The Prehistoric Swamp

Dilophosaurus Texture Tests

2009-08-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

These are just 3D rotations of the rough texture tests I did before for the Dilophosaurus, there are still no fine details on these textures, just blocks of colour. I think I'll go for the brighter green-yellow-orange one, I think it suits the Dilophosaurus better, but I'm not sure.

New Museum Sketches and Dilophosaurus Rough Texture Test

2009-08-16T17:45:00.001-07:00

These are some dinosaur fossils I sketched at the ROM today with some friends. The dinosaur exhibit there is amazing! (I've probably said this before, but I just never get tired of going to see these dinos at the museum). This time I used a 6B pencil. The other image is just a rough texture test I did for the CG Dilophosaurus I've been working on.

Museum Sketches, Montana and T.rex

2009-07-08T05:33:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! It's been a long time since my last update, but I'm back on track now! hahaha (I think). Here are some quick ink sketches I did when I went to the Royal Ontario Museum about a month ago with a friend.

I also just came back from an awesome trip to Montana. I went to dig up dinosaur fossils alongside Paul Sereno and his crew, it was amazing! A dream come true. I literally stared at the badlands for hours, sitting outside the lodge during our breaks from the fieldwork. Being in a place with so much dinosaur history (arguably, the part of the world with the most dinosaur history until today) moved me and recharged my batteries, so to speak.

Also, I'm posting the design drawing for my next sculpture, a T.rex. Please feel free to critique it, the sooner I can fix it the better (before sculpting it). Thanks!

Dinosaur Ink Sketches

2009-02-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

These are just some semi-quick ink sketches I drew yesterday (I had no reference, so I drew them from memory). Some of my friends suggested last year that I try drawing dinosaurs from different angles from the ones I'm used to, so that inspired me to try. These are just generic theropods, they're not any specific species.

3D Dilophosaurus (no textures)

2009-01-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

This is a new 3D model I've been working on. It's a Dilophosaurus wetherilli, one of my favourite dinosaurs. I still have to texture it, that's the next step. I modeled it in Maya 2009 using polygons. I tried to economize the polygon count as much as possible, so most of the details such as the wrinkes will be made with textures and displacement maps. Please be patient if the video takes a bit to load. Thanks for watching! :D

Ouranosaurus Sculpture

2008-11-28T19:23:00.001-08:00

It took me a while to finish it because I was working on other stuff, but today I finally baked my Ouranosaurus! This is my second sculpture...time to plan the third one! I hope you guys like it.

Ouranosaurus Sketch for Sculpture

2008-09-29T19:32:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! this is a drawing I just finished of an Ouranosaurus. It is the next dinosaur I want to sculpt, I already bought the necessary materials for the armature, and tomorrow I'll get the sculpey. I thought that making a drawing (as detailed as possible) of the dinosaur would make the sculpting process faster, and take a lot of guesswork out of it. Also, I didn't depict this dinosaur with a sail on the back (as it is usually seen) because I recently read a scientific paper that said that it was more likely covered with muscle.

Protoceratops Sculpture

2008-07-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

This is a Protoceratops sculpture I just finished making yesterday. This is my first sculpture ever, and it is made of Super Sculpey, and it has a copper wire and aluminum foil structure underneath. It's approx. 48 cm from nose to tail.

A Dinosaur Story

2008-07-21T14:10:00.001-07:00

This is my final student film, I finished it back in April but I didn't get around to uploading it until now :P . I hope you enjoy it.

Produced at Sheridan College
© 2007/2008 Juan de Santiago

A special thanks to all of my teachers, friends, and everyone who helped me out in the journey that was Animation at Sheridan :)

Demo Reel and Portfolio

2008-04-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well, 4th year of Animation is done, and so is my film! I'm very happy that I got to finish it. These days really feel like the end of a big book (like Lord of The Rings big). It does feel a lot like that actually, you know that "Wow! I actually finished the book" type of feeling lol, even though it looked like such a distant thing when you were reading the first page, and it's a bit sad, because you really enjoyed reading it. But honestly, it's not just that, I also feel very proud of what me and everyone I had the luck to be around with these years have achieved. Our dreams made us go the distance!...so congrats to everyone! :)

Oh yes, I almost forgot, this entry is about my Demo Reel and Portfolio. I hope you enjoy it!

Content is ©2008 Juan de Santiago. Texturing process under patent.

Music owned by the respective copyright holder.

Tiri Triptych

2008-03-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! this is just a triptych with some screencaps from my film. I still have some animation left to do! and some technical rendering-related things to figure out. So...yes, I gotta work on that :P.

Just For Fun Magazine Cover

2008-02-19T19:05:00.001-08:00

Ok, this has nothing to do with the film, but I wanted to put it up anyways :P. I don't mean to say that I would really like to see dinosaurs being cloned...well, it would be cool to see them, but I don't think they would enjoy the pollution and public attention of the 21st century...they belong to the Mesozoic Era, and we have their descendants here with us anyways! (birds).

By the way, I hope "Scientific Press" doesn't really exist. If it does, the copyright infringement was completely accidental, sorry!

Dinosaur Story Live-Action Shooting

2008-02-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! well, here's a picture of the live-action shooting for the backgrounds of my film. I recorded the footage during the Christmas break when my sister and I went to see our parents in Yucatan, Mexico. It was hard to find a slope anywhere where I lived...it's really flat in there, really beautiful, but very flat. But we were lucky enough to find this secluded place by sea that was perfect for the film.

In the picture you can see my parents, my sister (holding one of the cardboard doubles of the egg) and I while I was putting a Christmas ornament in front of the camera as to simulate a "fish-eye" lens to get an idea of how the light looked from every direction and then be able to reproduce it in the computer (it was my teacher's idea). Hahaha, there was so much sand in there that our car got stuck...thankfully the police, who had been checking on what we were doing every now and then, helped us out :)

Scene 3 (Almost Done)

2008-01-26T11:32:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Here is one of the scenes from my film, it's not fully completed yet (I want to add a bit of sand animation around Tiri's feet...but that's a detail, and I'll add it if I have extra time). Please be patient if the video takes a while to load...thanks for watching!

Oh, and for the BG I'm going to have actual footage, not just a still picture (this one still has Tiri's cardboard stunt double in it :P)

Animation Test: Jump

2007-12-02T20:41:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone! this is just an animation test I did with the new rig for Tiri. I haven't painted the weights yet (This was done using a "split-up" version of the model). I'm just trying to get used to the controls of the new rig and see if I can improve it. I hope you guys like it!

Tiri Walk Cycle and More Dino Stuff

2007-11-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

Here is a walk cycle test I did with Tiri. The texture for the eye is not the final one (you can see it in the previous post). I'll re-do the rig entirely, for practice and to improve it (to make it more suitable for acting)

Please be patient if the video takes a while to load!
Here is a still frame of the animation if you just want to see how the model looks in a different pose.

This is a quick painting with the models (please excuse the lack of texture on the egg :P) just to get an idea of the colour palette I want to use for the film.

Finally, these are just some random semi-quick sketches of dinosaur limbs I drew during class :P

Update on film!

2007-11-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the things I've been working on lately. First of all, I finished modeling and texturing all the characters and props for my film. The characters are:

Tiri- A baby Tyrannosaurus Rex
Chihuahua- A baby Brachiosaurus
Buzz (a.k.a. Marie Claire :P)- A dragonfly

There are two versions of the egg, one "broken", for the shot when Chihuahua comes out of the egg, and a solid one, for the rest of the shots (it's easier to animate).

I sculpted the textures for the characters and the props on clay (well, the egg on kraft paper). What I did was basically print the UVs from Maya, and then trace them onto transparent cel paper, and then built a sort of "tracing desk" so that I could sculpt the textures on clay and put the UVs on top every now and then to make sure they matched. Before going into the final textures, I did a test on a smaller piece of clay. Here are some pictures of the process:

For Chihuahua, the process was exactly the same:

Ok, this was a long post! hahaha, or at least it feels like it, I'm still trying to get used to using Blogger!!! :P. Bye for now.

Dinosaur Film!

2007-09-18T20:55:00.001-07:00

4th Year has begun, and I'll be working on my final film this year. It's going to be about dinosaurs, of course. This is my main character, "Tiri", a baby T-Rex, modeled and textured in Maya. Well, the textures were done with real clay and acrylic paint but I'll put up pictures of that later. Bye for now!

Hey! Welcome to the Prehistoric Swamp

2007-04-02T09:29:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, my name is Juan and I'll be posting up some of my drawings and work here. I hope you enjoy them! :). What I'm really into is dinosaurs, contemporary animals and dragons. Here are a few drawings and stuff I've done lately.