2011 3D DEMO REEL

My 2011 demo reel is here! Please watch in fullscreen!

Globe Entertainment System

Lloyd Turntable

New Turntable

Deal for the Reel

Now my teaching has come to a halt. I've been wrapping up loose ends on all of my 2011 projects. I'll be posting a 2011 reel very soon, and I'm quite excited! As of late, I've really noticed just how much I've grown in the few years that this site has been up and running. I'll post up some fresh new turntables as well as the reel, but until then take a look at this charming chap!

Globe Preview

The Globe is for avid music listeners, allowing them a new and immersive way to experience their favorite music.

Eddie 3D Mesh Details

This is a quick mock up i threw together of the final pose I'll be using for the sculpt. It's not the prettiest thing around, but it serves it's purpose.

I've finally finished the base mesh and retopologized it. There are still miles to go on this sculpt, but this is what its looking like so far. She's going to look so nuts without eyes!

Eddie Redesign

(I didn't make this one)

I have recently decided to enter a fighting game character redesign contest over on polycount.com. I chose to redesign Eddie from the Guilty Gear series. For those who don't know, Zato was an assassin who acquired a shadow demon named Eddie. The demon Eddie gave him crazy powers in exchange for Zato's eyesight, and eventually killed Zato and possesses his dead body to this day. I've always loved playing as Eddie in the game and thought his unique nature would be lend well to a redesign. I was going to redesign Akuma, but this is a REDESIGN contest and we all know Akuma is already perfect.

I've made some pretty massive changes to the character. The most obvious is that I've made Zato a woman. Eddie has always been flamboyant and I figured I might as well just embrace that. I also did away with Zato's clothes, in exchange for a living suit. In a very Venom-esque fashion I decided to play up the possessed aspect. I've also tried to give an even more menacing appearance to Eddie. I really want to drive home the fact that he is an evil body possessing demon.

As for the final pose, I've chosen to go with Eddie's Cerberus..thingy. It is a move I use often and I have always thought it looked cool. I also feel it will make for a nice lush 3D sculptural form. I want to give each of the dog's heads a little personality. Enough jibba jabba, here are my concepts so far.

The first concept that has since been scrapped completely.

The current design. Still need to layout her shinguards. I had a hard time deciding what to do about her eyes. Zato is blind, and wears a blindfold in the game, but I knew there was something more I could do. So, I took her eyes out completely. Less IS more in this case.. literally! (harharhar) I think she looks much darker and creepier without them.

Concepts for the cerberus heads. I could draw these things forever, but I really need to get cracking on my basemeshes. Eddie shapeshifts quite a lot in the game, so I wanted to pull some of that into my sculpt. One of the forms he takes is a shark, so I referenced that for a little homage to another one of my favorite moves! Completely channeled my inner 5 yearold on this one.

As you can see by the render times below this project is going to take awhile.. this isn't even full resolution. Despite the lack of speed things are piecing together quite nicely.

Globe Project

So while storyboard my life away I realized that I was really getting attached to a design of an object in the piece. Since the project I was boarding is a 3D animation, I decided that I would take a break from drawing and go ahead and build the " object " that had captured my attention. Since building it, it has spawned into it's own little side project. I'm delving into the design and functionality of the object a bit more, in hopes that it will make the final piece even stronger. I'm keeping the actually function of the piece under wraps, but here is a peek at what I've been up to in 2011. I would like to introduce you all to the Globe.

We are only 10 days into the new year and I'm already well underway on planning two full pieces and finishing up one short! I'm liking the start to this year, well with out all these mysterious dead animals. Stay tuned for the final video, it will be coming very soon!

Ode to Saturn

Now that I'm done celebrating the holidays I'm back to the grind. This week I'll be finishing up all the storyboards and trying to make sense of them all. I might even start piecing together a rough animatic for the project with Dolor. This pic is a quick bit I did recently for my boys 2pak! Happy MMXI! Boosh!

Sculpture: the highest form

Here are some sculptures I've been working on for about the last 12 hours. I think it is safe to say I am in love with the new features of Zbrush 4. Unlike Maya, the program doesn't fight me at every turn and it is quite intuitive. These are just some practice pieces to get my skills up to par for the two projects I'm working on. I've been watching a lot of kung fu films lately. I must say 36th Chamber of Shaolin is an incredible film and I have no idea how I've lived this long with out seeing it. Sculpture is the highest form!

Distracted From Work

So like always, I have been listening to tunes while drawing my life away. Although I have about 50 more story boards to draw out I tore myself away from the panels and started cranking out this uncontrollably haha. I'll stop for now and get back to boarding.

Numbernin6 is 100% to blame for deterring me from my duties haha!

Storyboards!

I'm swimming in a sea of storyboards! I'm boarding out a music video, three comics and my graduate animation proposal! They are everywhere! Currently browsing my iTunes for the two perfect songs for the last project I mentioned. Decisions. Decisions..

I'm highly considering using this as one of the tunes. For those that don't know, this is possibly my favorite song of all time.

A new intro logo animation I've been working on. Still tinkering bigtime.

Prefeature Logo Animation Test 1 from Mike DuPree on Vimeo.

AE Magic

I'm always doing things when I'm not supposed to be. I just started making a cinematic intro for myself out of no where. I'm quite happy with it thus far though I will admit. Full 1080P too! Stuffs rendering on thing 1 and thing 2 so i might just finish this while I have the time.

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A Taste of What's to Come.

Finalizing the piece for the show currently. Then the next order of business is continuing work on the visuals for the show with Anti, Dolor and Lorn. But the project after that is going to be really special. Working on a music video with Anti and Dolor. I think its gonna be pretty solid. I'm not too focused on it right now but like any good DuPree I'm planning two steps ahead. Check it out.

Chromacrobe

Hello world! I'm currently lined up to be in a show in STL in a few weeks.Sadly, I have had the hardest time figuring out what I want to present. I've sloshed around about 3 different ideas around in my head for the last two weeks and just recently settled on one.

The title of the piece is called Chromacrobe. It's a short non-narrative 3D animation showing the mundane lives of Chromacrobes (haha) What are Chromacrobs you ask? Well, I am a lover of science and am often influenced by all of its mysteries and there is one mystery in particular that I am quite fascinated with. LIGHT!

I am playing around with the idea of light as microbial lifeform. What would it look like? what would it do? Does light have to eat? Well for that i suppose you'll just have to wait and see. It's rendering on my PC right now and if my calculations are right, and they seldom are, it will be done sometime Friday night! Well the renders will be done at least. And thats just the first shot! If you are in STL you should definitely check out the show, which I will be posting up info for soon as soon as I have the official flyer! I'll post up a sneak peak straight from the renderbatch just so you guys can get a taste.