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This is a nice rendered still of the wind-up smasher of Oz. In the storyline of The Journey of Oz he is wound up by the wind-up birds. His only desire is to smash all in his path.

The Wind-Up Bird character from The Journey of Oz was never actually in the original Oz books. I was read the The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle at the time by Haruki Murakami. This was a little nod to that author while I was putting this animation idea together. In the story the Tin Woodsman winds up the bird, who then through perpetual motion winds up more and more birds. They eventually have enough birds to wind…

This is a rendered image from the Journey of Oz. In this shot the Wind-Up Smasher of Oz is chasing the heros of the story–TikTok, Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodsman. The backdrop is a miniature I built out of foam, plaster, and random parts. At this point I’m not planning on finishing the animation, so instead I’m rendering out various higher quality stills from the project.

The Journey of Oz was a follow-up animation to The Tin Woodsman. At this point I will not be finishing the animation, but it was a lot of fun to work on. The animation was going to star the Scarecrow, TikTok, and the squeeky ol’ Tin Woodsman himself. The storyline wasn’t taken directly from the books. Instead it was an amalgamation of several different stories with several departures from actual events in the series. It was a labor…

Here’s a little 3d model I put together for a future project. I composited the mushrooms into a forest scene. The finished product for the scene they will go in will be an entirely different scale.

I have some more progress completed on this model. I went ahead and rendered it with some basic textures. More detail work to come, plus the rest the model, and then of course actual texturing and rigging.

I’ve been going through my storyboards and making all those little props that I drew for my little characters to use. Luckily these aren’t taking too long to do and will only be featured for a few shots. Rust Resistant Umbrella Axe Specially Formulated Oil Can by H. M. Wogglebug All-Purpose Drying Fan (Slightly Used) Map of the Land of Ev…

I always joke with my wife about having ADD when it comes to projects. Maybe I’ll actually finish this Oz animation that I’ve been working on for probably 5 years now.

I’ve successfully re-rigged TikTok. He’s a lot easier to pose now. I’m so glad that Lightwave updated and rewrote its rigging system. This pose took no time at all to achieve. Some of the technical hurdles on TikTok involved the fact that his waist needs to stretch and move while the two halves of his body need to rotate independently as well. I also had a big issue with the rig popping and jiggling when I…

I will crush you! I finally got this rig working. So far it works like a charm. I’ve been having a lot of troubles with Lightwave’s rigging system. I’ve been playing around a lot with different methods for putting a system together. The problem is that there aren’t any good tutorials out there on Lightwave rigging, and some of the much needed tools are fairly new in the latest 9.x updates. I’ve got independent rotation set…

Make sure and click the links to see the unsquished images. I didn’t shrink these down before posting. TikTok is nearly done. I’m finishing up on his texturing. I’ve just got to redo his mustache and finish up on some final detail work. I still need to do his backside more thoroughly too. The wind-up smasher is also coming along. I’m nearly done modeling him. I have to finish his riveting, do his UVs and texturing, and…

New Oz friends enemies coming soon!…

TikTok is rigged! He took me a lot less time than Scarecrow did.

This is one of the larger renders from the Flight of Daedalus project I worked on. The idea behind the project was to create a short CG animation. I didn’t end up completing the full animation, only part of it. This shot was a still from what I was planning on doing with a dogfight scene.