A maquette and a “rough desktop diorama” for UP by Pixar

Greg Dykstra is a sculptor and character designer who has worked on several major animated features. During the production of Up by Pixar, Dykstra made a “design sculpt” of the character Carl (Romano 2015). Character designer Lou Romano describes using this model to experiment with color and lighting: I painted and photographed this sculpt to … Continue reading A maquette and a “rough desktop diorama” for UP by Pixar →

Generating Ideas in Real-Space

Three-dimensional sketching in real space is both generative and speculative. It can be used to search for new ideas and possibilities before the design has been decided upon. Weintraub (1998, p. 53) offers a description of the process: “The mind-hand coordination elicits intuitive answers as we begin to build something with no particular model to … Continue reading Generating Ideas in Real-Space →

Can Sketch Models Aid Creativity?

To understand the use of explorative sculpture in the context of my work as a practitioner and teacher of animation and games design, my research incorporated five themes: the practicality and physicality of the medium, the potential for explorative sculpting to incorporate chance and ambiguity, and the importance of practitioner preference in selecting creativity support … Continue reading Can Sketch Models Aid Creativity? →

Sculpting Stories

With clay, touching is essential. Clay gives kinesthetic pleasure. It is so easy to forget oneself in the trance of creative work. It is multi-sensory and more tactile than nearly any other material.Marvin Bartel As a teacher and practitioner of character and story development for animation and games, I have found that many books and … Continue reading Sculpting Stories →

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Concept models and 3D Sketches

As an artist and researcher, i'm interested in explorative sculpture as a creativity support tool for developing characters and stories for animated films and video games. The process of constructing three-dimensional representations to visualise and catalyse ideas, is practised in a range of domains, including architecture, fine art and industrial design. These physical representations are … Continue reading Concept models and 3D Sketches →