks.

Other assets included statue transformers, as well as several environmental assets.

Carne y Arena

VR Installation

This was a very interesting and ambitious project to work on. Performed corrective modeling on several of the characters speech patterns. Lips, cheeks, brows, blinks and any other facial movements to polish the asset.

Dr. Strange

Environmental modeler tasked with building many of the background New York buildings during the Dr. Strange mirror dimension chase sequence.

Warcraft

A senior character modeler on the show I was tasked with working on several lead characters.

Orgrim's armor being the starting point for not only that character but the basis for much of the Horde's armor. Creating the Horde's armor was challenging from a technical standpoint. Insuring that it was built in a modular way was very important, to give the Horde hundred's of different combinations of armor with the click of a script button.

I did a full character build on Dark Scar (Pit Fighting Orc). A thick gruesome orc who made several cameo shots but sadly his big scene was cut and only made it onto the Bluray extras.

Other assets worked on was several skull detailing sculpts on Durotan, Blackhand and Guldan. Also the Fel transformed Blandhand goop and regrown hand.

Captain America: Civil War

Environmental and hardsurface modeler for the movie.

Built the entire Gate section of the Airport including the hero Jet Bridge.

Other assets:

-Worked on several other buildings
-full build on the conveyor truck asset Spiderman lands on.
-Design and build on Spiderman's eye iris mechanics
-design and build of the splitting arrow that Antman rides
-kitbashing environments for the inside of the Ironman's suit, when Antman runs through it

Seventh Son

Modeling supervisor for the film. Overseeing several modelers in Los Angeles and in foreign offices.

Started with concept sculpting on main character's animal forms. Continued with delegating and critiquing work on models throughout the film. Mainly involved enhanced digital double work, animals and environmental work.

Snow White & The Huntsman

Worked as the Modeling Lead, where I supervised a team of modelers locally and internationally. I provided project scheduling, artistic direction and critique on all models during the show.

Th main hero model I worked on was the Greatfather Stag. Took it from beginning to end, Zbrush sculpting, modeling and uv’s.

Troll was another time intensive model where I supervised the team that worked on it while also personally working on rocks, roots, general fixes and proportion changes over the course of the show.

The Enchanted Forest was another difficult task with its array of animals and fantasy plants. Worked on many of the animals including a badger, rabbit, birds, etc. Also various plants and insects.

Another task were blendshapes and blendshape fixes on many of the creatures throughout, including the fairy facial blends.

Django

Lead on a short sequence for Django. Involved work on a CG torso for Django and a sword blade for the sequence where Django was hanging upside-down. Django was susposed to be tortured with the blade, unfortunately the sequence did not make the final cut of the movie.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Worked mainly on facial blendshapes for Brittany, however I did take over lead for a short stint while the show lead was on vacation. Oversaw creation of props and a few clothing outfits.

Hop

I was Modeling Lead on Hop where I supervised a team of modelers locally and internationally. I provided project scheduling, artistic direction and critique on all models during the show.

Main models that I personally worked on through completion were EB Young and the three Pink Beret Bunnies. All were taken from Zbrush concept sculpts, through modeling, uv’s and blendshapes. The Pink Berets also required the modeling of all their props - inhaler, blowgun, Droid phone, berets, utility belts and nun-chucks. Also some sculpting work on the main character EB Bunny.

The Easter Factory was probably the most difficult and complicated task of the show as there were hundreds of models to oversee and coordinate on. Supervised many of the models locally and internationally. Also personally worked on Zbrushing filigree for the Center Egg structure, conveyor belts and other various machines or parts throughout the show.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Worked for about 6 months as a scene lighter on the show where I was responsible for the lighting & rendering 18 shots. At R&H compositing and lighting overlapped considerably so there were many tasks I performed that would also be considered compositing.

Also did some modeling for the show. The main one was the Digger Gopher. Digger is property of Fox/Nascar and had a small cameo in the film. Modeled character from concept art, also did props and uv’s.

Land of the Lost

For land of the lost I worked on an array of models and blendshapes. The following are a few:

"Dumping Ground” (seen above) - Created several models to propagate the sequence, including the ship, Buddha and Universal Studios 3 car tram

“Temple Plaza” (seen in front page slide show) - Top half and background environment are a set extension. There was also much destruction work to the Temple Plaza, as in the ending sequence it was suppose to be destroyed. However, the destruction sequence did not make the final cut of the film.

"Home Cave” (seen in front page slide show) - Created environment. Part of mountain created in Zbrush to match small cave set piece

“Humvee Crush” - Created blends to crush Humvee as the "Alice" dinosaur stomped on it. Required using a stream file of the animated dinosaur in Maya and working backwards to create the blendshapes from an uncrushed Humvee.

Fast and Furious

Responsible for environment creation. Terrain in sequence almost entirely CG. Work that required precise cuts and cracks on geometry so that parallax on edges would look correct and working closely with matte painters.

Other work included edits to car, tanker and guardrail models

Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian

Had a small role on the film as I was also working on Fast and Furious at the same time. I created the digital double for the Ben Stiller character. The digital double in this case was fairly hi-res including cloth wrinkles and head created from scan and photos.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Worked on the avalanche sequence. Modeling and cleanup on the breakup of the mountain itself at the beginning of the sequence.

Aliens in the Attic

Worked on several areas of the film. The main model I worked on though was the "Sizematron” (giant transforming alien machine to increase size). Very interesting and intricate model due to its organic and hardsurface nature, while still having to correctly transform into its closed disk shape.

Also worked on several props and many edits to characters and costumes.

Cape Cod Potato Chips - Flock of Seagulls

Was a modeler on the commercial, where I worked on the Seagull.

Full commercial can be seen here - Play - Flock of Seagulls - Play

Fable: The Journey (Game cinematic)

Created Zbrush sculpt from reference artwork of main character Gabriel. Retopologized in Topogun, created uv’s in Maya and Uvlayout. After it was "approved" and I left the show there were some slight modifications made to his tunic and boots for the final cinematic, but overall it was pretty much the same.

Kodak Picture Kiosk w/Hop - Commercial

Dual marketing campaign with Kodak and the release of the film Hop. After finishing up modeling on Hop I transferred to lighting for the marketing campaign. There were actually a couple crossovers that we did, including one for Comcast Cable. However, I mostly worked on Kodak Kiosk commercial. Worked on 2-3 shots and helped a couple of India lighters with their shots.

Full commercial can be seen here - Play - Kodak Picture Kiosk w/Hop - Play

Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor - Disney

Monsters, Inc. Laugh floor is a real-time interactive installation at Disneyworld in Orlando. Actions of the onscreen monsters where controlled by "actors" behind the scenes, so that they could interact with the crowd via cameras and audio.

I was the Lead modeler at 3Dsite where I oversaw development of several characters including Mike and Roz from the original Monsters, Inc while working on several new characters. I worked on the modeling, texturing and blendshapes of the two-headed “Stu and Stan” monster. Also oversaw and participated on modeling the environment and various props.

All models had to cleanly work in a realtime environment, while still making sure of clean topology and very clean facial blendshapes.

Stitch Encounter - Disney

Stich Encounter is a real-time interactive installation at Hong Kong Disney. It was also later installed at Diney Paris as "Stich Live." Actions of the onscreen charaters where controlled by "actors" behind the scenes, so that they could interact with the crowd via cameras and audio.

I worked on the following:

- Modeling, texturing and blendshapes on main characters Stitch and Gantu
- Stitch included 2 and 4 arm versions
- Needed to work in realtime
- Also modeling on environments and props