Here's a couple of sample shots from the doco 'Dinosaurs on Ice'
directed by Ruth Berry. I've worked with Ruth on a few projects now, all
documentaries.

This doco aired on the ABC a couple of weeks ago and, as the title suggests, it deals with
the possibilty that dinosaurs lived in the polar regions of the world.

The creation and animation the beasts for this show was deftly handled by an old pal of mine Bevan Lynch. Enviroments, comping etc etc was handled by myself and our small team at our
facility.

What was cool from my perspective is that we built a miniature for the prehistoric landscape. I had always wanted to do this. I used a 'model railway' approach to the detailing. We then put our CG trees and atmospheric effects over the top. Water/mud splashes were filmed elements.









I included this shot because I don't think it made the final ABC cut of the film.

Part of the doco dealt with the age old question: 'What wiped out the dinosaurs?'
I had to animate asteroids crashing into the Earth as well as volcanic activity gone wild.

The whole thing was hard work, but a good experience.
It was probably the most demanding project I have had to work on in a while. The biggest challenge I found was keeping a consistent look and quality to all the shots.

Oh I should credit another mate of mine, Darren Roach,who did a bang-up job on some bgnd matte paintings.
He's another one of these talented bastards I love to surround myself with.

cheers...

Another post soon....

It's been a while. I've got some old stuff and some new...

I work for a film and television production house "TPD Media" in the area of 3D/animation and compositing.

Every now and then I get a break from flying logos to do a cool little thing for one of the shows we make at TPD.

This was a fun request. It's for one of our local lifestyle shows "The Great South East".
It's supposed to show Brisbane's Queen Street Mall sometime in the future. I made up some fake adds for the vid screens like "Ski Antarctica"and "Life on Mars" "House and Land packages selling fast!"
The robot in the bgnd is from a short film a colleague of mine is working on. He was cool for me to use it in the shot. The whole thing probably took a couple of days. We usually have pretty high turnaround in this area of video production. It's unusual for any project I work on to go on for more than a few days to a week.

Old stuff:


























Jace Riegel was a one off for Dark Horse comics in the mid 90s. I wrote it with my pal John Passfield. I pencilled it and another pal Hugh Fleming did the inks.















Lion of The East: written by Dave Devries, art by me. Alas unfinished. Still, proud of what I had managed to do....perhaps one day......

I thought I had better come clean about where the title for
my little rant came from....

As a kid growing up in the early seventies The Planet of the Apes

was pretty much a phenomenon equal to Harry Potter today.
In fact, before Star Wars, it was the box office and merchandising bonanza of its time. One thing's for certain, it sure did capture my young fertile imagination.
Cashing in on this success was the Marvel B/W format 'magazines/comics' that featured adaptions of the movies (the original film spawned 4 sequels no less), articles, as well as all new original stories.

Look it's probably nostalgia, but there's something really neat about
the format of these mags that I still find exciting, even today.

The writing chores on all the stories were pretty much single-handled by Doug Moench. Man, some of the way out stuff he would think up...wow. Anyone who comes up with 'Up the Nose Tube'....
Mike Ploog is the artist you see here on this interior page. He did most of the issues featuring 'Terror on the Planet of the Apes'. There were other stories like 'Future History Chronicles' and 'Evolution's Nightmare' featuring some really great underrated artists.

The covers were done by a bunch of different fellows...but I always liked this guy Bob Larkin. He had such a solid, dependable style...I think his covers really inspired me.
So many of these artists are kind of disregarded because they were more 'substance' over 'style' and these days it is all about style.

This magazine format pretty much died with the seventies...I've missed it ever since.

Ok. Here goes.

I swore I would never do one of these bloody things. Why?

It just seems so...unashamedly....naked. Or self-centered. I think we have enough information already screaming down the lines of communication at us. It used to so quiet out there in the open air of proto-cyberspace. Now everybody has their 15 nanoseconds of fame sending opinions, confessions or adverts to an awaiting world.

Whether it wants them or not.

Then I thought, 'Ahhh, shuddup you old dufus. This could be fun.'
If you can't beat them...

Besides, it might be a good way to motivate me out of my comfortable surburban-Brisbane malaise.

Anyway, if you looked up at the right there you may have noticed that I have called myself an artist. Well that's because for most of my adult life I have pretty much pursued a creative career in the arts.

Look this is the first post...so I'll ease myself into this process and not go too overboard with my life story just yet.

What I hope to achieve here is post some of my work, talk about things that affect my family,
and become famous.

....even if it's only for 15 nanoseconds.