Nate's Art

Ink doodles

2011-02-20T15:22:00.002-06:00

Ink and compressed air lend themselves wonderfully to creating creepy imagery.

This was Sean Farbolin's idea- we spent most of the afternoon doing these (they're lots of fun). Check out the awesome doodle he did over here.

Some of you may have already seen these on Facebook, but I felt they were worth posting again in case I ever get followers who aren't my friends there.

:D
Nate

The Urchins of 49th Station (Update #1)

2011-01-31T18:42:00.001-06:00

As promised, here is a little bit of info on the short animation project I'm starting up in my free time!

The absolutely compressed nutshell explanation of the project, without really giving away the script (which is still being revised and added to), is this:

A few nomadic children in a desolate future enter a deserted subway station. There they meet the Child Eater and his machine of destruction...

Of course you'll have to keep watching this blog if you wanna know how it all turns out.

Here are some early sketches of the machine and the children by my concept artist, Sagan Lacy. I'm sure he will be annoyed with me for posting these, since they're not fully hashed-out. I did tell him I was going to, though. So hopefully he won't be surprised anyway.

Although these designs have a ways to go yet, I think they're awesome. AAAAAaaaaand here you go:

Also I rendered out a quick camera fly-in of the subway as it exists so far. It's vastly unfinished, but here's your sneak peek. If it's too dark to see on your monitor, sorry. :)

That's all for now, folks! Stay tuned for more updates. You may, of course, change the channel now.

The Long-Awaited Update of Stuff and Whatever

2011-01-29T21:05:00.001-06:00

I actually have way more news than I know what to do with as far as this post goes, so I'm just gonna cover the important stuff.

1. I have a REAL JOB. I'm working for the Army as a CG Generalist. Who would've guessed? It is, however, a great job. And I have a pretty reasonable amount of free time because of my work schedule- which leads me to...

2. I'm starting a new short animation project in my spare time, with the help of a few other artists. Thus far I have recruited two very talented artists, Sagan Lacy (character designer) and Ian Hubert (modeler). The film is in pretty early development stages, but I fully intend to post progress here. The working title is "The Urchins of 49th Station," so if you want to follow my progress use the link in the sidebar labeled "Urchins of 49th."

3. Project London! It's being released this year. I am super hyped. You should be too. If you aren't hyped yet, go on over to the Project London Production Blog to track our progress in sound design and release preparations. Soooo.... cloooosseeee...

4. There is no fact #4. Please move to the next fact.

5. I have purchased a Canon T2i and I'm waiting for it to come in the mail. Once it gets here, I'll be using it to make live-action short films (which will be silly), visual effects tests (which will also be silly), and I'll be practicing photography. Of everything. Ever. It will probably be a little bit silly.

To the 6 people currently following my blog: You guys rock! Now that I've actually got a fun project starting up and such, I would seriously appreciate any new followers. If I fail to update often enough for your taste, feel free to stop watching my blog (and risk missing out on fantastic humdingery and whatchacallits). :D

That is all for now! Look for new posts about the animation project very soon.
Cheers!

Project London!

2010-03-31T19:58:00.004-06:00

Hey everyone! For any of you who have yet to hear about the progress on Project London, the film is essentially finished (excepting sound design)! For anyone who doesn't already know what Project London is, find out at http://projectlondonmovie.com/.  I have been given the incredible privilege of working on visual effects for this film over the past few years, and it has been an amazing growing experience for me. Anywho, here's the fun stuff: a sample from the first press release and some fun links and images for you guys:

New teaser clip! Watch it. Do it. You know you want to.
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoQDPEt0mc8
Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/10370567

From the press release:
*****
PROJECT LONDON: A PERFECT BLEND OF NO MONEY, NO
HOLLYWOOD, AND TONS OF MIND-BLOWING SPECIAL EFFECTS
   New teaser clip about the “movie that will eat your planet” unveils today, highlighting significant storyline elements and exclusive music from Half Acre Day.
Bothell, Wash. – Tuesday, March 23, 2010: As the final touches of independent, feature-length effects marvel Project London are now underway, the film is quietly gaining attention among special effects experts and social networking communities all over the world. The virtually no-budget, live action movie features more than 650 vivid, intense visual effects and animations that help drive a compelling story about a boy battling with a moral dilemma in a present day sci-fi epic. Unique to the film’s production is the use of the open-source software, Blender, for the core of all animated visual effects in the film. As Jawbone.tv called it, Project London is likely one of the “most ambitious no-budget effects movie ever.”
   “The entire concept of Project London is enough to make anyone excited, from science fiction fans to software engineers, from movie buffs to post-production artists, and it has,” said Phil McCoy, Project London Executive Producer and founder of Spiral Productions LLC. “An undertaking like this film wouldn’t be possible without a storyteller like Director Ian Hubert, the support of many talented Blender artists, and the more than 250 worldwide volunteer artists and craft people who joined our team.”
   Progress and new reveals of Project London are chronicled on the movie’s Web site at www.projectlondonmovie.com, where, today, the newest teaser clip has been released to the public. The clip introduces fans to the world of Project London and its two significant forces: the London Underground and the Joint Command. The song showcased in the new teaser clip, “Multiply,” is a brand new song by Half Acre Day. It will be featured in the film and available exclusively on the Project London soundtrack.
*****

And a few sample images! (You can -- and should -- check out the entire press release at http://projectlondonmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/ProjectLondon_AwarenessRelease_FINAL.pdf)

My exosuit vs. Ian's exosuit.

Telephone pole. Acrophobia?

Hey! Those are the tankbots I made!

Seattle skyline. Almost. :)

Mr. Lead Character Man (Nebraska), played by Josh Truax

Finally, don't forget to check out the rest of my site (http://nathanhtaylor.com)... there's a couple producer-approved Project London related goodies you won't find anywhere else on the web.

The Poster.

CHEERS!
Nate

Stuff from this quarter at SCAD

2010-03-09T16:41:00.002-06:00

Heya everyone! I've just finished my finals so I'm taking a little time to post some work you haven't already seen from this quarter at SCAD.

NOTE: you may need to play the videos twice to see the beginning of them, sometimes the first half-second or so gets cut off.

Here's a few of the animations I did in my 2D Effects Animation Class with professor Gustafson:

And here's the other half of my final for my Caricature class (the previous post was the first half of the final):

My new website design at http://nathanhtaylor.com was created for Animation Professional Development class. Be sure to check it out, I have some new 2D work and a completely new demo reel up there with some of my work from Project London!

Enjoy :)
Nate

More Music on The Way

2010-02-08T20:18:00.014-06:00

Here's a page with preview song from my new album.
I've updated the music player because a few people were having trouble getting it to work.

Music Player

Cheers!
Nate

2010-01-31T02:18:00.004-06:00

Hey, all. Here's a few updates of what I'm working on!

First, a few caricatures for my... caricature... class.

Also, my senior film lead character is now fully rigged, next step is to apply a similar setup to the girl in the film.

Cheers!
Nate

2010-01-21T16:49:00.006-06:00

I think I say this every time I wait too long to post something, but I am really inconsistent at uploading work. Hahah...

Anywho, here's news.

1. Back at SCAD! My classes this quarter are awesome. If I remember and get around to it, I'll put samples of my work from them up here. (Caricature work, 2D VisFx animation, and eventually a new website design).

2. Project London. It is going SO well. We should be done with all the Visual Effects in a few more weeks, then there's viral marketing and whatnot and then IT'S GO TIME. Visit the site. Look around. Do it.

3. I have scrapped my original concept for my Senior film for SCAD. I have to have the entire thing done at the end of next quarter. Wish me luck.

Oh, and here's the character designs for my new film:

Cheers!

Nate

An Update! Wow!

2009-10-24T19:21:00.006-05:00

SOOOOOO I should have updated this way sooner, because my iTunes album has been live for over a week now! If you search "Nathan H Taylor" on iTunes you should find my album... make sure you don't forget my middle initial or you'll get a bunch of random results. Now, the album is only 3 songs long but if enough people buy it I'll be able to afford to post a larger one!
Oh, and if you don't use iTunes you can find the same album on Amazon as well. :D

Also, here's a quick character turnaround of another model for Sean's film, working title "EXILE."

Quicktime Version Here

Maybe the next update I post won't take me a month to get around to. Heheh

Cheers!
Nate

PS. If you haven't gone to http://projectlondon.net yet, go there now! We've been doing cool stuff and you can see some samples of our work on that site. Project London is an Indie Scifi film I'm on the VFX team for.

For the heck of it

2009-09-20T18:42:00.003-05:00

I made this poster for Sean's film because I felt like it.

Two things to note:

1. That may not actually be the title, I just thought it sounded cool.

2. You'll probably want to click on the image so you can see it full-size.

I was experimenting with style, and this image happened. I'm posting it because I like it. Oh, and it's a demonstration of the rig for the robot... even though it's not moving. Anyhow, the robot model/rig etc. is completely finished and ready for animation. Now onto other elements!

(The robot is the only thing in the image that's actually 3D so far. I did everything else in Photoshop.)

Sean's website is here if you wanna see his demo reel: http://seanfarbolin.com/

Lemme know what you think!

-Nate

More Conceptsy Stuff

2009-09-18T00:09:00.015-05:00

Here's a quick turnaround animation of a 3D mockup I did for Sean's film. This probably isn't the final model or the final look, but we're playing around with visual styles to see what would look cool with a very contrasty graphic style.

(MOV, H.264 compression, ~2.4mb)

I'll keep posting updates and tests for this project over the next few months. Even if we never use this model, I'm still gonna rig and animate it... because I think it's cool ;)

YUSS
-Nate

Sketches n' School n' Stuff

2009-09-17T00:45:00.010-05:00

Hey, everyone! I'm back at SCAD for my last year of college (though I'm still trying to wrap my head around that fact).

Should be a great year, I already like my classes this quarter and I have great ambitions for... everything, actually.

Example: I'm working on a bunch of school-related projects right now. One such project is my friend Sean Farbolin's senior film. I'm helping him with the style of the film, and ultimately will probably be modeling, rigging, and helping composite the 3D pieces of it as well. Here's a few designs we've come up with for this sort of "dystopian patrol officer" concept we're trying to figure out:

-early designs

-designs we kinda like

-one of my favorites

-the design on the lower right is closest to what we'll probably go with thus far.

Also, here's a few quick caricatures I've done of my roommates Matt and Sagan (in that order), just trying to really push my exaggerations:

...oh, and here's a creepy drawing I did, and a caricature Sagan Lacy did of me this past summer for fun...

-by Sagan Lacy

That's it for now! I'll post more stuff as I make it. :D

Cheers!

-Nate

Web Design

2009-08-08T19:52:00.004-05:00

SOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo

I've decided to update my website design. If you're reading this, you've probably noticed that. If not, you're at the boring part of my site because I never update this stupid blog. Go to:

http://nathanhtaylor.com

...or else.

Anyhow, I thought the old design was inefficient and boring. So I'm redoing the layout and adding a lovely antique/Victorian theme. Because I can. (soo... much... photoshop...)

Turns out CSS is easy to pick back up. However, it'd be nice if I hadn't forgotten it in the first place.

So far, only the "Home" and "Animation" links work in the Nav bar to the right... but I'll probably get the rest working in the next few days.

Yes, also: while you're here... go elsewhere. Specifically, to http://www.projectlondon.net/, because we're getting some cool stuff posted from our progress on the film! Woo, final sequences! Which... take time! And uh, lots of... energy that... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Also! I'm a starving artist. So if you're interested in buying some awesome merchandise from Project London... go HERE so I get a referral! Do it. Please?

Meaaaantime, here's an awesome sketch Joe Bluhm did of me at Comic-Con this year:

...AND THAT'S IT!

Cheers, folks!
Nate

2009-05-19T16:02:00.002-05:00

So I was in Michigan for the past week (May 10-17) at the Kalamazoo Animation Fesitval, which was great fun. Our team made a 30-second PSA on the theme "Innovative Approaches to 21st-Century Teaching" in 4 days, and it turned out quite well! We took second place overall (which is cool because the judges actually had to make a second place for us, as it had never been announced in the past). I was the team tech guy; I did the rigging, psot effects (including particle work), most of the compositing and some editing, and pretty much had to troubleshoot all of the problems my other team members had. All in all, it was a great experience.

AAAaaaannnddd Here's the film:

Kafi 2009 Film: Connect from Alexander Snow on Vimeo.

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff.

2008-10-04T21:37:00.003-05:00

Well, it would appear that I've been pretty busy.

In fact, I have actually gotten some things done (despite my ability to be busy without being productive).

There's a couple of examples at the end of this post. One is a robot I made for Project London (which is the film I'm currently working on as a VFX artist - blog/update site here). The other is a digital caricature I did of Bruce Lee... because I felt like it. If you can't tell which picture is which, I'll be very surprised.

Anyhow, I'm going to go be counterproductively busy now.
Cheers!

Nate

Wow

2008-02-25T15:04:00.002-06:00

So apparently I get sidetracked pretty easily - I keep not updating this blog. At all.

BUT! Here is an update!

I've recently been doing some caricatures in my spare time, because I've started to realize how much fun they are.
I'm still basically a beginner, but here's a few of the ones I've done:

Sean William Scott
Matthew Broderick
Myself

I've done some others, but they're not particularly identifiable. I'll post more as I do them.

In other news, I recently did a digital painting I'm pretty proud of: you can see it here if you want to comment on it, but here's what it looks like:

In still other news, I've been playing around with After Effects and watching the (free) tutorials at Videocopilot.net, which are AWESOME. Definitely check that website out.
Here's an example of something I made in After Effects: Click Me
(note: That's kind of a big file, but it's worth it. Also: turn your speakers on. It's better with sound.)

I'll post more updates as I make more stuff!
Nate Taylor, out.

Allrightythen

2007-11-14T13:26:00.000-06:00

It's been a little while since my last post, so here's a quick update on the art life.

Finals.
What are finals?
Well, here's a few options:

a) trying to kick my butt
b) failing at kicking my butt
c) stressful
d) called "Finals" because they refer to the end. Of everything. Ever. In that regard they are like death.
e) death.
f) all of the above.

As you've probably guessed, the correct answer was (f). Have a piece of candy for participating, even if you guessed incorrectly. But sleep uneasily in the knowledge that your piece of candy is smaller than the pieces of candy the people who guessed correctly got.
...As you've probably also guessed, I haven't gotten very much sleep recently.

So!
Here's a random art for the day (it's an update of a previous post, and incidentally a final for one of my classes too):

CG Stuff

2007-11-03T12:50:00.000-06:00

I suppose it's important to note that I am primarily a CG artist, though I will be posting doodles and whatnot on this site off and on. I'd be more than willing to share my techniques with anyone who wants to know how I've done anything I've posted.

That said, here's a bit more about me:

I'm Nate Taylor, born in Michigan in 1988. I've lived most of my life in Wisconsin, but currently reside in Georgia, where I attend Savannah College of Art and Design. It's pretty great.
Favorite color: orange
Favorite food: watermelon
Favorite movies: The Iron Giant, Mirrormask, The Incredibles, Wallace and Gromit

My artwork:
I got started by watching the original Wallace and Gromit short films when I was about 9 or 10. At 11, I picked up my family's direct-to-VHS camera and started making silly films that I later called The What Show, a compilation or shorts less than 10 minutes apiece that really had no point but were mildly humorous, if only because they were so random. By 13, I'd started animating using a LEGO animation set I'd bought with what was basically my life savings up to that point. I know, pretty lame. At 16, my parents bought me Animation:Master, and thus I became interested in 3D computer animation. Sophomore and Junior year in high school, I also dabbled in classical 2D animation using paper and pencil.
Now I am a sophomore in college, majoring in Animation and minoring in Visual Effects. My 3D software of choice is Blender, which I was introduced to by Colin Levy (peerlessproductions.com) as a Freshman. I also use Maya, but I haven't gotten used to it entirely yet, so it'll be a while before I change my mind. Not to mention Blender is free, and very powerful.

That's all for now, so I'll leave you with a few more pieces of artwork-- both are 3D Maya scenes; the first is finished, the second a WIP, the final version of which i'll post soon, hopefully.